BLUKEKO

Announcement

2011-06-30T15:53:00.000+12:00

I have decided to discontinue blukeko.

I am very grateful to the many people who have contributed to this blog over the last year and a half. I am also grateful to the people who have read it, and who have, in some cases, offered their thoughts on the pieces that I have posted.

Thank you, and take care.

Review: Creating Capabilities

2011-06-28T07:38:00.000+12:00

Max Harris reviews Martha Nussbaum’s recent book, Creating Capabilities.

Martha Nussbaum is a prolific and versatile thinker. In recent years she has written on the liberal arts education, the rights of animals and the disabled, the role of emotions in law and political theory, and freedom of religion, amongst other topics. Nussbaum is perhaps best known, however, for her work on the ‘Capabilities Approach’ to human development (much of which has been done jointly with Amartya Sen), an approach that highlights the fundamental opportunities that should be available to all individuals if they are to live a decent and dignified existence. And it is this Capabilities Approach that is the focus of Creating Capabilities, a slim 189-page work of hers, published this year by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Creating Capabilities is split into eight chapters, followed by a short conclusion and postscript. The preface and first four chapters, which make up 100 pages of the book, clarify the core of the Capabilities Approach to human development and distinguish the Capabilities Approach from alternative theoretical frameworks. Chapter One paints a portrait of Vasanti, an Indian woman in her early thirties, and explores movingly how the Capabilities Approach can account for the deprivation suffered by Vasanti in her life. Chapter Two restates the theory succinctly from a level of greater abstraction, introducing concepts such as internal capabilities (essentially traits and abilities internal to individuals), basic capabilities (‘the innate faculties of the person that make later development and training possible’), functionings (a realization of the opportunities inherent in capabilities), and human dignity. With these concepts sketched out, Nussbaum dives into a little more detail. She lists the ten capabilities that form the basic minimum of her theory – life, bodily health, bodily integrity, imagination and thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, the opportunity to live with other species, play, and the ability to control one’s environment – and notes that two of them play an overarching role (affiliation and practical reason), before observing (drawing on the recent work of Wolff and de-Shalit) that deprivation of one capability can undermine the enjoyment of others and fulfilment of one capability can facilitate the appreciation of others. Chapter Three is more explicitly normative, and advocates for the centrality of the capabilities perspective over competing conceptions of development: the GDP approach, utilitarian theories, and resource-based approaches. It explains how the Capabilities Approach builds upon the flaws of these alternative conceptions, by recognising the heterogeneity of opportunities, underscoring the need to focus on distribution of opportunities, and rejecting a reliance on preferences as a guiding anchor for any political theory. Nussbaum responds to the objection that a Capabilities Approach encounters difficulties of practical measurement, and further strengthens the case for the Capabilities Approach by demonstrating how the approach is related to, and supplements, the popular international human rights movement.

Chapters Five, Six and Seven are short contributions of 10-20 pages in length that canvas how the Capabilities Approach relates to ideas of the nation, notions of global justice, and intellectual history. The contributions involve a more sophisticated contextualising of the Capabilities Approach than the first four chapters, and build on the initial exposition of those earlier chapters. In these chapters Nussbaum explores where the Capabilities Approach is nestled in the recent debates about nationalism and internationalism, and how the Capabilities Approach fits into a broader historical narrative of writing on the good life, natural law, and active government.

In Chapter Eight, a longer discussion entitled ‘Capabilities and Contemporary Issues’, Nussbaum turns from looking back to intellectual history and issues of recent relevance to looking forward: in this chapter she analyses how the Capabilities Approach is important for the understanding of the philosophical, political, and constitutional challenges that confront us now and that may confront us in the future. Nussbaum addresses a range of issues, amongst them disadvantage, gender, disability, education, animal entitlements, and environmental quality. Her aim in this section is to show that the Capabilities Approach offers a meaningful framework for tackling these issues. Nussbaum also observes very constructively that an examination of these issues highlights areas where the Capabilities Approach may require further elaboration: in particular Nussbaum mentions matters of constitutional structure and the need to develop work around human psychology. Nussbaum closes the book with an uplifting conclusion, which notes that readers are the ‘authors of the next chapter in this story of human development’; a practically helpful postscript that encourages readers to join the Human Development and Capability Association, a group that hopes to transcend intellectual divisions that hinder informed debate on development; and two appendices on the related work of James J. Heckman and Amartya Sen, in addition to a bibliography and a set of chapter notes.

In terms of overall style and structure Creating Capabilities is an impressive piece of writing. Nussbaum moves relatively effortlessly from the micro-level story to the macro-level assessment, and eases across disciplinary boundaries, drawing deftly upon law, public policy, philosophy, and history. Her knowledge of constitutional law is particularly notable given that she has no formal legal training. Throughout the book, Nussbaum’s effective expression supports her weaving together of different arguments, with well-chosen adjectives often adding power to the message that she conveys. The book also flows well as a whole, reading like ‘a book’ – and not just a collection of essays, artificially drawn together. (A surprising number of recent works of political philosophy are powerful and pertinent, but lack continuity and a sense of wholeness: Jeremy Waldron’s recent book on torture as well as Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice both fall into this category.) On rare occasions, Nussbaum’s style falters: for instance, in her awkward reference to her own work in the third person in the postscript. But overall, this is a powerful work stylistically that strikes a judicious balance between accessibility and sophistication.

In relation to substance, Creating Capabilities persuasively puts to bed competing approaches to development (especially the approach grounded in GDP), thoughtfully responds to objections to the Capabilities Approach, and then uses the approach to provoke questions and probe fruitful new lines of inquiry. It is a good primer for all those interested in the Capabilities Approach, and for those already familiar with Nussbaum’s theory, the book develops the theory in interesting ways. There are, of course, some questions that linger in one’s mind upon putting down Creating Capabilities. First, is it really true that it is only the making available of opportunities, and not the actual realization of these opportunities (what Nussbaum calls 'functionings’ instead of capabilities), that is important? Nussbaum may somewhat fetishize the importance of choice in this regard, which is a little surprising, given that in her analysis of adaptive preferences she stresses that individual choices should not be given definitive normative weight. Secondly, what is the real relationship between the Capabilities Approach and human rights? What can the Capabilities Approach offer that is not offered by sophisticated theories of human rights? Nussbaum claims that the Capabilities Approach ‘articulates more clearly than most standard rights accounts the relationship between human rights and human dignity’, and that the Capabilities Approach avoids the view that government is a barrier to the realization of entitlements. However, Nussbaum’s first claim here seems to ignore much recent mainstream work in the field of human rights that is explicitly grounded in dignity, and the second claim is grounded in a very outdated view of human rights theory; few modern theorists working in human rights would peddle the conception of government that Nussbaum attaches to the human rights movement. Nussbaum’s next installment might benefit from a fuller explanation of what the Capabilities Approach really adds to some of the richer and more nuanced human rights scholarship that has emerged in recent years.

Few books can answer all possible questions that readers have, however; even fewer can do so in a succinct 189 pages. Taken as a whole, this book does a commendable job of covering the genealogy, content, and implications of the Capabilities Approach in such few words. And the fact that it provokes such questions in readers’ minds is a credit to the book itself. In sum, Creating Capabilities is well worth a read – for philosophers, development practitioners, political leaders, and students alike.

To find out more about Martha Nussbaum, and for a list of her publications, click here.

It is not dying

2011-06-27T20:00:00.001+12:00

Creative thought is very important. Properly treated, it can positively inform our efforts at promoting well-being...
Spirituality is, I would suggest, a form of creative thought - and, like other forms of creative thought, we might expect it to benefit us. But spiritual claims are contentious, and it is clear that they can lead to harmful consequences. It is important, then, that we critically evaluate spirituality and spiritual claims against human well-being.

Consider the following example:

A young man has a spiritual experience. This experience convinces him that his consciousness, like that of the people around him, is only one fragment of a greater consciousness that all minds participate in. This greater consciousness, which he names 'the It', once existed as one - or so he supposes. But as one... it was ill at ease. And so, it divided itself into many fragments, and by its subjectivity it hid from itself...

How might we evaluate this spiritual belief against human well-being? A range of considerations might be made...
We might begin by considering how this belief bears on the young man's own well-being. We might wonder how seriously he takes his belief. If the answer is 'too seriously', we might question his mental health...
We might look at the ways in which this belief could prove useful to the young man. It could, for example, inform his understanding of the world around him. It could also inform his understanding of himself. It is, I think, important that we do not discount the ways in which different perspectives can contribute to our understanding. We should, however, be mindful of the ways in which beliefs such as these might preclude the exploration of other perspectives.
This belief might also result in more tangible benefits for the young man: we might, for example, expect the belief that we all participate in one consciousness ('the It') to encourage the young man to relate more positively to other people - which will likely impact positively on his well-being. (This, it is worth noting, would benefit the people around him, as well.) We might, however, expect his belief that 'the It' divided itself into fragments in order to hide from those parts of itself that it found distasteful to work against this suggestion... (In which case, parts of the belief might still be salvageable: the young man might be encouraged to critically assess those parts of his belief that do not cohere, or that do not promote human well-being: Why must he understand 'the It' as hiding from itself? Why not understand subjectivity as its way of better being with itself? Or, exploring itself?)
We might then turn our attention, more fully, to the social implications of the young man's belief. We might try to imagine the various actions that this belief might inspire him to undertake. We might look at the implications that those actions would have for him, and for the people around him.
We might also seek an appreciation of the broader implications of beliefs such as this one. We might be concerned with the implications that such beliefs hold for the perception of rational thought - and the consequences that other people will experience because of this...

...where I belong, I'm right

2011-06-25T22:28:00.000+12:00

Education should be extensive.

Self-determination can only be fully realised through education. Education should be compulsory from a very young age and into young adulthood, school days should be longer than they currently are, and education itself should encompass more than it currently does.

One reason that self-determination requires such a high level of education is that most of what occurs during a child's development bears on its realisation. So much of a child's development is left to his or her parents. Many well-intentioned parents act in ways that undermine those efforts that are directed at this outcome, and many more fail to act in ways that would promote it. For these reasons, parents should not be allowed to play as significant a role as they currently do in their children's development.

It could be argued that limiting the role that parents are able to play in their children's development would compromise those many other things that family facilitates. This is, I think, the strongest objection to my claim that parents should not be allowed to play as significant a role as they currently do in their children's development. But I would suggest that there is nothing that home life can provide that well-designed education could not.
A related claim is that the love that (most) parents feel for their children is especially effective as a means to administering that which those children need. I would argue, however, that the love that any given parent feels for his or her child is not, in itself, enough to ensure that that child receives the education that he or she requires to realise him- or herself as a person.

The raising of children is an activity that connects, in a number of ways, to the well-being of parents. It could be argued that to diminish the role of parents would be to undermine their well-being. I do think that the well-being of parents should inform our thinking on education. However (and for a number of reasons*) I think that children's interests should be prioritised over the interests of their parents...

It seems to me that the role that we currently allow parents to play in their children's development has implications for equality. We should be concerned about inequality only insofar as it impacts negatively on the realisation of human well-being - but (and, again, for a number of reasons) I would suggest that it does.
It is very important that we ensure that the changes that we would make to education really would achieve the ends at which they were being directed. To ensure this, we would have to proceed slowly, and carefully.

Education should be extensive. It should invest individuals with the ability to determine their own lives.

* One reason is that education can be understood as something that we owe to those who we have brought into, or who we have allowed to be brought into, existence (and the responsibility for discharging this duty would, it might seem, fall most heavily on a child's parents...).

Mini-interview: Jamie Donnell

2011-06-23T15:45:00.000+12:00

Jamie Donnell is a magician.

Why do you call yourself the Cosmic Magician?

I have been put here, by the Universe, to reveal its secrets. That's why I call myself the Cosmic Magician. I am cosmic, because I am the Universe. And I am a magician... because that is what the Universe wants me to be.

Hamilton is an... unusual choice of place for...

You know, I've thought about that. I have. I don't know why I've been put here in Hamilton. It seems strange to me, too. But who am I to question the Universe? Really? I mean, I'm only a magician.

What exactly is it that the Universe wants you to reveal?

Well... I can't put it into words, you know? It's the sort of thing that can only be communicated through magic. Magic tricks, you know? If I was to tell you - well, I couldn't. It doesn't work like that. You'd be better to ask me what it isn't.

If the Universe reveals its secrets through magic - well, that doesn't suggest that it wants us to take things very seriously, does it?

That's right! That's it. 'It doesn't matter. None of it matters.' That's the point...
Ha. And I thought it couldn't be put into words!

This interview was conducted by Martin Thespin.

Interview: Alan Duff

2011-06-21T07:26:00.000+12:00

Alan Duff is one of New Zealand’s most prominent writers. He is the author of numerous books, including Once Were Warriors and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

Tell me about the people and ideas that have influenced you.

My educated father was a major influence on my thinking. Open-minded, curious, interested, widely read, he was my hero. In stark contrast to the ill-disciplined, heavy drinking, violent Māori side of my family – but I hasten to add I love my Māori family and not all were like this – who had no notion of respect, education or the concept of knowledge for its own sake. I am only sorry I took so long to grow up instead of taking on Dad's lessons earlier.

What have you found most rewarding about being a New Zealand writer?

I am not well-regarded by the critics but I do know I'm a pretty good writer. The most rewarding aspect has been meeting interesting people and, aside from the Left, I have found all these Kiwis to be open-minded and unthreatened. Many remain good friends.

A number of your stories communicate strong ideas. In what ways is fiction suited to conveying ideas?

Fiction lends itself too easily to soapbox types like myself. My editors are brutal with the red pen on all my works. But as a vehicle to get my ideas across only movies beat it and they are almost invariably a shallow impression whilst a book runs deep.

Out of Warriors I was able to establish Books in Homes which now has 100,000 children on the programme, and has given out over eight million books, without the help or moral support of Māori leaders. I should have written about corrupt Māori leaders in my novels. One day, I might. If it wasn't for business sponsors, not least Mainfreight, we would not have made it.

I think it is important that novelists try and influence or even change society. Who else will or can? Though we are far less important nowadays.

Do you set out to communicate ideas with your writing – or do you discover those ideas as your write?

I do not start out with any agenda. Language is my main aim, trying to find the right voice and the right rhythm.

I have no time for academic writing, nor academic analysis of literature. I have always tried to write for ordinary people while trying to maintain a certain artistic standard. Unfortunately, the Left have seized the high ground when it comes to 'literature' and I am no fan of that lot. They are seriously good haters. And any ideological idea not theirs is rejected and thence attacked relentlessly. I have called academia intellectual cowards before and nothing has happened to change my mind. They are self-serving and irrelevant to the world I inhabit and love. I represent ordinary people.

Do you think that writers have responsibilities to their readers?

I feel a great responsibility to readers, both to entertain them but without being a Jeffrey Archer. And I always lift the bar with each book even if my critics are convinced I have lowered it to unacceptable levels. They know not what they miss. The next generation will find out they have been hoodwinked by these cruel, mediocre people. Of course I try to enlighten the readers and believe the simpler the better, that less is best.

The Duffy Books in Homes programme is a well-motivated charity. Tell me about the relationship between your understanding of responsibility and your decision to establish the Alan Duff Charitable Foundation.

Books in Homes is something I am very proud of. Despite the lack of support from Māoridom, from the academics, from the socialists and the self-proclaimed defenders of the downtrodden, we did it with our Team. Out of tens of millions of dollars we have received zero from any of the above-mentioned groups or individuals. Our support has come from business people and individual sponsors who care about their country. I repeat: zero support has been forthcoming from the Left or Māori leaders. We operate in 547 schools in NZ, 190 Early Childhood Centres, and 20 schools in America are on our rapidly expanding programme over there, thanks to Mainfreight. Going wide of the Establishment is one of our secrets. Also successive governments have been highly supportive.

To find out more about Duffy Books in Homes, click here.

I watch the night receive the room of my day

2011-06-20T16:46:00.000+12:00

I have been thinking about spirituality. As always when I think about spirituality, I have been thinking in questions.

Are we pushing our understanding of the 'spiritual' further and further away from rational analysis? Are we doing this because we need whatever it is that 'the spiritual' contains?

Another question: Can such a removed 'spirituality' satisfy its purpose - or, the purpose for which we would use it?

...I'm right...

2011-06-18T18:46:00.002+12:00

Education should be comprehensive.

The realisation of human well-being is contingent on individuals being able to determine their own lives. Some aspects of well-being require self-determination - and others might benefit from it. Self-determination can also enable individuals to promote the well-being of other people.*

Education should invest individuals with creative and critical thinking skills. Such skills are necessary for self-determination. They are also necessary to ensure that individuals are equipped to evaluate and respond to the world in ways that are likely to benefit themselves and the people around them - whatever else they might be taught.

Education should also nurture a concern for people. Among those ideals that we might promote in connection with this concern are compassion, empathy, and responsibility. Children should come to view themselves, and other people, as inherently valuable.
Education should be as wide-ranging as possible. What we are able to teach people is, of course, limited. For this reason, two considerations might usefully guide us in determining the content of education. Firstly, we should try to give individuals an appreciation of the nature and extent of human knowledge. Secondly, we should do what we can to enable them to inquire, in the right way, into any field that they might seek knowledge from.

Education should be comprehensive. It should promote the well-being of the individuals who are receiving it, and of the individuals who live alongside them.

* I do think that, if they were able to, most people would choose to be for other people as well as themselves.

Mini-interview: Shane Hansen

2011-06-16T18:48:00.004+12:00

Shane Hansen is a New Zealand artist.

Tell me about the people and ideas that have influenced your art.

I am a very visual person. I am always looking around and taking things in, generating ideas inside my head 24/7. Everything influences my art, from the mundane to the magnificent – a steel staircase with a rusty bolt, a scrunched McD’s cup that is full of ants, a floorboard that’s been eaten by bora, etc. I’m not influenced by any particular artist, although I do like how Gordan Walters contemporized the koru. I’m more influenced by everything around me, day-to-day living.

In saying that, my whanau influences my art greatly. They inspire me every day. The events in our lives, the love we share, it is all inspiring stuff. My grandfather and father were huge influences on my art when I was young. They were amazing artists and I used to watch them draw and paint. For birthdays I would always get hand painted birthday cards from them and my presents would always be sketch pads and pencils, so the encouragement was ever-present.

My dad took us into the outdoors a lot and taught us about the flora and fauna. That’s stuck with me and is evident in my work. I especially loved the subtle beauty of our bird life – understated and quietly sophisticated.

I have always been a visual person, so I loved comics as opposed to books. I spent hours looking through Asterix and copied the illustrations of the incredible Uderzo. When I was in my teens I graduated to Hergé’s Tintin, which was a more sophisticated style. I loved the simple use of line and colour to create a realistic image. Even today I enjoy reading Tintin and Asterix.

In my late teens I got into ‘50s and ‘60s style. This included Elvis, advertising imagery, products and clothing. I would often include style lines from corvettes and caddies in my fashion designs. I loved the colour blocking and use of chrome on everything. I was into the old adverts and packaging; the illustration style really caught my eye along with the catchy phrasing. There was a real purity and sense of innocence that shone through the style of illustration. The use of clean, flowing, well-balanced black brush strokes contrasting with the white background was something that appealed.

My Māori heritage has definitely influenced my work, especially of late. It’s something that was never nurtured or fostered, but comes instinctually from inside. I have a natural feel for it. The shapes and lines I use come from being Māori. I connect with the works in marae in a sort of spiritual way, even though I have had no education in the Māori arts and no real understanding of my whakapapa. It is something that flows out of me and it feels right.

Much of your work is informed by commercial considerations. In what ways do such considerations enhance your creative process and in what ways do they inhibit it?

Considering something commercially is good, as it means that I sell a lot of work and can survive doing what I love. I’m a commercial person also, so the way I approach my pieces is: if I like it, if I would buy it and hang it on my wall, I know others will do the same. I really don’t think this approach has an effect on my creative process as I only truly create and sell what I love myself. I wouldn’t do it or sell it if I didn’t love it or connect with it. Everything I do has a personal connection to me and tells a story, even if it can be viewed as being rather commercial. Funds are a hindrance at times, but that’s just one of those things. I have a project I would really love to do, but need a spare $10,000 to make it happen. It’s hard to justify that sort of spend when it might not even work.

I also have pieces that I have done, or are working on, that have no commercial intent. These are more unrefined, confronting and darker. These are really personal pieces and would have a very limited appeal (probably just me). These help me express what I might not be able to through my other work. They are more of an expression of my current state of mind.

Many of your pieces are very striking – but after capturing the viewer’s attention, their intricacies interact in such a way that invites contemplation. Do you deliberately set out to achieve this effect? What do you think the effect itself accomplishes?

Yes. I like people to engage with the work. I like there to be hidden treasures that people discover by accident and then want to look deeper to see what else is there. I like the term ‘less is more’ relating to my work. The detail with my work is in the simplicity of it. I intentionally don’t use heaps of tones, colours or shading in my pieces as I want to strip them back as much as possible - have the appearance of a nice, clean, vibrant, sharp graphic image, but hidden inside is the message and the story. Working on the different materials helps to achieve this. Letting the raw material show through is really important as it adds the depth to the work – and makes the viewer examine the material, rather than passing over it as they would a canvas. The material I paint on is just as important as the work going on top.

I like that people look at my works and don’t feel threatened or out of their depth. I like that it brightens their soul and makes them nostalgic. I like that they can appreciate it as a visually pleasing image, with or without having to understand the deeper meaning. I like that people feel I am approachable, because my work is approachable.

I also like that the viewer connects with my work and likes to tell me a story of how it relates to them. It’s been amazing as I have met many people who have purchased my work and have told me very personal stories about their lives and how my work has connected to them. I think that’s the best part of what I am doing, being able to have that special connection.

I think the effect brings the viewer into my world and creates a dialogue between myself and the viewer, Māori and Pākehā and our connection as kiwis. I see my work as a therapy. It helps me to feel peace of mind and body. It takes away my stress and insecurities. It opens me up to the viewer thus opening them up to me and my work.

To what extent do you try to shape your audience’s response to each of your works?

I try to leave it up to the audience to determine what they see and feel. I think if I tried too hard to get the response from them that I wanted, I would be disappointed. It’s interesting, as people have informed me about parts of my works that I had not realized were there. It was something done subconsciously and has been brought to my attention by the viewer. I definitely want them to respond to my work, but the desired response is up to them and I am always keen to see whether it is the same as mine.

To find out more about Shane Hansen, and to see more of his work, visit www.shanehansen.co.nz.

Editorial

2011-06-14T21:23:00.003+12:00

There are, I have been told, people who ‘don’t respond well to “should”s’. Some people, it would seem, find ethical imperatives unengaging – opposed, even, to the way that they would relate with the world. But I would argue that such ‘should’s are both necessary and desirable.

Ethical considerations can be brought to bear on every aspect of our lives – and there are reasons for thinking that, in societies like ours, they should be…

It is not the case that individual actions affect only the person who is acting. We are all interconnected, and even self-regarding actions have some implications for other people. Our actions do so much to determine the quality of our own lives, and that of the lives of those around us; for this reason, ethical considerations are very important.

You could argue that subtle suggestion is likely to be more effective at communicating ethical imperatives than the use of ‘should’s. There is, of course, a lot to be said for the claim that effective forms of persuasion should be sought out, and utilized… And it does seem to me that people are much more likely to act on conclusions that they feel they have arrived at for themselves. But I would suggest that direct efforts at persuasion are less likely to be manipulative, and more likely to be engaged with critically – in a way, that is, which is more likely to lead to beneficial outcomes, and less likely to result in negative ones.

It could be argued that my suggestion that ethical considerations need to inform all of our actions diminishes individual freedom: individuals, it might seem, are not really free if they are required to act in certain ways… But if individual freedoms are valuable, it is because they are conducive to the realization of human well-being. It is, I would suggest, somewhat obvious that individual freedoms frequently work against human well-being. We must concede, then, that freedom alone is unable to achieve that end at which we have been, or should have been, directing it… If individual freedoms are going to be upheld, ethical considerations – considerations that, because they connect to human well-being, are able to address the negative consequences of those freedoms – must also be affirmed.

Ethical imperatives are incredibly important: they are necessary to the realization of human well-being. For this reason, we must engage with them – critically, but with a view to determining which ones are worth acting on…

All of us should make sure that we do!

That grow so incredibly high

2011-06-13T16:29:00.000+12:00

All of us have views and opinions - and most of us like to think that we have good reasons for thinking what we do. At least some of our views have been arrived at through a process of reasoning... But how many of the reasons that we employed in forming those views do we actually carry with us? How many of those reasons could we draw on - and how quickly could we draw on them...?

The answers to these questions should leave us feeling uncomfortable.

And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong...

2011-06-11T23:18:00.002+12:00

Education should be a public priority.

Education can enable people to determine their own lives - and it is this which makes it so important.* In order for education to do this, though, it must be education of the right sort: it must equip people with certain skills, and it must be sufficiently comprehensive.
Education should be public. Private schools should be disestablished, and state education should be made compulsory. Homeschooling should be disallowed, and alternative training schemes should be prohibited until a certain level of education has been achieved.

We have, I would suggest, a collective responsibility to ensure that individuals are sufficiently equipped to determine their own lives. And we should be prepared to accept that providing people with the education requisite for this might take many more years, and a lot more resources, than we currently set aside for the realisation of goals that only superficially resemble this one.
The level of education that we afford people should be informed by notions of collective responsibility. Education should be understood as what people are owed as people. People are necessarily vulnerable, and education - which is something that we are able to provide - can enable them to alleviate much of that vulnerability. Because culture (which consists not only in what we do, but also in what we condone) does so much to shape the existence of any given individual, we must do what we can to ensure that that culture is as full as it can be (by promoting those things that are conducive to its enrichment), and that individuals are sufficiently equipped to navigate it.**
Education should be a public priority. It should be one of our highest priorities.

* Education can, of course, bring a range of other benefits. These, however, should be understood as secondary.
** Education can also be understood as one of the things that we owe to those who we have brought into, or who we have allowed to be brought into, existence.

But the answers I came up with didn't fit

2011-06-10T09:37:00.000+12:00

I just do not understand why it is so difficult for some people to see that people are the most important thing.
Nothing else is so important.

You can put it down to lack of sleep

2011-06-09T07:07:00.001+12:00

Sometimes it seems that some of the people around me are either very selfish, or very ignorant. This isn't true of all of them, obviously. And I only see so much, to be sure.

But still, I find myself wondering: what the f*ck is wrong with these people?

Comic: Eoin Ryan

2011-06-07T07:24:00.001+12:00

Eoin Ryan is the author of Space Avalanche. The following comic first appeared in February, 2009 as ‘Irish Sea’.

To read more by Eoin Ryan, visit Space Avalanche.

Colour is its own reward

2011-06-06T16:45:00.000+12:00

There is a problem that I struggle with. I have my own answers to it. But I struggle with it nonetheless.

The problem is this: that, unless we understand human well-being as an end in itself (and, thus, as valuable for its own sake), none of the goals at which we might direct ourselves can be understood as ultimately important.

I do think that a genuine justification - for anything, for everything - requires that there be something that is of ultimate importance...

But I do not think that human well-being should be understood as such an end. Nor have I seen anything that should be understood as more important.

The fact is you don't think as much as you could

2011-06-05T18:15:00.002+12:00

I have been thinking, recently, about the stories that we tell ourselves - and about the ways in which we treat those stories.

I often think about The Fox and the Grapes.

It is my favourite of Aesop's fables. For a long time I have recognised the wisdom in it.
Here is Joseph Jacobs' translation of the story:

One hot summer's day a Fox was strolling through an orchard till he came to a bunch of Grapes just ripening on a vine which had been trained over a lofty branch. 'Just the thing to quench my thirst,' quoth he. Drawing back a few paces, he took a run and a jump, and just missed the bunch. Turning round again with a One, Two, Three, he jumped up, but with no greater success. Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: 'I am sure they are sour.'

And the moral of the story?

It is easy to despise what you cannot get.

When I remind myself of this story, I find myself thinking about why I am doing so...

Stories can help us to interpret ourselves. But sometimes I worry that I am remembering this story to convince myself that the truth pertaining to it does not fully explain the situation in which I have found myself.
Perhaps, in most cases, it doesn't. Perhaps reminding myself of the story allows me to explore, in more depth, the contours of that specific situation...

Hmmm...

But you'll never know 'til it's night

2011-06-04T18:53:00.000+12:00

Understanding ourselves can help us to better serve other people.

There are those who would insist that it is selfish to pay close attention to one's own needs and experiences. But one cannot attend to the needs of other people for any significant length of time if one's own needs are not being attended to. Attending to one's own needs is a very good way of being for other people: while we are all dependent, and while none of us should be ashamed of our dependence, doing what we can to take care of ourselves can lessen the responsibility that we place on other people.

As individuals, we are really very similar. It is, of course, worth noting that while many of the challenges that we face are the same, some are not. Nonetheless, our experiences - whatever they are - can help us to imagine the experiences of other people. The understanding that this can lead to can positively inform our relationships.

Understanding ourselves should be seen as important. As well as enabling us to address our own needs, it can help us to better serve other people.

Through the dawn

2011-06-03T09:35:00.000+12:00

When I got up this morning, it was cold, and windy, and wet. The sky was grey, as it has always been - except for a patch of purple.

As I made my way in, there were people. Hundreds of us, all beneath the same sky...

Although we were all together, each of us was alone.

And when I arrived? I found a quiet place, a warm drink - and myself, thinking about how we might better be with each other.

Announcement

2011-06-02T07:41:00.001+12:00

First Thursdays is hosting a series of events this evening.

For more information, visit www.firstthursdays.co.nz.

Update

2011-06-01T13:49:00.000+12:00

This month, I will be interviewing Alan Duff, author of Once Were Warriors. I will be posting a comic by Eoin Ryan, creator of Space Avalanche. I will also be offering opinions on education.

About the space between us all

2011-05-31T07:21:00.001+12:00

Yesterday, I found myself writing this:

I have trouble expressing the idea - but I do think consciousness is one thing, and that it necessarily 'pops up', the same consciousness, where it can... Not to say that your consciousness is the same as mine (although it might be... I guess I would say they're two separate parts of the same thing...), but that my consciousness will arise elsewhere when I can no longer sustain it...

Haven't I the right to say?

2011-05-30T20:59:00.005+12:00

I have been thinking about seriousness.

So many of the problems that confront us, as individuals and collectively, require that we treat them seriously.

I do not mean to suggest that seriousness is the best response to every problem. Much of the joy that we experience, and which is so conducive to our well-being, would be stifled by seriousness...
But a lack of seriousness can, and does, detract from efforts at addressing many of our most pressing problems.
Seriousness need not be the characteristic feature of each of our efforts - but it should underlie those efforts.

Article: Stephen Ruth

2011-05-28T23:37:00.003+12:00

Five and a half months ago, I left New Zealand for Europe. I travelled extensively, and without much of a plan. Having spent my entire life in Aotearoa, I was eager to explore new places.

I made my way East, and, eventually, I arrived in Belarus. Belarus is a cold country, but my loneliness was colder. A few days after I arrived, I started to go on afternoon walks: wrapped up, but determined, I would pick my way through the small town in which I was staying.

I am convinced: years from now, I will dismiss what happened to me there as a dream. It was not a dream.

One evening (it was late, but I was on my way back), I noticed a woman. She was beautiful, and beautifully dressed - not at all like the other Belarusians.
She looked at me strangely. It was as if it was obvious to her that, beneath the jacket, I was a foreigner. She came up to me, and said something that I couldn't understand. I fumbled for my phrasebook; I couldn't even tell what language she was speaking. She paused - then tried again. It was another language again, I could tell that much. I asked her, 'Do you speak English?' She thought for a moment. And then, as if remembering, she gestured at me to follow her.
Eventually, we came to a new place - a village, you could say. Although we were still outside, it was warmer and not so dark. There were people all around - all of them beautiful. Most of them were smiling; those who weren't seemed content. Soon, the woman I was following stopped. She greeted another woman - with a hug, then a kiss - and said something to her, in words that I couldn't understand. This second woman was more beautiful than the first: she had thick black hair, and dark smiling eyes.
**'Hello?' she said.
**'Hello.'
She smiled. She asked me my name, so I told her. And then -
**'When did you learn to speak English?'
**[...]
We spent three days together. When we weren't making love, we were talking... I think my enthusiasm amused her. She seemed as curious about me as I was in her.
Everything that I learnt about that place, I learnt from her. In my mind, she was that place. I don't mean to suggest that she wasn't unique - she was! - but in her outlook, in her love, she affirmed the worldview of that intelligent, caring, beautiful people.
She asked me some strange questions - 'Why do you only make love with me?' 'Why do you frown?' - and she seemed as perplexed at some of the questions I asked her.
**[...]
I asked her, at one point, why everybody was so beautiful. She spoke English fluently, it wasn't that - but she hesitated before answering my question. 'Eugenics,' she said at length. 'Historical eugenics,' she added - but she seemed to regret saying that, as if she was convinced that what she had said would likely leave me with the wrong impression. She held my hand, and explained to me that there - then - people value individuals as they are, but that that concern has far-reaching implications. 'Beauty,' she said, 'is what is most obvious to you - but that beauty is a byproduct of other, more inherent qualities.'
**[...]
We spent our second afternoon talking about sadness. She listened - patiently - as I sought out a way to explain the depth of my disappointment. Yes, she had experienced sadness, but she had not experienced it as pain. She had learnt about such pain, she had read about it in books...
**'But to read it in a person.'
**[...]
I didn't choose to leave. I know I can't get back.
I fell out of that place almost as suddenly as I fell into it.
It's strange, but I don't feel a strong sense of loss. I don't know - maybe one day I will...
But when I think about her - and I do - what I feel is fulfilment.

The length of this piece has been altered, by the author, at the request of the Editor.

On a rainy afternoon

2011-05-26T17:33:00.000+12:00

I have been thinking very carefully about the value of academic Philosophy.

It seems to me that most of Philosophy's worth consists in its capacity to benefit people. Philosophy should concern itself with questions that relate to human well-being.

Academic Philosophy is valuable - it has accomplished a lot. But when academic Philosophy is assessed against human well-being, much of it is exposed as extravagant.

That much of academic Philosophy relates only weakly to human well-being does not diminish the value of those of its branches that do concern themselves with people. Ethics and political philosophy, especially, have done, and continue to do, a lot to benefit people...

Philosophy, I should add, need not be academic. Much of the Philosophy that isn't academic is, I think, more useful (and hence, more valuable) than most of that which is.

Like it shines on me

2011-05-25T22:20:00.000+12:00

George Orwell asked that biographies not be written of him - because 'every life viewed from the inside would be a series of defeats too humiliating and disgraceful to contemplate.'

What an honest man! I thought when I read this, For that is what life is.

I have, however, found myself questioning my initial assessment. I can imagine somebody insisting that to hide one's failings is, really, dishonest...

His reasons, at least, were honest. Importantly, he was honest with himself.

Mini-interview: Cleo Barnett

2011-05-23T15:53:00.006+12:00

Cleo Barnett is founder and manager of First Thursdays in Auckland, a collaborative community event that showcases local artistic talent in various venues along Karangahape Road.

The idea for First Thursdays originated in Seattle. What value do you think an event like this brings to the Auckland community?

I think First Thursdays is a really exciting event to be introduced in the Auckland community, mostly in that it helps to create more of a community vibe that we sometimes struggle with in Auckland compared to smaller cities like Wellington. Auckland can be a bit cliquey at times, so it’s nice to have an event like First Thursdays that is all about bringing people together and checking out what others are up to.

First Thursdays also brings a lot to local businesses who decide to stay open late due to the influx of people coming to K Road for the evening, and provides emerging artists with another platform to be showcased and perform.

Now that K Road Business Association supports this event, First Thursdays also provides economic opportunities for artists to get paid to perform and participate.

The success of First Thursdays largely depends on community participation. How challenging has it been to get artists and local businesses involved?

In terms of talent, it has been very easy. From the start I was connected with some really great artists including the guys at Cut Collective, Tanja Jade aka Misery, Peap, the guys from the collective formally known as Cross Street Studios, Sola Rosa, The Arc, etc. So from the start we had some amazing talent get behind the idea and it has only grown since then. The Auckland community really welcomed this event with open arms and I have made some amazing friendships through the process. It was really moving how supportive people were to me, a total stranger coming into K Road. Without their support this event would never have happened.

An improv group from Printable Reality

You started organizing First Thursdays in 2009. What has been the most rewarding part of this project for you?
I would say the most rewarding part of this process is all the amazing friendships I have made. Some of my dearest friends I have met from doing First Thursdays and now we are constantly collaborating together.

Meghan Geliza and Cleo Barnett

The other most rewarding part of organizing First Thursdays is the entirely new lifestyle this event has opened up for me. I went to University to study business and politics. While I really enjoyed my degree and learned heaps, I am now organizing art, music and fashion events full time. This would have never happened if I didn't throw myself at First Thursdays. I just love being able to bring people together and promote my super talented friends... and now I'm getting paid to do it! I'm so grateful, you have no idea.

What is your vision for the development of First Thursdays?

Like it has been from the start, First Thursdays will be whatever the community around me wants it to be. This next show in June has expanded to include ten different venues, all hosting really strong mini art events from ARTSPACE down to Revel Cafe. For the October show I hope to expand the event along the entire length of K Road.

With the support of K Road Business Association I hope to continue to do bigger and better events through 2012 and just keep collaborating with likeminded artists in Auckland, and maybe even do more colabs with artists from outside Auckland.

One day it would be really rad if local galleries had their openings on the same evening as First Thursdays, as that is what happens in Seattle and it creates a really nice vibe for the evening. We will see!

The next First Thursday is on June 2. To find out more about First Thursdays, and for information on how to get involved, visit www.firstthursdays.co.nz. Cleo's website can be found at www.cleobarnett.com.

This interview was conducted by Daniel Wilson.

Interview: Philip McKibbin

2011-05-21T23:07:00.001+12:00

Philip McKibbin is the Editor of blukeko.

You frequently mention human well-being in your opinions and editorials. Who has had the biggest influence on your thinking about well-being?

A number of people have helped to shape my thinking on well-being.

Growing up, my parents – my father and my step-mother, Kathryn – did a lot to instill in me a respect for people.

I went to an Anglican high school. A lot of what I heard and read while I was there informed, and continues to inform, my thinking on how we should understand and treat people.

Albert Camus’s writing has also shaped my thinking on well-being. Camus didn’t write about well-being as such, but he was very concerned with people. Throughout his life, he changed many of his views to bring his thinking in line with this concern.

Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach, which is, essentially, an account of justice, has done a lot to shape my thinking. Nussbaum presents a list of ten ‘capabilities’, or opportunities for functioning, that she says governments should secure for their citizens. These include things like bodily health and bodily integrity (which are obviously very important) as well as things like practical reason and play (which are, I would suggest, less important…). I think the suggestion that well-being is a complex thing – that it is comprised of several elements – is insightful. And I agree that the sorts of things that are important to one person’s well-being are the same sorts of things that are important to another’s. I’m not sold on Nussbaum’s list, but I think it’s a good start.

Jonathan Wolff and Avner de-Shalit’s book Disadvantage has also helped to shape my thinking on well-being. Wolff and de-Shalit build on Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach. They attempt to show how the various elements of well-being relate to each other. In thinking about their work (and believe me, I have!), I’ve gained an appreciation of how vulnerable we are, as individuals – and how interconnected we are, as well.

Why is well-being so important, in your view?

That’s a difficult question… Why is well-being important to me? or, Why do I think well-being should be understood as important?

Both. Either.

I’m not sure why well-being is so important to me. I imagine it’s got a lot to do with how I was brought up, and with the experiences I had at certain points in my childhood.

I haven’t always seen well-being as important. For a long time, it was just ‘people’. ‘Well-being’ is – in my mind, anyway – an extension of, or elaboration on, a concern for people.

This might sound strange, but I don’t think that well-being is obviously important. What I mean is that it isn’t clear. I guess that’s why I write about it. Not everyone sees well-being as important. A lot of people think that they do, and some people think that most people do – but they don’t. I think that well-being should be understood as important, and for a number of reasons. But I don’t think that it is obviously important. And this troubles me.

You seem to hold that thinking is very important to well-being...

I do. Thinking can help us to understand what well-being consists in. It can also help us to realize it.

Thinking can enable us, as individuals, to pursue that which is conducive to our well-being. It can also enable us to understand the ways in which we might help other people to secure their well-being.

Philosophers place a lot of importance on critical thinking. I think we should understand creative thinking as important, too. Critical thinking is very important – but critical thinking, by itself, is not enough: if we are going to arrive at better solutions to the problems that plague us, we must find ways to harness creative thinking.

‘Honesty,’ you wrote in an editorial earlier this year, ‘is one of the most important philosophical qualities. And it must be, before anything else, honesty with oneself.’ Why is honesty important – and why must it be honesty ‘with oneself’?

Ideas do so much to shape our lives. Whether we realize it or not, the ideas that we carry with us inform the decisions that we make – and the decisions that we make have consequences that bear not only on our own lives, but on the lives of those around us. Honesty is important because it encourages us to evaluate the ideas that we carry with us, and to account for their implications – even, and especially, those implications that we would prefer to ignore.

It is as individuals that we make all of our decisions (even the ones that we make with other people). It is, then, very important that we pay close attention to how we, as individuals, treat ideas.

It is, I think, very difficult to be honest with oneself.

Is there a single idea that you struggle with, more than any of the others?

One idea that I struggle with, and which I have written about, is individual freedom… But I don’t seem to have come very far with it.

Recently, I have found myself worrying about individual responsibility. The notion of responsibility is one that I have written quite a lot about. And it informs so much of the rest of my thinking…

Perhaps I should write an opinion or two about these worries!

You once said to me that you find people disappointing. How do you reconcile your views on the importance of people with your disappointment?

I do find people disappointing.

A while ago, I was talking with a friend about an article that he had been reading. The author of the article (a philosopher, I believe) had suggested that thinkers end up writing about the topics that, personally, they have the most trouble with. At the time, I laughed. But since then…

This interview was conducted by Martin Thespin.

Be submissive just this once

2011-05-20T07:15:00.000+12:00

Further proof that man created God in his own image: all he had Him ask for was love.

Where do they all belong?

2011-05-18T17:15:00.001+12:00

I have been thinking about the relationship between vulnerability and weakness.

I often think about the two concepts. When I think about one, I usually think about the other...

Vulnerability is, I would suggest, characteristic of us as individuals. Weakness isn't - or, it needn't be. As individuals, we are extremely vulnerable. But this vulnerability need not manifest itself as weakness.

Together, we are able to forestall many of the negative consequences of our vulnerability. An awareness of our vulnerability can inform an understanding of our interconnectedness. It can expand, and give focus to, our relations...

But we must not lose sight of it. Our ability to address our vulnerability is dependent on our being able to recognise it.

Stupid bloody Tuesday

2011-05-17T17:43:00.001+12:00

I have heard it said that it is best not to publish ideas unless you are really sure that those ideas are correct. The reasoning goes something like this: you could be wrong, one day you will disagree with what you wrote - and when you have changed your mind, everybody will be able to see what you were stupid enough to put out there...
I have spent some time thinking about this in relation to blukeko.

Sometimes, I am pleased with what I have written. But often - more often - I can see problems with what I have said, or with how I have said what I have said. It does make me feel uncomfortable, knowing that I have not said what I should have meant. When I reflect on my thinking, it seems obvious to me that, just as I now disagree with much of what I thought ten years ago (when I was thirteen), in ten year's time (when I'm thirty-three), I will disagree with much of what I think now.

But in reflecting on my thinking, I have also realised that a lot can be gained by attending to the development of one's thinking. So much of my thinking has changed - but it is very interesting to consider what has not changed, and why it has not changed... In ten year's time, if I have not thrown them away, these pieces might reveal to me more of my mind.

The suggestion that one should not publish ideas unless one is convinced of the truth of them is wrongheaded for a number of reasons. It seems to presuppose that there is some sort of objective truth - and (worse!) that the virtues of the philosopher, and very little else, will deliver him or her to it. It is also dishonest: it disguises human fallibility, as well as the fact that it is through reflection and revision that better ideas are arrived at.

I publish my ideas for a number of reasons... It gets me thinking - it encourages me to explore the quality of my ideas, and the connections between the various things that I think. It allows me to develop my writing style. It also enables me to encourage myself to be more responsible in my thinking... (There are, of course, other benefits - and it is not only for myself that I publish my ideas.)
It is difficult to admit that one has been wrong. But - and of course! - all of us have been wrong. To pretend that one has not, and to suggest that one will not be again, is dishonest.

Anyway: there is a lot to be gained by admitting to the development of one's thinking.

Well, the answer is, 'You're not'

2011-05-16T07:37:00.000+12:00

I was offended, last week, by something that somebody said to me. What the person said isn't so important... But it got me thinking (which isn't such an achievement, really!) - about needs.

All of us are much more needy than most of us care to admit. Instead of admitting our needs, we talk around them; instead of addressing those needs - together, collectively - we allow them to persist...

I suspect that one of the reasons we don't care to admit to our neediness is that each of us believes that he or she is alone in his or her neediness.

Most of our needs are legitimate - and those that are not legitimate are, I would suggest, very closely related to other needs that are.

Editorial

2011-05-14T17:46:00.004+12:00

There is a lot that we cannot know. This is especially true of us as individuals, but it is also true of us collectively. Some people despair of this fact: they hide from it, pretend that it isn't a fact. In acknowledging this fact (and acknowledge it, we must), we should treat it as an invitation - to learn to think.

There are things that one can know and things that one cannot. But this distinction is not as hard as it appears: even if there is much that, collectively, we might know, there are limits as to how much any one of us can know. There is, then, a lot that we cannot know - and, on top of that, a lot that one will not know.

The fact that there is a lot that we cannot know should encourage us to shift - from trying to know, to thinking. We cannot know everything, nor can we always apply all of the knowledge that we, as individuals, have. Instead, we should learn to think creatively and critically - and to apply such thought to the world as we encounter it.
Being able to think is, I would suggest, more useful than knowledge - more useful, anyway, than the knowledge that any one of us could expect to achieve... Thinking skills are transferable. As well as being able to treat a range of subjects, they can be usefully applied to a number of endeavours.
It could be argued that a shift from trying to know, to thinking, would lead us to view knowledge as unimportant. I do not think that this is the case. Knowledge is important - and its importance is evidenced in its connection to thinking. Knowledge can stimulate creative and critical thought. I would also suggest that a certain level of knowledge is necessary for creative and critical thought.

Another concern, related to the first, is that this shift will leave us with less of an incentive to know - and might even give us an excuse not to know. And this is, I think, likely to be the case. Because knowledge is important, the concern is, too. But most of what this concern implies is that, as well as thinking, we should do what we can to increase our knowledge...
It takes courage to admit that there is a lot that you cannot know, and it takes courage to adjust yourself, positively, to this fact. Much of the silliness that pervades Philosophy can be attributed to a lack of courage.
The realisation that there is a lot that we cannot know is an important one. We must not retreat from it.

Update

2011-05-14T16:06:00.000+12:00

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to post an opinion on blukeko yesterday.

So to a world

2011-05-11T09:47:00.000+12:00

Indignation is one of the most humane sentiments. It is, I would suggest, the fiercest expression of a concern for people.

Indignation is compassion: it is one of its many extensions. And it is a necessary extension, for there is so much in this world that offends against compassion.

There are those who think that indignation is unhealthy. It is, I think, tempting to view the anger with which indignation is associated as damaging. Indignation is hurtful. But its hurtfulness is informed, and constrained, by the compassion from which it extends.

Indignation stands its ground. It affirms as important that which is important - and enforces the limits of what is acceptable. When those limits are crossed, indignation cries out.

Those who think that love is only a tender thing are mistaken: love has many faces, and one of those is fierce.

Mini-interview: Maui Solomon

2011-05-09T15:11:00.004+12:00

Maui Solomon is the general manager of the Hokotehi Moriori Trust.

Tell me about the traditional pacifism of the Moriori people.

Peace is the foundation value for Moriori culture. Moriori are descended from East Polynesian peoples who travelled from the south-eastern Pacific Islands to the islands of Rēkohu (literally ‘garlands of mist’ which is the Moriori name for their group of islands, also known as the Chatham Islands). Rēkohu is situated 800 km to the east of Aotearoa/New Zealand. 600 years ago Moriori developed a unique culture in their new homeland, founded on peace through the outlawing of warfare, killing and cannibalism. Their collective vow of peace is known as Nunuku’s law, after the leader who renewed the ancient covenant of peace handed down by the ancestors past from the time of Rongomaiwhenua, calling on his people to denounce warfare and killing.

How does this emphasis on peace bear on other facets of Moriori culture?

It has a bearing on everything that we do.

In what ways might an understanding of the pacifism inherent in Moriori culture inform our ethical and political relationships today?

That in the end when all the wars have been fought peace will prevail.

It is a mistake to equate peace with weakness. It takes more courage to respond in a peaceful way than it does in an aggressive way.

Where would you direct someone who wanted to learn more about Moriori history and culture?

You could visit the Hokotehi Moriori Trust site, at www.moriori.co.nz. Michael King’s book, Moriori: A People Rediscovered, published by Penguin Books, also contains a lot of information (it is only available from the library). Also, the Te Ara site, www.teara.co.nz, has information on Moriori (search under Moriori), as does www.rekohu.wordpress.com.

Comic: Anthony Clark

2011-05-07T09:08:00.009+12:00

Anthony Clark is the author of Nedroid Picture Diary. The following comic first appeared in April, 2011 as ‘Scientific Horizons’.

To read more by Anthony Clark, visit Nedroid Picture Diary.

And I said, 'yeah'

2011-05-06T23:06:00.000+12:00

Yesterday afternoon, I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine. We were discussing the roles that relationships require us to play. Since then, I have been thinking about the nature of these roles - and the extent to which adopting them might be useful.

We found ourselves talking about the connection between roles and responsibility. In order to ensure that we meet the interests of those who are, in some way, dependent on us, we might (we reasoned) work to ensure that our relationships conform to certain pre-defined, or socially-defined, roles.

I am not sure that I think that all relationships require us to play roles, as such. I would suggest that some relationships are able to flourish even if roles are not allowed to operate. I would also suggest that, taken too far, the notion of role-fulfillment might actually prevent us from fully realising certain sorts of relationships...

Instead of understanding our relationships in terms of role-fulfillment, we might better understand them as being informed by socially-sanctioned 'types'... Acting on this understanding might see us borrowing more creatively from such 'types'; it might also enable us to give more personal direction to our relationships...

I have been lucky to find myself around people who have me thinking in new and unusual directions.

Well, it's likely to lose me

2011-05-05T23:00:00.000+12:00

It is rather confusing, this life thing. Isn't it?

There should be two or three

2011-05-04T22:24:00.000+12:00

God is not dead. If he was, we wouldn't have to speak of him.

We need to learn to speak beyond God. We must teach ourselves to speak without reference to him.

So much of philosophy, and so much of popular culture addresses itself to God. But in addressing ourselves to God, we lend legitimacy to an illegitimate idea...

It is when 'God' is only an interesting relic of human history that we will really be rid of him. It is when we no longer feel it necessary to address ourselves to that notion that we will have dispensed with it.

God is not dead. His body is still convulsing on the carpet that we tread.

It will be a shame to put those intelligent, witty, and humane criticisms to rest. But to do so will be to vindicate them in that which they once told us.

'Cause I'm terrified

2011-05-03T20:53:00.002+12:00

I am a suspicious person. I am especially suspicious of simplicity.

Many of the problems that we face - as individuals, and collectively - are incredibly complex. Unfortunately, complexity is very difficult to treat. Complex situations are often difficult to comprehend, and the best solutions to complex problems are usually complex themselves.
Simple solutions are celebrated. And yet, simple solutions are almost always inadequate.
Let me illustrate this point with an example. The idea that the freedom of individuals should be respected is a dangerous notion. It is one that requires a lot of qualification. But many people seem unwilling to attend to the complexities of this idea. Some people don't have the time, some people don't have the inclination - and some people are, for whatever reason, incapable of evaluating such complexities. As a result of this (and, presumably, the fact that a lot can be said in support of the notion), Freedom is celebrated - often, without qualification. But in celebrating freedom as Freedom, new (and complex) problems arise...
Simplicity can be useful. Some values are very simple, and are best understood as such. But the problems that confront us are almost always complex - and simplicity, unless it is made to adapt, is usually unable to treat them.
We must confront complexity. In order to do so, we must acknowledge the complexity of the problems that face us - and the inadequacy of simplicity in treating those problems.

Just daydreams, deceiving

2011-05-02T18:49:00.000+12:00

On Saturday night, I went for one of my evening walks. Perhaps I was feeling optimistic. I must have been feeling optimistic... I found myself thinking that perhaps, eventually, all of these crowded experiences will lead to liberation...

If you do your best to think clearly, if you are honest in your thinking, and if you commit yourself to confronting your problems... maybe you reach a point where, having experienced so much, you are able to give sufficient context to who you are.

Maybe then you can release your fists - and become who you have to be.

Update

2011-05-01T19:58:00.000+12:00

This month, I will be posting an article by Stephen Ruth. I will be offering opinions on indignation, and on weakness and vulnerability. I will also be reflecting on Philosophy as an academic discipline.

That weren't important yesterday

2011-04-30T20:58:00.002+12:00

Much of our treatment of animals is unacceptable - and it is clear that a lot needs to be done. What is not so clear is how the change that is required might be effected.

Many of those people who are concerned with the welfare of non-human animals seem to think that it is up to individuals to achieve this change. Some seem to hold that the actions of individuals are, in themselves, sufficient to achieve it... In any case, such people think that the relationship between the actions of individuals and many of the harms that affect animals is such that strong moral claims can be made on those individuals.

I agree that individual responsibility is important. It is by taking responsibility that we will achieve the change that we must achieve. But I am not convinced that individual action is sufficient to secure that change.

As individuals, we are constrained in the amount of information that we are able access. We are also limited in our ability to assess that information. Because our lives are so full, and because our concerns are so many, we are not always able to accommodate all of the considerations pertaining to our actions. Of the actions that might be taken, most are very demanding: they leave few – and for some very few – alternatives. And anyway, only some of those actions are capable of addressing themselves to the problems that they would confront... There are also strong reasons for thinking that the harm that is being done to animals is so expansive that a lot more than the actions of individuals is needed to address it.

In order to move closer to the change that we desire, we will have to act collectively. Together, we will have to arrive at ways of regulating our behaviour.

Individuals are not the only actors whose actions might be subject to regulation. Corporate bodies also act in ways that impact on animal welfare. The actions of some businesses affect animals directly. Those businesses should be required to address certain facets of the welfare of those animals that they make use of. The regulation that we enact must encompass all of the actors whose actions bear upon the welfare of animals. Such regulation must be comprised, to a significant extent, of legislation.

Individual responsibility is especially relevant to the formation of law in democracies. In order to achieve such regulation we must exercise individual responsibility. But we must remember that politics will only help us to achieve a certain amount. We will need to rely on individual responsibility not only to uphold those forms of political action that are conducive to the goals that we desire to achieve, but to realise those goals more fully, and in ways that political action cannot.

Much of our treatment of animals is unacceptable. In order to achieve most of the change that we must achieve, we will have to act collectively. To do this - and to do more than this - each of us will have to try to take what responsibility he or she can.

Review: Flightless Birds

2011-04-28T07:15:00.000+12:00

Ben Allen reviews Sam Berkley’s latest play, Flightless Birds.

The big OE is surely as big a Kiwi tradition as any other. Take three old school mates, the girl with a connection to all three, and a pre-flight ‘send-off’ binge session, and you have dramaturge Sam Berkley’s aptly-titled play Flightless Birds. The show, put on by Catalyst Theatre Company, had a successful season to much acclaim recently at the Maidment Theatre’s Musgrove Studio, and it’s not hard to see why. What you get is a close-to-home look at one of our treasured rites, full of laughs and nostalgia for many along the way.

Bill, Simon and Joops all meet at Bill’s flat the night before they are meant to jet off to London for a four month trip. You have Simon (Colin Garlick), a laid back career-focused guy who’s only along for part of the ride (due to aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder). Bill (Ben Van Lier), the reliable nice guy, shoulders the burden of organizing the trip for Simon and Joops (Sam Berkley), an irresponsible, impulsive youth who struck it lucky in the Lotto first division. Add the unexpected last-minute addition of Ashleigh (Chelsea McEwan Miller), Bill’s old workmate, Simon’s ex- and Joops’ new girlfriend all in one, throw in some alcohol and narcotics, and the recipe for disaster becomes apparent.

The play itself is brilliantly written. Berkley has managed to write dialogue which completely captures the feelings I had before my own OE. Watching the play was like viewing a secret camera hidden in a Mount Eden student flat; the language is our own language, the characters are very Kiwi and the drinking is definitely ours. The pace was fantastic; even the slow moments with solo characters on stage were never dull. The acting in the play is equally stellar. Each of the four are entirely convincing in their roles as young Kiwis eager to travel the world, for whatever reason.

The argument between Simon and Ashleigh over their respective reasons for travelling was probably the highlight for me. The reflective insight into what exactly an OE means to us was well created and definitely got me thinking about my own conflict of desire to travel versus my love for my homeland.

Drawing on his own impending OE, Berkley’s exceptionally-written play about what the OE means to Kiwis is full of excitement and nostalgia, and, most importantly, offers an insightful look into the nature of time-tested friendship. The strength of the play lies in its own simplicity: set over just a few hours the night before departure, the student flat-esque set and the pace of the play were perfectly executed to deal with all the issues surrounding the group’s travel plans in the play’s 70 minute running time.

I’m sure I’m not alone in eagerly anticipating Catalyst’s two productions Making a Killing and Heroes planned for later in the year!

Flightless Birds ran from the 13th to the 21st of April, at the Musgrove Studio.

To find out more about Catalyst Theatre Company, visit www.catalysttheatre.co.nz.

Try to help the human race

2011-04-27T20:45:00.004+12:00

A couple of weeks ago, I read an excellent book by Martha Nussbaum. The book is called Not for Profit*, and it is, essentially, a defense of the humanities. Nussbaum holds that an education in the humanities is essential to competent democratic citizenship.

The book has had me thinking in a number of different directions. One of the many subjects that Nussbaum treats is children's literature. 'Stories learned in childhood,' she says at one point, 'become powerful constituents of the world we inhabit as adults.'

Nussbaum is, I think, correct in suggesting that the stories we tell children help to shape their outlook on life. Whether or not we intend it, the stories that we tell communicate values. This can, as Nussbaum points out, have unacceptable consequences:

We now notice that [the tendency to view some group of others with disgust] is nourished by many time-honored modes of storytelling to children, which suggest that the world will be set right when some ugly and disgusting witch or monster is killed, or even cooked in her own oven. Many contemporary stories for children also purvey the same worldview.

Nussbaum seems confident that the simplicity associated with children's literature can be overcome. I am not sure. It is, of course, difficult to determine the extent to which the limitations that we perceive are merely cultural. But I would suggest that the simplicity that is so characteristic of children's stories is more deeply entrenched than most people realise.

These considerations lead to a more significant question: given that we cannot tell stories without communicating values, which values should we try to communicate to children? 'We should be grateful for artists who suggest to children the world's real complexity,' Nussbaum writes - and I agree. I would suggest that the stories that we tell children should also encourage them to think for themselves, both creatively and critically. One of my favourite children's books, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew by Dr. Seuss, does just this. I would also suggest that literature could be used to encourage children to view themselves, and other people, as inherently valuable, and as deserving of care.

Stories are never only entertainment. Much more good will be done - and much harm prevented - as more people come to realise this.

* Martha Nussbaum, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

Mini-interview: Neil Ieremia

2011-04-25T10:33:00.001+12:00

Neil Ieremia is the Artistic Director of Black Grace, one of New Zealand’s most prominent contemporary dance companies.

Why is dance important, in your view?

I think that dance is a great way to communicate. Through dance you are able to discuss ideas and issues to people across the world. Languages are not barriers with dance, as dance is a universal language.

Through dance I am able to express other aspects of my life that I find hard to discuss.

Tell me about the ideas that have influenced your work.

I have gathered many different ideas and inspirations for each of my works. Mostly my work is influenced by my family, my Pacific Island heritage and Aotearoa.

In 2003, I created Surface, a full-length work based on the Pe’a, a traditional Samoan tattoo, inspired by my father having this done when he was well into his sixties.

But ideas can also be much simpler. Last year, Black Grace presented Verses, a series of short works inspired by some of my favourite pieces of music by Johnny Cash, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Talking Heads, Elvis Presley…

You formed Black Grace in 1995. Since then, the company has expanded. You and your dancers have toured extensively – both here in New Zealand, and internationally. What have you found most rewarding in your experiences with Black Grace?

Presenting my work at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts in 2004 and 2005 was a great highlight – we were the first New Zealand dance company to attend this prestigious festival.

In 2009, Black Grace was invited by the Guam Humanities Council to tour to Guam to perform and teach workshops to the local dance groups and community groups. This was a fantastic experience.

I also received a personal card from the great American choreographer Paul Taylor.

What can we expect from Black Grace in 2011?

2011 is a great year for Black Grace. We are mostly ‘New Zealand’ focused this year, presenting a new UrbanYOUTHMovement production as part of the Auckland Arts Festival, a tour of Verses to venues in the North Island and upper South Island, then we’ll be heading off to The Banff Centre, Canada, where I will spend seven weeks with dancers from Black Grace and Red Sky Performance (Toronto) creating and presenting a brand new full-length work. Black Grace will wrap up the year presenting Black Grace Dance (working title), a production made up of new and existing repertoire, performing in Wellington and Auckland.

To learn more about Black Grace, visit www.blackgrace.co.nz.

And yet it dominates the things I see

2011-04-23T19:20:00.000+12:00

Like much of the rest of the world, I sighed in relief at the news that Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States of America. Of course, I was not so naïve as to think that most of those who voted for him had sound reasons for doing so - or that his election constituted a vindication of democracy. But I was pleased.

Unfortunately, I have found myself disagreeing more and more with Obama's views.

I should say: I have been impressed with some of the policies that he has enacted, and with the determination with which he has pursued some of his goals. He has done a lot of good - and I have every reason to believe that he will continue to do much good.

I recently read Dreams from My Father* - his first book. It offers an account of his life, with developed reflections on race and many of the issues that relate to it. It is very much worth reading.

But I have found The Audacity of Hope** disappointing.

Sometimes, I think, I expect too much of people. Perhaps I expect too much of Obama. I certainly expect him to be more than a leader of the 'American people'...

The most significant disagreement I have with Obama consists in how he seems to construe national success. If the United States of America is to maintain its superiority, he says, it must direct its attention toward ensuring that it is able to compete effectively in what is an increasingly globalised market.

The idea that in order to succeed, others must fail is one that I find very troubling. It is, I think, an irresponsible idea. And yet, it permeates Obama's writing: the global order is as it is - and it is, essentially, good; but unless we work it in the right way, it will be American families, and not others, that are unable to provide for themselves - and that would be unacceptable... An abhorrent idea. And yet, it is there.

So many of the narratives that Obama employs in his writing are used to support arguments against conceptions of community exclusively construed. And yet, he comes out in favour of policies which would see members of a circumscribed community prosper at the expense of others.

I am not convinced that a community's success (if it makes sense to speak in such terms) is best measured relative to that of others; nor am I convinced that material prosperity constitutes even a large part of what 'national success' should be seen to consist in.

If community is a good thing, it is because it enables people to better relate to one another. It should be possible for communities to sit alongside each other - not in competition, but in solidarity; not for mutual benefit, but because that is what a commitment to individual people requires. National community is only one level of community. It is not the most significant. Nor is community itself, even at its highest level, more significant than the worth that must be accorded to individual people.

Another idea that I have struggled with is the amount that Obama is willing to sacrifice to (national) unity. It is, I agree, very important that we listen to each other, that we do what we can to understand each other. But it is, I think, possible to make too much space for ill-informed and harmful ideas. At one point, Obama says,

our democracy might work better if we recognized that all of us possess values that are worthy of respect: if liberals at least acknowledged that the recreational hunter feels the same way about his gun as they feel about their library books, and if conservatives recognized that most women feel as protective of their right to reproductive freedom as evangelicals do of their right to worship.

The contention that a hunter's feelings towards his (or her) gun are 'worthy of respect' (and that is what this passage is contending) is not one that I can accept. It is not the case that all - or even most - of a person's values are necessarily 'worthy of respect'.
It is important that we try to understand others. But a commitment to people requires that we assess values - our own, and others' - against human well-being, and that we celebrate those that are conducive to its realisation and stand against those that are not.
I have a lot of respect for Obama. And there is much in his writing that I agree with...
As I have said, I think sometimes I expect too much of people.

* Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father (New York: Random House Inc., 2004).
** Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (New York: Random House Inc., 2008).

Interview: Paul Heaton

2011-04-21T08:30:00.000+12:00

Paul Heaton is an English singer-songwriter. He was a member of The Housemartins and, more recently, The Beautiful South.

Who has had the biggest influence on your thinking?

A variety of people, really. My Dad was a voice of reason in our household and although he didn’t take a hard line on anything in particular, he encouraged debate. My Mum was very different. She would stick her neck out and say anything outrageous to get a reaction. When I was seventeen, I met a teacher who also influenced me. His name was Dick Brewis and he had a healthy line in debate, too. He would take his students (English) and get them thinking by setting interesting things to write about. We would talk about all sorts but nothing pleased him more than hearing the shrill of middle class shock as he would advocate something like putting birth control through the water system in working class areas. After that I think travel was the single most important influence. To know there were people in other countries who wanted to befriend me and talk to me, regardless of where I was from, smashed many preconceptions I had of other nations, particularly in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Your songs overflow with ideas. How effective a medium is music for expressing opinions?

It’s very effective. Apart from the odd blog and a few short stories, writing songs is my only such outlet. What is perhaps a bit limiting is the editing that takes place after the lyrics have been written. I then have to shape them into verses, bridges and choruses.

Have the musicians who you’ve collaborated with helped to shape the ideas that you’ve written about?

Absolutely not. Having said that, a good deal of the time spent with David Rotheray and Sean Welch was spent debating and talking about issues of the time.

The songs that you wrote for The Housemartins give voice to Marxist politics and Christianity. Tell me about the factors that led to your interest in Marxism and Christianity.

Well, I have to say my interest in Christianity would never have existed without Marxism. I firmly believe the only good Christian is a Marxist one. I suppose what I was interested in at the time was the coloration between Jesus’ teachings and the force of political good. But really the whole interest came from my deep love of gospel music.

What was it about Marxism and Christianity that most appealed to you? And what remains of those ideologies in your thinking?

Many elements of Marxism remain. In my arguments, lifestyle choices and everyday decisions, Marxism rears its not-so-ugly head often. Once you grasp it, you begin to realize the whole capitalist picture. This transfers to how you treat people in your everyday life, what sort of house you live in, who you respect and don’t respect and general opinions from footballers’ wages, to the BBC coverage of the Libyan Civil War. Christianity was never something that influenced or controlled me.

The songs that you wrote for The Housemartins are very critical of social structures – but they are also quite optimistic. Those that you wrote for The Beautiful South are also very critical, but more cynical, more resigned; they seem more focused on relationships than institutions. How do you perceive the differences between the songs that you wrote for these two groups – and what factors account for them?

I think with The Beautiful South I was keen not to bang the drum so loudly. There are, however, many Beautiful South songs that are much more critical of social structures than The Housemartins ever dealt with. ‘Have You Ever Been Away’, ‘I’ve Come for my Award’ and ‘I Think the Answer’s Yes’, for example. What I chose was to not write about politics on every song and also, more importantly, to write about and for women. My reason for this was to prevent The Beautiful South from becoming another lads’ band. The Housemartins had a great following, but it was 90% male.

A number of reviewers have commented on the anger that expresses itself in your more recent work. Tell me about the relationship between anger and your political views.

I have always felt that anger in politics is a positive thing. If you’re not angry it’s hardly worth expressing a political opinion. Look what happens when people mix music with faux politics. The result is an ugly mess. One of the reasons I back armed struggle before the ballot box in songs like ‘I Think the Answer’s Yes’ is because I believe anger has an important place in politics. If the choices left to folk are between David Cameron and Ed Miliband, then there is no choice. That is NOT a choice – that is a call to arms!

To find out more about Paul Heaton – and for information on his latest album, Acid Country – visit www.paulheatonmusic.co.uk.

Who'll screw you in the ground

2011-04-20T20:06:00.002+12:00

I would like to elaborate on two ideas that revealed themselves in a piece that I posted in February. The piece was on advertising - and its failings.

One thing I wrote was,

If competition is valuable, it is because it makes everybody better off... But in order to make everybody better off, competition must adhere to certain rules. By selling those people that it is supposed to be making better off, advertising violates those rules that are needed to justify competition.

The word 'rules' is somewhat misleading. 'Principles' would be a better one. 'Demands' might take us closer...

Why must those who advocate competition be committed to the claim that competition makes everybody better off? I would suggest that such a claim is the only defense that could be expected to meet the concerns that individuality engenders. The rewards that competition results in frequently fall on those who have done little, if anything, to deserve them - bypassing others who have done similarly little, and compromising the conditions conducive to fair competition. Because it does not adequately account for individuality, competition threatens the actualisation of moral equality.

Let me be clear: I do not think that the claim that competition makes everybody better off is able to overcome the concerns that individuality engenders. But I do think that it would be a reasonable claim to make. I can understand why somebody might think that ensuring that competition makes everybody better off would be doing enough to accommodate the moral equality of individuals.

One cannot make the 'competition makes everybody better off' claim without also refuting the claim that the interests of some individuals can be sacrificed for the interests of others (which is not, you will note, the same as the claim that some of the interests of some individuals can be sacrificed for the benefit of others). Many of the techniques employed in advertising would reduce individuals in such a way that would conflict with that refutation. For this reason, advertising that makes use of such techniques cannot be justified as competition.

At the end of my piece, I suggested that some advertising is worthwhile:

Advertising that makes us aware of beneficial products - products that cater to, or might cater to, our actual needs and legitimate wants - is useful. And advertising that is equal to the products that it is pushing should be celebrated.

The idea that advertising can and should be equal to the products that it pushes is, I think, an interesting one.
Determining the advertising appropriate to a product would require judgment. Careful attention would have to be paid to the sort of product that it was, and to who might reasonably be expected to benefit from it... Other considerations would, of course, have to be made - and these considerations, taken together, would need to be tempered by more general concerns...
Achieving advertising equal to the products that it pushes would require responsibility on the part of advertisers - as well as whatever else we might do in that direction.
Unfortunately, and as you have probably already gathered, I don't have much faith in advertisers.

And certainly misused

2011-04-19T14:01:00.001+12:00

I find myself thinking, every now and then, about the many ways in which retail contributes to our misery. When I do, I am reminded of the anger I felt when I was younger. These days, I am able to hide from it. Back then, I couldn't...

So much is said about the ways in which consumer culture frustrates human happiness. It is important to remember that retail does not embody all - or even most - of that culture. But retail does participate in many of that culture's failings. And for this, it should not be forgiven.

The biggest problem that I have with retail is its reach. It directs all that it can at its one questionable goal, and in doing so, it cheapens the means and ends that it makes use of.

Retail rewards selfishness. There are many obvious ways in which it does this. One of the less obvious ways is by accommodating itself to the illegitimate demands that some people let themselves make. Although it would use anybody, it takes the most from those who are less inclined to give way to self interest...

Ugh. I can't even write about retail without putting myself in a bad mood!

It's so easy to show

2011-04-18T17:36:00.001+12:00

Empathy is an important quality. Being able to empathise with other people - being able to imagine the situations in which other people find themselves - is a skill that each of us should do what we can to develop. Empathy can support us in our efforts at well-being. In order to do this, however, it must be allowed to realise its own direction.

Empathy involves understanding. To understand is to love, and there is no reason - no reason - to resist understanding. There is no reason to resist love.

Being understood - feeling as if you are understood - is an important part of well-being. Also, understanding can enable us - as individuals, and collectively - to act in ways that accommodate, or, at least, account for, a broad range of interests...

But understanding should not be allowed to extinguish expectation.

We might, for example, try to understand child sex offenders. Empathy would enable us to understand the factors that have shaped such a person's behaviour. It would help us to appreciate the many challenges that that person has had, and still has, to overcome. It would also support us in our efforts to affirm that person's status as a person - against our own, and against so many others', competing concerns. But such efforts at understanding should not see us condoning sex offences.

There is, I think, a tendency to excuse that follows understanding (and it is a general failure to understand, rather than a causal failure later on, that accounts for the lack of excuse that is so evident in daily life). This tendency to excuse is not undesirable in itself, but it is something that we must pay attention to.

It is difficult to balance understanding and expectation. As we move closer toward understanding, the difficulties involved in achieving this balance will become more apparent. But because understanding is so important to human well-being, we must do what we can.

Understanding should be allowed to inform our expectations, just as it should be allowed to inform our ethics and politics more generally. But it should not be allowed to undermine expectation itself.

Empathy is, as the term connotes, a concerned quality. It has a purpose outside of itself - and this purpose consists in its concern for other people. We should, I would suggest, allow it to encourage us in that concern.

Empathy does not, and must not, stop at understanding.

Don't know how or when?

2011-04-16T23:47:00.023+12:00

'People can only think in images,' Albert Camus wrote. 'If you want to be a philosopher, write novels.'
I think a lot about fiction. I am very interested in the potential that fiction has for conveying ideas that bring each of us, all of us, closer to well-being.

Voltaire, Dr. Seuss, George Orwell... The writers whose works I most admire are, really, writers of philosophy - but their works are not always presented as such.
There are a number of reasons for thinking that stories are especially fit for conveying ideas.

People are much more inclined to listen to ideas - to give them their consideration - if they are presented by people who they perceive to be on their side. It is, I would suggest, very easy to feel on the same side as someone who is telling you a story.

Stories almost always contain elements that readers recognise, and most stories are crafted so as to generate sympathy. Indeed, the success of a narrative often depends on that recognition, and on the sympathy that the reader feels for one or more of its characters. Sympathy enhances engagement, and it can help the reader to appreciate the merits of an idea.

Stories can portray a range of perspectives. Characters carry differing points of view, and locations often represent sentiments... In stories, ideas can compete with each other. In stories, there can be winners and losers.

Also, and (perhaps) most importantly, stories can be engaging. Dr. Seuss's stories - and I'm thinking, here, of the best ones: The Sneetches, and I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, to give just two examples - are engaging as stories, quite apart from the philosophy that they contain. It is this that has enabled their ideas to reach a wide readership.

As well as possessing the potential to benefit people, fiction has the power to harm. Put to the wrong ends, fiction can help to facilitate suffering. Propaganda is an effective means of persuasion, for many of the same reasons that fiction is. So, too, is advertising...

Fiction, I feel, is not a particularly honest medium - and this bothers me. Those techniques that enable ideas to be effectively communicated can be, and often are, used to manipulate readers into embracing ideas that are either harmful to themselves, or to other people.
I do not mean to suggest that most writers set out to manipulate their readers: although some do, most do not. But many writers fail to appreciate the power of fiction - and for this reason, they fail to respond to it. As a result, their works treat harmful ideas in irresponsible ways.
Fiction - and those who produce it - should aspire to honesty.
Writers should exercise care in deciding which ideas their works will present, and how those works will treat the ideas that they contain. There are, I think, a number of ways in which honesty can be worked into fiction - and I have faith in the ability of writers to arrive at creative ways of doing this. Characters might be made to convey certain viewpoints, and the interactions that those characters engage in might be made to resemble philosophical dialogue; characters could model philosophical virtues (Candide, in Voltaire's famous novel, is a character who develops his outlook on life with critical attention to the world as he experiences it); and poetic justice could conform more closely to the dictates of philosophical honesty...
As I say, I think a lot about fiction. Recently, I have found myself thinking about the merits of (what we might refer to as) mutually reinforcing works.
Camus wrote in a variety of forms. He wrote novels, essays, plays, short stories, articles... He planned some of his works in cycles. Each of these cycles concerned itself with a certain theme - and each consisted of a novel, an essay, and a play. The first cycle that he completed dealt with the absurd; the second, with revolt. He planned more. Each of the works within one of these cycles only partially treated the subject on which it was written. Camus understood that different forms are capable - only capable - of examining a theme in certain specific ways... Taken together, the works within a cycle give the reader a fuller appreciation of the themes with which each one is concerned. However, it is not only the works within these cycles that are 'mutually reinforcing': Camus's works carry common themes, themes that can only be fully appreciated when a large number of his works are taken together. Understood in this way, and supplemented with a detailed knowledge of his life, his writing reveals an exploration of what it is to uphold and defend a concern for humanity.
Camus's works, then, mutually reinforce each other. By writing in a range of forms, Camus was able to reach more people. By engaging his readers with the forms that they, as individuals, were ready to respond to, and by really engaging them using his skills as a writer, he was able to encourage his readers to other of his works, some of which were written in different forms. And because those works examined similar issues in different ways, he was able to present more of the implications - positive and negative - of those ideas that he treated. In this way, he was better able to engage his readers honestly.
A reliance on the mutually reinforcing nature of one's works brings with it a host of problems...
A writer's oeuvre is necessarily a collection of fragments - and if a writer is in any way successful, some of his or her fragments are bound to become more recognised than others. This is likely to lead to the implications explored in one or two of that writer's works being given a disproportionate amount of attention. This has certainly happened with Camus's work - and his philosophy has suffered from much misunderstanding because of it.
Another concern, closely related to the first, is that there is no guarantee that readers who find themselves engaging with one work will necessarily find themselves compelled to read, or even be aware of, others. And anyway, many 'successful' writers fail to produce more than one engaging work. It is a rare writer who is able to write well using a variety of different forms.
Moreover, there is no way to ensure that, presented with most of the implications of an idea (and a writer cannot hope to achieve more than this), a reader will be able to assess that idea for its strengths and weaknessess...
It needs to be said, in response to these concerns, that a writer can only take so much responsibility for his or her works - and that readers, as individuals, must also try to take responsibility for the ways in which they engage with such works. But these concerns also help to illustrate a broader point, and that is that fiction will not achieve honesty by any one means. (It also needs to be said that Camus did not rely only on the mutually reinforcing nature of his works.)
Fiction is a powerful means of communication - but it is not an inherently honest one. Responsibility requires that writers work at being as honest as they can be, and that they try to achieve honesty in a variety of ways.

Editorial

2011-04-14T17:27:00.003+12:00

There are people who would argue that it is a person’s character which determines whether or not his or her actions are right or wrong. I am not one of those people. I do think, however, that it is worth paying attention to character: some qualities are especially conducive to creative and critical engagement, which is needed both to determine and achieve morally desirable outcomes for ourselves and other people. We should do what we can to ensure that our thinking is as developed as possible.

It is, I think, important to distinguish between habits and – for want of a better word – qualities. Both can encourage creative and critical thinking. Some of the habits that seem to correlate with these forms of engagement include things such as reading, conversing with thoughtful people, and wearing black... But qualities are more fundamental to creative and critical engagement because, as well as being more deeply entrenched, they inform much more of who we are.

It is, of course, very difficult to say just how much we, as individuals, are able to improve, or even alter, our characters. I am inclined to think that the amount of responsibility that any one of us can claim for our actions, or be attributed with, (depending on how we find ourselves!) is minimal. But I also think that we must try to take as much responsibility for our actions as we can. Paying attention to character – nurturing it, directing it – is one way of taking responsibility. It might also support us in being more responsible: character does much to determine the forms that our actions find, and the ends that those actions achieve.

What qualities, then, are conducive to creative and critical thinking? We might expect to gain by attending to a large number. But three are particularly important: honesty, intelligence, and courage.

Honesty is one of the most important philosophical qualities. And it must be, before anything else, honesty with oneself. It is encompassing: it concerns itself with how we see ourselves, and with how we view others; it introduces itself to the ideas that we engage with, and to the arguments that we assess. Honesty is also very demanding: it requires that we seek out new ideas and opinions, and that we constantly challenge those that we carry with us. It encourages us to explore the implications of our thoughts, and it asks us to acknowledge even those conclusions that we would prefer not to have found.

Another important quality is intelligence. I am not willing to say that there is no such thing as natural intelligence; I do think that, for whatever reason(s), some individuals are more capable of intelligence than others. But I also think that intelligence is something that can be cultivated. More importantly, I think that it is important to recognize that the level of natural intelligence that a person possesses is not a significant determinant of anything in particular. The degree to which a person exercises his or her intelligence is a lot more important, I think, than how naturally intelligent that person is. People who exercise their intelligence, even if they are less intelligent than others, will achieve more in their thinking than those who possess a higher level of intelligence, but are less inclined to engage that intelligence in creative and critical thinking.

Courage is also an important quality. It is especially important in that it can support both honesty and intelligence. But it carries its own importance, as well. Thinking can be dangerous. Many accounts of the history of Western philosophy begin with what is, perhaps, the best illustration of this point – and this illustration, of Socrates and his death, shows that thinking is not for the timid.

Honesty, intelligence, and courage are, then, the three qualities of character that are most conducive to creative and critical thinking. They are qualities that each of us should try to cultivate.

Announcement

2011-04-13T07:11:00.005+12:00

Sam Berkley’s new play, Flightless Birds, opens tonight!

For more information, visit www.catalysttheatre.co.nz.

Think for yourself

2011-04-12T22:27:00.002+12:00

I was recently required to re-read a few chapters from John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.* Mill is an incredibly interesting thinker - and although I disagree with much of what he says, my admiration for him has only increased as I have become familiar with his work.

It was Mill's discussion of education that interested me most on this reading - because it gave me an(other) opportunity to explore my own views on the subject.

Mill is suspicious of state education:

A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government... in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.

Individuals, Mill thinks, should be free to engage with a variety of diverse opinions. State education, he reasons, threatens this freedom - because it encourages people to think the same way.

I think that Mill would have us sacrifice too much to diversity of opinion. I agree with him that individuals should be able to engage with a variety of diverse ideas. But the fact that it is beneficial for the individuals within any given society to have access to a wide range of opinions does not mean that any given child should be brought up to believe that there are compelling reasons to subscribe to the tenets of Christianity, for example. This justification - which is, essentially, that diversity of opinion is good for us - would see us treating children (who are, we must remember, individuals, and not, as so many people seem to see them, mere extensions of their parents' desires... for example) as means to others' ends.

It might very well be useful to have Christians around to defend even the more obtuse facets of Christianity. Having them around might give some of us the opportunity to sharpen our opinions against theirs. It might even enable some of us to become ourselves by deciding to become Christians. But it does not follow from this that any given child should be compelled (by whatever means) to become a Christian. In fact, the broader concerns that Mill's reasoning rests on urge us toward the view that children, as individuals, should be free from such compulsion: they should be invested with the ability to engage with, and assess a variety of diverse ideas. They should be free, that is, from attempts to restrict their thinking.

It is, I must add, possible to be a thoughtful Christian. The Christians that I have known could be collectively characterised by their thoughtfulness. But it would be naïve of me, or anybody, to suggest that Christianity itself is not opposed to the ends of rational enquiry.

Diversity of opinion can be incredibly valuable. And for a number of reasons. But in order for diversity of opinion to be valuable, individuals need to be able to assess the opinions that it exposes them to.

To be able to do this, children require the kind of education that will enable them to think creatively and critically. Such an education must be comprehensive - so comprehensive, I would suggest, that it would be beyond the means of anyone or anything other than the state to secure (with the exception, perhaps, of James Mill).

Mill seems to acknowledge the importance of critical thinking in his discussion of education:

All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects are evil; but it may very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person possesses the knowledge requisite to make his conclusions on any given subject worth attending to.

But what Mill sees as an appropriate minimum, I see as a raised bar. In order for a person to possess the 'knowledge' that is necessary to make his or her opinions 'worth attending to', that person must be given opportunities to develop a number of very important skills: skills that enable him or her to seek out, understand, and evaluate diverse opinions. Skills, that is, which require a broad, multidisciplinary education - one that has the cultivation of creative and critical thinking as one of its central goals.

We must continue to think critically about education. We should think carefully about its content and its aims. But I would suggest that the solutions to so many of the problems that we face - as individuals, and collectively - will be found in more education. Not less.

* John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1974).

It makes me anxious

2011-04-11T16:13:00.005+12:00

I had a troubling thought a few weeks ago.

I was thinking about the ways in which each of us is inhabited by our society. In many ways, our consciousness - that which is most intimate in us; that which informs everything that we do - reflects the culture or cultures within which we, as individuals, become ourselves. Our cultures, it would seem, determine most of who we are.

I was also thinking about how important it is that we think critically about culture: our own culture or cultures, and other cultures. It is important, because culture does so much to structure the environment that we find ourselves in. It helps to determine the quality of our lives.

But these two thoughts, taken together, lead to something of a dilemma. If we understand people (or the most characteristic aspects of individual people) as reflecting the cultures that have informed their development - cultures that should, because they are cultures, be assessed for their strengths and weaknesses - then it would seem that we must also commit ourselves to the critical evaluation of people.

I have been thinking a lot about this tension. It troubles me because it fails to accommodate the humanity that I think all people should be understood as holding.

I do think (and let me be clear, here) that we should assess other people's thoughts and actions - just as we should think critically about our own thoughts and actions. But I do not think that the status of people as people should be up for evaluation.

I should say: I am not convinced that it is entirely accurate to conceive of people as living embodiments of the cultures in which they are (or have been) situated: it seems to me that, in a number of ways, individuality - limitation, to use another word - distorts that which it reflects, and that this distortion itself informs culture... But I do think that this tension reveals the fragility of our humanity.

We must think critically - about ourselves, and about others - but we must also be very clear on the value of critical thought. We must constantly remind ourselves why critical thought is necessary - and we must hold in our minds the end at which we are directing it.

Our humanity is not something that is; it is something that we must affirm.

Now that I know that view must be right

2011-04-09T18:45:00.003+12:00

A lot of ethical attention is paid to how we spend our money. We are - generally speaking - very concerned with where our money goes. But more important than how we spend our money is how we spend our lives.

We spend a lot of time worrying about the consequences of our spending. Most of the consequences that we worry about, it has to be said, are the the ones that bear on our own well-being...

But we also worry about the broader implications of our financial decisions. We encourage each other to buy from certain companies, and to avoid a host of others. We urge ourselves to support certain projects, and to give what we can to charities.

Less attention is paid to how we earn our money - and yet, the decisions that we make with regard to how we earn our money do more to structure the world that we live in than the decisions that we make when it comes to spending it.

Most of us have limited financial resources. The amount of money that any given individual has to direct at the miseries of this world, once his or her own miseries have been allayed, is minimal. And anyway, there is only so much that money can do - for ourselves as individuals, and for the other people that we might try to help with it...

And yet, there are those who would have us believe that how we spend our money should be understood as one of the most pressing ethical considerations that we must make.

This focus on the ethical implications of our spending has troubling consequences. It encourages us in the view that, so long as we exercise diligence in deciding how we spend our money, we need not pay much attention to how we earn it. It distracts us from the considerations that we might make as to how we should earn our money, and - as a result of this - leads many of us to support (through our employment, but also through what we choose not to spend our time doing) the social and political structures that contribute to the sorts of consequences that we would direct our money against.

Instead of focusing on how we spend our money, we would be better off, both individually and collectively, if each of us made an effort to understand the broader implications of our most significant decisions, and evaluated our actions accordingly.

Article: Emma Hart

2011-04-07T22:23:00.000+12:00

Emma Hart is the author of a blog called Up Front. The following article first appeared on her website in November, 2010 as ‘The Up Front Guides: How to Be an Opinion Columnist’.

Okay, let's say your semi-lucrative career in politics or the media has drawn to a close. You decided it was time to walk away. Well, someone decided it was time for you to walk away. Here's the good news: your twatcockery is still an asset. You can become an opinion columnist. Newspapers are always looking for cheap content and recognisable names, and you get a small stipend and, far more importantly, you keep your name on the lips of the populace. No matter how many expletives are involved.

In fact, if you follow these few tips, you don't even have to already be famous. You'll still get to have people swearing at you – even if they can't remember your name.

The first thing to remember is that you are an opinion columnist. Having an opinion is a basic requirement for the job. The more opinionated you are, the better. Given you'll have to produce a column a week, it would help if you could instantly have opinions on things you've actually never heard of. You may think you have more than enough opinions as it is, but even the most misanthropic old bastard is going to run out of lawns to keep kids off eventually. If you do start running short on ideas, try applying what I like to call Micael's Law. Find out what someone else has said that's got people really offended, and then write about that, but try to be even stupider than the guy who had the idea in the first place.

The second thing to remember is that you are an opinion columnist. This is not to be confused with journalism. Your columns are supposed to be full of opinion, and completely devoid of fact. If you should ever have to incorporate factual matters into your columns, however tangentially, it appears to be de rigueur to get them wrong.

Just make shit up: that's your job. If it's inconvenient to your purposes for an accident to have happened at dusk in the rain, change it. If the law on vehicle hazards doesn't say what you need it to, change it. It's not your job to present facts, and it's frankly just confusing to your readership if you do. If the effects of prostitution decriminalisation don't suit your thesis, just lie. After a while, you won't even notice you're doing it. You don't even, apparently have hedge by saying 'I think the Green Party support gay marriage because they want to reduce our population.' Just say they do. Who the hell cares, anyway?

On that note, I wouldn't get too hung up on correct spelling or grammar or sophistimicated sentence structure. It doesn't appear that editors even read this stuff. They certainly don't fact-check it. After all, what generates more debate and controversy than something that's simply completely wrong?

Now, it can be a pretty rough-and-tumble dog-eviscerate-dog world, the columning game. The important thing to remember is that you're the only person who's real. If you're making generalisations about groups – women, gays, cyclists, prostitutes – they're certainly not people. They're groups. Collective nouns don't have feelings.

And if you're talking about the tragedies of individuals, they aren't real people either. They're happenings. They couldn't possibly read what you write. They're just names, in the news. They exist to provide fodder for your prejudices. Which is just as well, because there's really no way you could do your job if you constantly had to think about the effects of your robustly-expressed opinions on the people you're opining about.

You're still real, of course. So if people make comments that hurt your feelings, it is perfectly fine to get all publicly offended by them. It's not like you actually called anyone a bad parent, or a slut, or a traffic hazard who deserved to die. It's completely unfair and unjustified for anyone to get personal at you. After all, you're entitled to a platform for your opinion, right?

To read more by Emma Hart, visit Up Front.

There's nothing pure enough

2011-04-06T21:01:00.004+12:00

I am often surprised at the women I find myself attracted to. Sometimes, it takes me a while to realise that what I've been feeling is actually attraction...
Obviously, being attracted to someone isn't enough to make getting involved with that person a good idea. It would be a good piece of advice, if someone would give it, to stay away from the ones who surprise you!

We can, I think, learn a lot about ourselves by paying attention to attraction. Our attraction can reveal a lot about what we do and do not value. It can also tell us what our needs are. If we listen long enough, it will tell us which of those needs are permanent, and which ones are only passing...

Knowing our needs can enable us to treat them.

Understanding attraction probably won't enable us to do anything much about it. But it might help us to appreciate who we are, and why we are who we are.

Mini-interview: Sam Berkley

2011-04-04T07:14:00.001+12:00

Sam Berkley is an actor and playwright. His latest play, Flightless Birds, opens next week at the Musgrove Studio.

What can we expect from Flightless Birds?

Flightless Birds is a play about three guys about to go away on their big OE. The night before the big flight (the first time overseas at all for some of them), they meet up to hang out, catch up, have a few drinks and give New Zealand a bloody good send off! When one of the guys happens to bring along a girl, and that girl happens to be the ex-girlfriend of one of the other guys, things get a bit tricky and the group are forced to deal with some old (and new) tensions emerging.

The play examines some of the ideas we Kiwis have around the necessity of travel, and also looks closely at the nature of old friendships. Over the course of the play the fellows confront the idea that while they have known each other for ages, it doesn't necessarily mean they're great friends now.

When I spoke to you this time last year, I asked if you were planning to write another play. ‘Absolutely,’ you told me – but you didn’t know when, and you didn’t know what about. Where did you get the idea for Flightless Birds, and how did the story evolve?

Well, as you say, I knew after T.W.A.C.A.S. that I had the writing bug and that it wouldn't be long before I felt the itch to get writing again, but certainly at that point I had no idea what I would be writing about or what story or idea I wanted to explore. Generally with my writing I let an idea sit in my head for a long time before I actually put pen to paper. I like to mull it over and consider what I like about it and why I feel it is something I want to explore as a concept.

It was kind of different with Flightless Birds because of a few different circumstances. We (Catalyst Theatre Company) actually had another play that was in development which was scheduled for production in our 2011 season for the same slot that Flightless Birds is in now. Unfortunately, due to availability and time requirements, the writer for that script had to pull out to focus on other projects – so we suddenly found ourselves with a booking in the theatre but no play to put on! Seeing as we needed to generate something relatively quickly and I was chomping at the bit to get writing again, I thought it would be a good opportunity to experiment with my process a bit and try write something in a more instinctual, intuitive manner, rather than the slow and steady style I had used for T.W.A.C.A.S..

I knew that I was going to be travelling in 2011, as I had a trip to Japan, Switzerland and England planned with my girlfriend and I thought if I was going to write about a bunch of people who have never really travelled before it would be a good idea to do it before I actually went overseas myself.

So I wrote the first draft in about a month and while the draft has progressed from the original idea (for example, in the current draft not all the characters are leaving the country for the first time) there is still a great sense in the play of that trepidation and excitement that I was feeling as a first time traveler.

I also found myself drawn to the ideas I spoke about before of old friendships and how sometimes friendships are forced to change. I'm not really sure where this thread of the story came from, but I guess it's mostly just to do with the period I am at in my own life. I'm 26 now and when I look back at high school and even university I can hardly recognize myself, I have changed so much. Occasionally I will bump into an old friend from high school and while it's still all friendly and it's nice to see each other, sometimes I don't feel like we really know each other anymore. It got me thinking and imagining a group of friends that are hanging onto an idea of themselves and the friendships they used to share instead of realizing that friendships do change and it's okay for them to change.

Those things are probably the main influences on the story of the show and other elements of the play like setting and style were formed by me setting myself goals in the writing of the script – exercises that helped me to focus my efforts and be decisive about the direction I wanted to steer the script in.

Your last play, T.W.A.C.A.S., was very successful. In putting together Flightless Birds, what lessons have you been making use of from your experiences with T.W.A.C.A.S.?

Probably the biggest lessons have been about my process as a writer, the habits that I need to create to help me generate material and then refine it. For instance, for some reason when I am first writing material I find it helps me to work late at night, often at two, three, or four o'clock in the morning! I have been known to stay up writing ‘til it gets light if I'm on a roll. During T.W.A.C.A.S., I found this, too, but my mistake was that I then tried to take that behavior and apply it to other stages of the process, like editing and developing the show into further drafts. This does not work for me so well. It's great when you're getting into a writing frenzy to be up late with no distractions, coming up with as many weird and interesting ideas as you can, but when editing you need to be in a totally different mindset. I can only edit effectively if I get up around 10am and just tap away at it over the day. I need to distract myself and have other things to do during this process, because if I get too bogged down in it I lose perspective and forget what changes I should be making and why.

I've definitely learned after T.W.A.C.A.S. that habits are important and that the habits that are effective for one part of the process are not always so good for other parts. Becoming more confident and familiar with what my habits are has helped me to write more effectively and efficiently.

Will Catalyst be staging any other plays this year?

Yes, we have two other plays in the pipeline for later this year. The first is called Heroes, written by Jonathan Hodge. It's a theatrical look at our national game, rugby. It examines some of the people who play, why they do, and tells the story of a group of friends who are brought together and forced apart by their love of the game.

The second show, late in the year, is a black comedy called Making a Killing and is written by Ben Van Lier. This play gives the audience a look inside the skewed world of a bunch of psychopathic merchant bankers and will have the audience questioning the role that money and greed can play in our society.

Heroes will be staged from the 22nd September to the 1st October, and Making a Killing is on from the 17th to the 26th November.

Both plays are on at the Musgrove Studio, just off the Auckland University quad.

To find out more about Catalyst Theatre Company, and for information on Flightless Birds, visit www.catalysttheatre.co.nz.

For me and you

2011-04-03T11:29:00.000+12:00

Last night, a friend emailed me an essay she had just completed for a Political Studies paper. The essay was on freedom and consensus, and it was very interesting.

In my reply to her email, I set out my views on freedom. I thought I would share a portion of my reply:

I agree with the idea that rational discussion, although it might not deliver us to a consensus on all topics, will take us a long way in the right direction.
I have major concerns about the extent to which freedom can foster positive relations between people: certain instances of freedom allow people to do and say things that are strongly detrimental to others' well-being (especially the well-being of those who are anyway vulnerable)... I do think that certain freedoms need to be respected. But I think we need to evaluate each of them against human well-being. Where a freedom does lead to more harm than good, we should challenge it.
I think that freedoms generate responsibilities: if it is necessary, for human well-being, to give people freedom, then it is also necessary, to human well-being, for people to exercise those freedoms responsibly.

A defense of my position would require me to say a lot more. But these three paragraphs express the essence of my thinking on freedom.

And as for people!

2011-04-02T15:23:00.000+13:00

What does it mean to think for oneself? Today, almost anything - or so it would seem.

We have so much freedom, and so many opportunities - each of us, all of us - to search out ideas, to evaluate those that we encounter...

But so many of those who would pass themselves of as thoughtful are only uncritical conduits of received information. Most of those who try to convince others that their opinions are worth holding are motivated by a desire to be seen to know, rather than by a desire to know, or (and better) by a desire to arrive at an understanding that will promote human well-being.

I have so little time for so many of the people who would try to engage me. It's not that I don't want to think. And it's not that I don't want to be challenged by people whose views I disagree with. (Clearly, I do.) I just wish that more people thought in such a way that made them worth listening to.

It's a continuum, to be sure - but at some point along that continuum almost everybody assumes some small level of responsibility, at least, for the quality of their thought...

Update

2011-04-01T09:32:00.000+13:00

This month, I will be interviewing Paul Heaton, an English singer-songwriter. I will also be interviewing Neil Ieremia, the Artistic Director of Black Grace, one of New Zealand's most prominent contemporary dance companies. I will be offering opinions on what responsibility consists in, and on the relationship between fiction and philosophical honesty. I will also be reflecting on Barack Obama.

Mini-interview: Iris Pahau

2011-03-30T08:38:00.005+13:00

Iris Pahau is co-chair of the New Zealand Coalition to End Homelessness.

Tell me about the Coalition to End Homelessness.
The New Zealand Coalition to End Homelessness was established in 2005 to bring together like-minded groups and individuals that wanted to take action to end homelessness.
The NZCEH has held four National Forums and worked alongside Statistics New Zealand to establish a New Zealand definition of homelessness.

How big a problem is homelessness in New Zealand?
To be honest, we don’t know. There have been figures bandied around from 5,000 to 10,000. But when people come up with those figures, we are not sure what they are including in that count. Are they counting the people on the streets, ‘the streeties’, or are they counting the overcrowded houses, are they counting people in caravan parks? No one knows. That is why the NZCEH is calling for a Parliamentary Inquiry into Homelessness. We need to know how big the problem is and what the pathways are to homelessness.

What are some of the factors that lead to homelessness?
There are a multitude of factors. A common quote in the homelessness world is – ‘every person is one catastrophe away from homelessness’. Research evidence shows, however, that a large proportion of the homelessness population come from institutions, from evictions, from family violence, from prisons – the list goes on. We suspect that legislation contributes to homelessness. An example of this is when a child who is in the care of CYPFs – they turn seventeen years, then are ‘released’ out of care. Those people fall into a huge gap in society which eventually leads them to prison and/or homelessness. A legislative change for an agency to have custodial responsibility for that person until they are integrated into society would stop these people from becoming homeless.

What can New Zealanders do to help combat homelessness?
Firstly, New Zealanders could lobby their Members of Parliament to support the New Zealand Coalition to End Homelessness’ call for a Parliamentary Inquiry into homelessness. The inquiry would give us all a better picture of what contributes to homelessness so that we can all combat it.
Secondly, society needs to remove the stigma surrounding the homeless population. There is also a perception that people who are homeless are there by choice. That is not true!
You all could become a member of the Coalition and help us ‘End homelessness by 2020’ which is our Vision.

To find out more about the New Zealand Coalition to End Homelessness, and to learn more about how you can support efforts to address homelessness, visit nzceh.onlinegroups.net.

Thought: Martin Brooks

2011-03-28T07:27:00.000+13:00

Martin Brooks is pursuing his Masters degree in English at the University of Auckland.

[In a public place] I saw a guy taking photos of girls’ legs and butts. What bothered me? The social stuff, sure. On an image level, purely related to representations, it was not that he had made a photo (exist) of a girl’s backside, but that he was putting in my head – and girls’ and all observers – the image of him hunched over masturbating like a wild monkey on cocaine. He created an image I found foul, but it wasn’t the one he thought it would be.

...but it all works out

2011-03-27T12:49:00.001+13:00

Earlier this month, I posted an opinion entitled 'Nothing you can sing that can't be sung'. In it, I used the example of prostitution in an effort to illustrate the relationship between politics and ethics. I was not satisfied with the piece when I posted it - and I am not satisfied with it now. It does not accurately express my views on prostitution; nor does it convey my thoughts on the relationship between politics and ethics. This weekend, I am posting an opinion on each of these issues, in an effort to capture what I think about them.

Politics should be understood as an extension of ethics. It can be construed as one facet of our ethics.

Liberal democracy requires responsibility. It requires responsibility of us in establishing and upholding it. But it also requires us to act responsibly within it.

We, as citizens - collectively, but also individually - decide the terms of our cooperation. Where we have the power to decide our own laws, we have a responsibility to ensure that the laws that we enact are as just as they can be. We have, that is, a responsibility to promote human well-being.

Freedom is important. But it is only instrumentally important: freedom is not valuable in itself. Freedom is important because of its connection to human well-being. It is right that we should grant ourselves certain freedoms. But freedoms allow us to act in bad ways as well as good, and we must acknowledge this. Because we must grant ourselves freedoms, and because freedoms can lead to great harm, we must do what we can to exercise them responsibly.

The limits of liberal democracy are all too obvious. Politics - if liberal democracy is what politics must be! - will only deliver us to a certain point. From that point, we must rely on the rest of our ethics for direction.

Politics should be understood as an extension of ethics. And our ethics should encourage us toward responsibility.

It's getting hard to be someone...

2011-03-26T11:56:00.002+13:00

Earlier this month, I posted an opinion entitled 'Nothing you can sing that can't be sung'. In it, I used the example of prostitution in an effort to illustrate the relationship between politics and ethics. I was not satisfied with the piece when I posted it - and I am not satisfied with it now. It does not accurately express my views on prostitution; nor does it convey my thoughts on the relationship between politics and ethics. This weekend, I am posting an opinion on each of these issues, in an effort to capture what I think about them.

There is nothing wrong with prostitution as such. If all that prostitution ever involved was the exchange of money and sex between freely consenting adults, prostitution might even make the world a better place. Like other transactions, prostitution has the potential to be mutually beneficial for the parties engaging in it. Properly practiced, its impact on third parties could be positively harnessed.

In our society, most instances of prostitution cannot be characterised as 'the exchange of money and sex between freely consenting adults' - even if that is what those transactions appear to involve. So many other considerations bear on instances of prostitution that this description does not capture what actually takes place.
Those instances of prostitution that involve coercion - be it strong or subtle; of those who engage in prostitution, or of those who are only affected by it - must be challenged. Coercion should be construed broadly. In understanding and addressing it, we must act with compassion.

Other considerations that complicate actual instances of prostitution concern the values that we hold, both individually and collectively, and the responsibilities that we have - to ourselves and to others.

Our understanding of prostitution, and of the issues that involve themselves in it, should be informed by an appreciation of our interconnectedness.

In the first opinion that I wrote on prostitution, I said: 'Prostitution is abhorrent only insofar as (say) labouring is.' What I did not mention is that - in my opinion - there is much that is abhorrent about labouring. Employment should engage a person's faculties, result in reasonable remuneration, and allow an individual to live a full and balanced life...

There is nothing wrong with prostitution as such. It is the problems that associate themselves with it that we should be challenging.

You have to decide what comes first

2011-03-24T20:21:00.000+13:00

Albert Camus's 'Reflections on the Guillotine' is one of my favourite philosophical essays. It was written against capital punishment.

Death, Camus says, must be 'outlawed.' He employs many arguments - some of which are more compelling than others. The one that I have found to be the most resonant concerns the relationship between human responsibility and justice: Nobody is ever totally responsible for their actions. For this reason, nobody should be rewarded completely ('not even,' we are told, 'the winners of Nobel Prizes'!), and nobody deserves to be punished absolutely.

The idea that our politics should accommodate, and in some ways reflect, human nature is one that I find compelling. There is, I believe, a lot that our politics can learn from us...

Clearly, there is much in human nature that we would not want to see reflected in our politics: aggression, cruelty, and selfishness are qualities that we all exhibit - but they are qualities that we should try to contain. We do, however, exhibit stronger qualities - compassion, trust, understanding - and a politics that borrows from these will, I think, be superior to one that does not.

Our politics should forgive us our vulnerabilities, and encourage us in our strengths. Because capital punishment fails to capture the contours of human weakness, it can be described as 'inhuman'.

We cannot expect politics to correct human nature. Instead, we should do what we can to ensure that the institutions that we enact complement who and how we are.

* Albert Camus, 'Reflections on the Guillotine,' in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).

Call for contributions

2011-03-23T15:34:00.000+13:00

I am currently looking for people to contribute to blukeko. If you would like to write a short article or story for the site, please let me know. (You can email me at blukeko@gmail.com.) If you know somebody who might like to write something, please tell them about blukeko - and this message.

Interview: Dan Weijers

2011-03-21T07:24:00.001+13:00

Dan Weijers is a graduate student of Philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He co-founded, and is co-editor of, the International Journal of Wellbeing, an open access academic journal committed to interdisciplinary research on well-being.

How did you come to be so interested in well-being?

I used to study marketing, which I found very interesting, but also troubling. I came to the opinion that the most effective marketing often achieved its ends by making people unhappy and dissatisfied with what they have. Marketers spend billions of dollars learning what makes people tick and then use this information in ways that often make people less happy. I started to wonder what the world might be like if even half of the money spent on market research was used to fund research on improving people’s wellbeing. I soon realized that I wanted to investigate what wellbeing actually is, what the good life for the one living it consists of. This question is traditionally a philosophical one, so I started to study philosophy. Many other academic disciplines attempt to answer questions about wellbeing too and I have done my best to keep abreast of the wellbeing research from a number of fields of inquiry.

Tell me a little bit about the focuses of your own research into well-being.

My multi- and interdisciplinary wellbeing research has led me to several different, but all related areas. I am most interested in what happiness and wellbeing actually are. For example, I ask: does happiness consist in just pleasure and the absence of pain, getting what you really want, or the right combination of a number of things like friendship, virtue, and meaning? Hedonists argue that pleasure and the absence of pain are the only things of non-instrumental value for a person (and hence the only ultimate constituents of wellbeing). Most of my philosophical research tries to defend this claim (often by drawing on recent research in psychology and neuroscience).

I am also very interested in how the concepts of happiness and wellbeing can be used in practice to make our lives go better for us. One of the hottest topics in this area is how we should best use subjective measures of wellbeing to track progress in society and inform public policy. I argue that the research in this area needs to be more interdisciplinary to avoid making expensive mistakes – we need to better understand what we want to measure, why we want to measure it, and how well that thing can be measured.

Well-being is an extremely important topic. Is it being given much academic attention?

Wellbeing is receiving more and more attention all the time. It has always been discussed by academics in one form or other, but an influx of new methods of measuring wellbeing, and aspects of wellbeing, has led to an exponential increase over the last ten years or so. I think that the moderate, but increasing, amount of attention is certainly justified – wellbeing is one of the few academic topics that everyone has a direct personal stake in.

Tell me about the International Journal of Wellbeing.

The International Journal of Wellbeing is the only interdisciplinary and open access journal on wellbeing. The aim of the IJW is to promote both interdisciplinary academic research on wellbeing and the broadest possible dissemination of that research.

The IJW is the brain child of positive psychologist Aaron Jarden and myself. We were already collaborating on his International Wellbeing Study and an article on some philosophical challenges to positive psychology when we began discussing the lack of journals on wellbeing (many of the existing journals had huge backlogs of articles waiting to go to print). We also lamented the fact that there was no broadly interdisciplinary and open access journal on wellbeing. We soon agreed to fill this gap. Fortunately, many of the leading wellbeing researchers from around the world agreed that an interdisciplinary and open access journal on wellbeing was a good idea and joined the editorial team. One of these researchers, Nattavudh Powdthavee, took on the additional responsibility of becoming a co-editor with Aaron and I. Now the IJW has an editorial team of over fifty experts in wellbeing research from twelve countries around the world.

The response to the launch of the IJW has easily rivaled that of our search for collaborators. It’s just over two weeks since we launched the first issue and we have received over five thousand visits from over three thousand unique visitors from eighty countries around the world – that’s about one visit every few minutes.

Why is interdisciplinary research on well-being particularly useful?

When I’m reading wellbeing research by philosophers, psychologists and academics from other disciplines, I often notice that the assumptions they are working from are highly disputed in other disciplines, sometimes they have even been soundly refuted! If academic research on wellbeing is really aiming at uncovering useful truths about what wellbeing is and how we can improve it, then it should not be insular. Truths and answers that work within one discipline (because they adhere to the regular assumptions) are often useless in other disciplines or for actual problems because the assumptions that they are based on just don’t hold in the other disciplines or in the real world. If more research began by establishing shared realistic assumptions, it could draw on a wider range of existing knowledge, answer more questions, and be more useful for solving problems in the real world. Interdisciplinary research on wellbeing is particularly useful because so many different disciplines research wellbeing (so there is so much to be gained from interdisciplinary collaboration) and improving wellbeing is one of the most important real-world problems.

The Journal has a strong focus on philosophy, psychology, and economics. Are these three disciplines more suited to contributing to research on well-being than others?

The IJW is using the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, and economics as a temporary ‘base of operations’, if you like, since those are the main areas of we three co-editors’ expertise. These three disciplines certainly do have a strong history of researching wellbeing, making them an adequate base to build from. We have made an effort to include experts from other disciplines in our editorial team to make sure that we have the capacity to review submissions from other areas. We are also planning on continuing to grow the IJW to provide better coverage of other disciplines. After assessing what kind of response the journal gets, we will decide how best to incorporate other relevant disciplines, such as public policy, epidemiology, and neuroscience.

One of the benefits of open access publication of research is that it can help to facilitate the generation of academic research. It also allows people who are interested in academic research, but who are not academics (and who would not otherwise have access to academic resources), to engage with that information. Did this second consideration bear on your decision to create an open access journal?

It certainly did. It’s not just academics that are interested in wellbeing and we aim to provide content that is accessible to educated members of the general public. We have also considered including sections of the journal specifically for general audiences. However, any movement in this direction will have to wait until the IJW has established a reputation for being academically ‘top-notch’ (since top academics are unlikely to publish new ideas in outlets that seem targeted at the general public).

The International Journal of Wellbeing can be found at www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org.

Mini-interview: Jacqui Knight

2011-03-19T08:29:00.003+13:00

Jacqui Knight is trustee and secretary of the Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust.

Tell me about the Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust.

The Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust began as a drive to save New Zealand's overwintering habitat of the Monarch butterfly, but we soon learned that people all over the country adored the Monarch butterfly. But we soon learned that New Zealanders knew very little about our endemic butterflies and moths, some of which were very beautiful, and all worth preserving, so we changed the trust deed to protect all butterflies and moths of New Zealand and their habitat, some of which are at risk from environmental factors.

You will find a great deal of information on our website – and can leave queries for help, or information to share, in the forum.

And we urge you to consider becoming a financial member of the Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust – because not only do you receive four information-packed newsletters throughout the year, but your subscription goes towards our projects, to help with the conservation of New Zealand’s endemic and native butterflies and moths and habitat.

How did you come to be interested in butterflies?

I have always been interested in nature. My mother helped my brothers and I raise swan plants and caterpillars, and learn about metamorphosis, and I in turn did that for my sons. When one couldn’t find the answer to a question (Where do Monarchs go in NZ in the winter?) we pursued the matter, finding information through writing letters to the editor of two newspapers. That began a relationship with people all over New Zealand, people who love and respect the Monarch butterfly.

Monarch butterflies are not uncommon. Why are they in need of protection?

In New Zealand I did not think they needed any protection, but when I realise how the world is changing, my views are changing. For many years everyone in the country could recognise the Monarch – in fact most adults who have been born in New Zealand that I speak with can recognise only two New Zealand butterflies, the Monarch and the Cabbage White. However, new immigrants do not know our butterflies (or perhaps much about New Zealand’s natural history), and are often afraid of anything that is ‘natural’ or ‘wild’. Many children, too, are more interested in playing computer games than getting outside and knowing the outdoors. So perhaps the Monarch and our other flora and fauna are in need of protection.

On another note, the migration of the Monarch in America is under threat. There is more information about that on the World Wildlife Fund’s website.

What are some of the benefits of engaging with, and helping to sustain, the natural world?
We are part of the natural world. If we don’t sustain it, we will lose it. We learn to love and preserve our environment – and thus our future – if we appreciate what it has to offer. Look at what is happening in Japan at present – climate change, and the tsunami after the earthquake. All of those man-made structures were destroyed by nature. We need to be much more in touch with nature than we are – we are learning the hard way. We will lose touch with biodiversity if as children we don’t learn about it.

To find out more about the Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust, and to learn about the butterflies and moths of New Zealand, visit www.monarch.org.nz.

Ever since the watermelon

2011-03-17T21:14:00.000+13:00

Honest thought is necessarily approximate. There are things that we are able to have knowledge of, but there is also a lot that we do not know. As individuals, at least, there is a lot that we cannot know.

Philosophical honesty is extremely important. It is a quality that thinkers should try to cultivate.
Philosophical honesty can be understood as a commitment to truth. It involves rational thought - but it also carries with it an awareness of the limits of rational thought. Above all, it involves being honest with oneself.

Philosophical honesty can afford the thinker an appreciation of the quality of his or her thought, and of the limits of his or her knowledge. As well as helping us to appreciate what we do and do not know, it can lead us to an understanding of how much we can know. This is, perhaps, the most broadly significant of its benefits.

The philosophical issues that we, as individuals, think about are frequently very complex. Many factors bear on them. And yet, we are often forced to engage with them, to pass judgment on them...

If you read the newspaper this morning, you were probably engaged by a philosophical issue. You almost certainly formed an opinion on it. But can you honestly say that you had an understanding of all of the factors pertaining to that issue? Do you really know very much about the relationship between prison sentences and deterrence, for example? Or anything at all about the psychological factors motivating paedophiles? And yet, you formed your opinion. In some sense, you had to...

If we are going to pass judgment - and we cannot live our lives, or sustain our societies, without passing judgment - honesty requires that, in our thinking, we account for what we do not, and for what we cannot know. Honesty requires that we leave at least some conceptual space around those issues of which we are, in any way, ignorant.
It is worth noting that because honest thought is necessarily approximate, it is also frequently hypothetical. Honesty requires that we treat the conceptual space surrounding issues with respect. It requires us to be accommodating of contingencies...
Philosophical honesty is difficult to achieve. It involves discipline, and it involves commitment. It can also be frustratingly vague in its conclusions. But because most philosophical issues are very complex, approximate thought is the only accurate way of treating them.

Spent a long time running from the weather

2011-03-16T10:33:00.007+13:00

This is not a personal blog. Its aim is not to give an account of myself, or my life. It is socially oriented: it directs itself toward human well-being. All of my posts relate to people.

Not everything can be stated in general, 'objective' terms. And some observations cannot be communicated without reference to the personal. It is for this reason that I have chosen to make this post more personal than many of the others.

I have found myself, recently, thinking about highs and lows - about the good and the bad. Looking at my life, I have come to notice that the good and the bad seem to cycle. Of course, a lot of this has to do with interpretation: it is my linking together, in my mind, certain sorts of happenings that allows me to understand the good and the bad as cyclic. We all generalise when thinking about the past, we try to make sense of it, we look to see what we can carry with us as we go forward... But I am not convinced that interpretation entirely, or even mostly, accounts for this apparent cycle.

When things are going well, the good seems to accumulate. When things are going badly, a lot of things seem to go badly. And while good and bad things can be observed over any period of time, when I ask myself how things are going, I am usually able to reply by saying, 'things are going pretty well,' or, 'things are not going so well'...

But things do not stay as they are. At some point, the balance tips - and if things were going well, they start to go badly; if things were going badly, they start to go well...

It seems to me that this process - this cycle - is largely out of my control. When things are going well, I can make the most of it: I can use my good fortune to work toward success, to do things that I see as valuable. And when things are going badly, I can certainly make them worse - by fixating on my misfortune, by acting so as to frustrate the people around me... My actions can exacerbate some of the effects of the cycle, just as they can help to combat them. But they cannot overcome the cycle itself.

If the good and the bad is indeed cyclic, perhaps the best we can do is enjoy the good when it comes, and endure the bad when it arrives. If the bad is indeed cyclic - if, like the rain, we cannot avoid it; if, like the rain, it eventually passes - then maybe we should simply try to make the best of it when it comes.

This is not to say that we ought not to strive for the good. And I would not want to say that we should encourage people to endure depression stoically... But if some lows are inevitable, perhaps trying to make the best of them is a better strategy to adopt than struggling against them, resenting them...

I could, of course, be wrong. Making the most of the bad might be a way of ensuring that we salvage what good we can. But resigning ourselves to it might prevent us from achieving the happiness that we could otherwise attain.

Editorial

2011-03-14T09:06:00.003+13:00

Thinking is incredibly important. But simply making an effort to think is not enough. We must also pay attention to how we think. Thought should be both creative and critical.

Critical thinking is celebrated by philosophers, and for good reason. Critical thinking involves assessing an idea for its strengths and weaknesses. Its main focus is on revealing the faults inherent in an idea. Properly practiced, it is ruthless and thorough. It can expose unjustified assumptions, imperfect reasoning, and false conclusions.

Critical thinking is indispensable. It can help us to avoid making harmful mistakes. Subjecting an idea to critical evaluation is the most effective means of discovering that idea’s flaws – short of putting it into action.

But critical thinking will not achieve all that we need thought to achieve. By itself, it will only reduce. It is incredibly useful – but it is only instrumentally valuable. One of its merits is that it can help us to achieve an appreciation of its limits. Critical thinking can reveal the strengths and weaknesses of an idea, but it cannot tell us what to do with that information, and it cannot develop alternative suggestions.

Creative thinking is also necessary. Creative thinking involves generating new concepts. It is the source of original ideas – ideas that we can use when we are deciding how to act. It can suggest new directions; it can imagine unthought-of possibilities…

These two ways of thinking can relate to each other in nuanced ways: Creative thinking can help us to think critically. Imagination can help us to appreciate the various ways in which a course of action might fail. And critical thinking can hand us the colourful threads of failed theories, which we might then weave into new and more promising ones.

It is worth considering which of these two ways of thinking is more useful. Critical thinking is less dangerous than creative thinking. It is true that critical thinking can only reduce – but it can also prevent us from making ghastly mistakes. Creative thinking is less cautious. The ideas that it generates could, if translated immediately into action, lead to catastrophic consequences…

Only a commitment to critical thinking can allow us to depart from it. It would be irrational to dispense with it altogether. We should, of course, strive to accommodate creative thinking. But critical thinking must stand between ideas and action.

If we are prepared to critically evaluate ideas before putting them into action, we should allow ourselves to seek out ideas wherever we might find them. Ideas could come from any number of places. As well as exploring the reaches of rational thought, we might look to art, to fiction, to myth, to imagination, to spirituality...
It is important that we think. But we must also pay attention to how we think. Creative thinking can furnish us with ideas that might help us to improve our lives. Critical thinking will enable us to assess those ideas for their strengths and weaknesses.

Let your honesty shine, shine, shine

2011-03-13T22:05:00.002+13:00

Philosophical honesty is indispensable. I think it is important that, in thinking about ideas that bear on action, we are honest with ourselves. Sometimes, I find myself talking about honesty.

Whenever I mention 'honesty', though, the person I'm speaking with assumes that I mean interpersonal honesty - honesty toward others. Truthfulness, if you like. People - the people I end up speaking to, at least - seem accustomed to the idea that honesty is a 'virtue'. While I think that there is a lot to be said for interpersonal honesty, I do not think it is as important as philosophical honesty. In fact, I find interpersonal honesty, as an ethical value, somewhat problematic...

Honesty necessarily relates to truth. Generally speaking, truth is something that we could use a lot more of. Seeing things as they are - ourselves, our societies, our world - can have instrumental value: it can help us to better work toward human well-being. It can be a very good thing.

Interpersonal honesty can promote truth. When we are honest with each other, we are presented with alternative views on our actions, our sentiments, our values. Considering alternative views is one way of arriving at the 'correct', or most correct, one... It is one way of coming to recognise the flaws inherent in our thinking.

I have to admit, my thoughts on interpersonal honesty are not developed. (I do appreciate it, though, when people are honest with me - even when I am being told things that I would rather not have to hear, and even though it often takes me a while to come to appreciate such honesty.)

Perhaps interpersonal honesty should be evaluated against certain sorts of outcome...

Honesty can help to realise certain positive outcomes, but it can also stand in the way of them. Being honest with a person who has the potential to do a lot of good for people, but whose actions are causing more harm than good, can enable that person to see that their actions are irresponsible... But it can also cause resentment. Undoubtedly, how that honesty is taken, and the response that it engenders, will depend on a number of factors - one of which will be how that honesty is expressed. The most significant factor, I suspect, will be the direction that that honesty achieves: directed at an individual's potential, and at the most harmful of their failings, honesty will achieve more than if it is directed only, and relentlessly, at that person's failings...

Interpersonal honesty should aim at truth - but only because truth can connect, in relevant ways, to human well-being. Interpersonal honesty, then, should aim at human well-being. But it should be constrained by human well-being, too. That is to say: interpersonal honesty should be evaluated, or assessed, against human well-being.

If interpersonal honesty is going to be offensive - and honesty often is - then it must derive justification from a concern for human well-being.
Honesty is not valuable in itself. 'I was bored,' is not - to give one, seemingly random, example - sufficient justification for offensive honesty.

Cold country

2011-03-12T16:49:00.004+13:00

I have been thinking today about the ways in which nations interact. Specifically, I have been thinking about the extent to which, and the reasons why, national governments assist people living in other nations, especially in times of disaster...

International relations are governed by the self interest of (nominally) independent nations. While I think that self interest has a legitimate role to play in international relations, I do not think that it should be the only, or even the main, factor informing the way that national communities relate to one another.

Instead, I think that international relations should be grounded in responsibility. National communities are necessarily constrained in what they can achieve - in the domestic sphere as well as internationally - and the well-being of people living in proximity to one another is (or, at least, can be) greatly enhanced by the existence of clearly defined national communities. But pursuing self interest at the expense of (or even only without regard for) the interests of others is irresponsible; moreover, it should be construed as immoral.

I understand the need for leaders to justify their actions to the people that they represent. For a number of reasons, though, I find, 'They helped us, so we'll help them', and, 'If we help them now, they'll help us later' insufficient.

National government can be understood as one level of community - comprised of a multitude of smaller communities, and existing within a framework of communities, some of which are significantly larger. And national government is, I think, the level of community at which assistance to large numbers of people who are struggling through disaster can be effectively coordinated.

National government is one of the levels at which human solidarity can most effectively direct itself toward global expression...

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung

2011-03-10T18:23:00.003+13:00

I do not think that there is anything wrong with prostitution as such. As a medium of exchange, it is on a par with a lot of other transactions - transactions that we all make, and on a daily basis. Prostitution is abhorrent only insofar as (say) labouring is.

Nonetheless, it frequently involves much that is unacceptable. Prostitution is mired in questions - most of which relate to the issue of coercion. And these are questions that we should be trying to address.

Governments have a responsibility to combat instances of prostitution that involve minors, instances of prostitution that are undertaken by individuals because they lack a meaningful set of options, and instances of prostitution that involve some other kinds of coercion. Because of the power that democracy affords us, we have a responsibility to ensure that our government does.

It has to be said that our government does do a fair amount. There is, of course, a lot more that could be done - and we should be encouraging our government in that direction... But reflecting on what our government has and has not done with regard to such instances of prostitution helps to reveal the extent of what governments are capable of achieving.

The political institutions that we enact must be informed by, and supplemented with, a robust and workable ethical framework. Ethical considerations should inform the policies that governments adopt. As importantly, our ethical obligations should be understood so that they are able to achieve what politics cannot...

In our society, prostitution is heavily involved in coercion (both social and financial). There is, in our society, 'unproblematic' prostitution - prostitution that is only morally suspect insofar as it supports the existence of unacceptable prostitution... But 'unproblematic' prostitution is uncommon. In our society, most instances of prostitution are problematic.

Individuals have a moral responsibility to refrain from engaging in, or condoning, unacceptable instances of prostitution.

But our ethical obligations should be construed in broader terms.

As a society, we have unhealthy attitudes toward sex. Insofar as we condemn sexual acts between freely consenting adults, our actions generate much of the harm that 'unproblematic' prostitution entails. Our unhealthy attitudes toward sex account for much of what is seen as harmful about prostitution. Where we allow such attitudes to infect instances of 'unproblematic' prostitution, we frustrate efforts at addressing those instances of prostitution that should be understood as abhorrent...

Political arrangements are unable to overcome much of what must be overcome. We should, of couse, work for the best political system that we are capable of. But we should also recognise that, in order to achieve a society that secures human well-being, we need to enact an ethical framework that complements our politics.

If it's the world that you've been thinking of

2011-03-09T09:09:00.001+13:00

A little while ago I read a short - and not uncritical - book on Karl Marx. The book is called Why Read Marx Today?* and it was written by Jonathan Wolff. It's an excellent book; I ended up reading it twice...

In it, I came across a passage from Marx, which I have since been carrying with me. In my mind, the passage transcends the details of Marx's thought; it reveals the essence of his concern:

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.

Whatever your views on Marx, the nobility of that sentiment cannot be denied.

* Jonathan Wolff, Why Read Marx Today? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Article: Lauren Sheil

2011-03-07T07:26:00.010+13:00

Lauren Sheil is the author of a blog called The Earworm. The following article first appeared on his website in August, 2010 as ‘Renouncing religion’.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about renouncing religion. It started about a week ago when author Anne Rice went on Facebook and renounced her association with Christianity.

In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.
- Anne Rice

I must say that while I applaud Ms. Rice for standing up and saying this, I’ve never experienced life in a church that is anything like what she describes. Growing up my church welcomed all comers. We accepted the broken, those struggling with the societal norms of sexuality, were home to several feminists, advocated for the use of condoms and the pill, never asked or suggested who people should vote for, and one year my Sunday-school teacher was a micro-biologist.

I first learned the term ‘legalism’ in high-school. I was stunned! Stunned that someone could take the words of Jesus and twist them into something so rigid and ugly. I was even more stunned that some people could so completely ignore the words of Jesus and base a so called Christian worldview on modern teachers who were clearly manipulating religion for their own gain.

In 1987, televangelist Jim Baker was sentenced to prison for tax evasion and his marriage collapsed as a result of the same kinds of sin that people in my church were completely open about. Baker’s disgrace, and revelations that his wife was addicted to prescription drugs, came only a few years after our own pastor had confessed of a similar sin. My heart went out to the Bakers, but I prayed even more for those who so viciously attacked them. I couldn’t help but ask, ‘What kind of God would stand for this?’

I was recently asked if I was a man of precept or a man of principle. There must have a been a blank look on my face because my interrogator went on to clarify that a man of precept follows the rules while a man of principle interprets them and adapts along with the situation. With that clarification in mind I had to say that I definitely like to think of myself as a man of principle and I think Jesus was too. But that doesn’t mean you can throw out the precepts, they are there for a reason, you just need to get at the principle that informed them in the first place so that you can make an intelligent judgement.

Getting at the principle behind the precepts is what Jesus was doing in the Sermon on the Mount and it’s what he meant when he said he had come to fulfill the law. Starting in verse 21 of Matthew chapter 5, Jesus gives six clarifications of some very popular precepts. He starts by stating the precept, ‘you have heard it said’ and then giving the principle, ‘but I say to you’. In every case the principle both frees his audience from a rigid interpretation of a popular precept and guides them deeper and closer to the heart of God; don’t murder becomes guard against anger, don’t commit adultery becomes be careful of lust, etc.

So to Anne Rice and all those who are struggling with legalism let me take a stab at some of the precepts you may find so offensive and point to the heart of God.

You have heard it said, the church is anti-gay, but I say to you: expressions of sexuality are private and those who may not fit your definition of normal are still your neighbour and deserving of love and respect. (Matthew 22:37-40)

You have heard it said, the church is anti-feminist, but I say to you: women are a vital part of your community and just as capable as men of leadership. (Judges 4:4-5)

You have heard it said, the church is anti-artificial birth control, but I say to you: sex is awesome, enjoy! But regardless of your marital status do not risk bringing a child into this world if you are un-prepared to be a parent; it is a far greater sin to abandon or neglect a child than to prevent their conception. (Matthew 18:10)

You have heard it said, the church is anti-democrat, but I say to you: the Lord can use all governments for His purpose; vote based on principles and know that no matter what, the Lord is in control. (Romans 13:1,2)

You have heard it said, the church is anti-science, but I say to you: the universe is an amazing place; explore, study, and understand. (Genesis 1:28)

I’m glad Ms. Rice started this conversation and I hope that she and others like her are able to find a home in a gay friendly, feminist friendly, birth-control friendly, democrat friendly and science friendly community of believers. If not, she can call me, I know a few.

To read more by Lauren Sheil, visit The Earworm.

He didn't do some rain dance

2011-03-06T17:45:00.000+13:00

I am not someone who enjoys reading for its own sake. I read a lot. And there are books that I love. But reading, for me, is a means to an end - and, for a long time, that is what it has been.

While I accept that some books are intended solely as entertainment, I do not see this as an excuse for irresponsible writing (which is what so much of today's fiction amounts to). Writers, because of the power that they wield, have a responsibility to communicate worthwhile ideas - for the sake of their readers, and for the sake of those people who are affected by the actions of their readers.

If your aim, as a writer, is to communicate ideas - and let me be clear: it should be - then you should also aim to communicate those ideas as effectively as possible. Essential to effective communication is concision. Voltaire understood this. 'Twenty folio volumes will never achieve a revolution,' he wrote. 'It is the little portable volumes of thirty sous that are to be feared.' But the point can be made in fewer words: nothing can be said in a thousand pages that cannot be said in one hundred and fifty.

I do wish somebody had said this to the Russians. If they had, I would have read Dostoyevsky by now, and a lot more Tolstoy, too... (Perhaps they did - perhaps whoever told them took too long to make his point...)

Concision is conducive to effective communication. But it is not as accommodating of honesty. Writers should take care not to sacrifice too much to expediency. Communication must also aim at balance.

Writers should serve people. In order to do so, they must communicate worthwhile ideas. Essential to the effective communication of ideas is concision.

Too many Florence Nightingales

2011-03-05T23:35:00.003+13:00

Nothing is more important than people. And I have a lot of respect for those who direct themselves at the improvement of human well-being. But I am not convinced that all such efforts are worthy of the same respect.

Well-being is a complex thing. It cannot be easily reduced; it cannot be expressed in simple equations. Unfortunately, those who understand disadvantage in simple terms do their part to exacerbate many of the problems that lead to it.

We live in a broken world - an irreparably broken world. Hardship is everywhere. It is on our streets; it is in our suburbs.

It is on the other side of the world, too.

But those who cannot see the hardship that exists around them would, I think, be in a poor position to address the hardship that exists in other countries.

I cannot say that I have ever really understood the appeal of immersing oneself in the poverty of developing countries. It probably says a lot about me - but I have never understood those wistful looks, those 'one day's...

I understand enough to know that there is more than a desire to help lying behind such sentiments.

Individual actions are vital to promoting human well-being. And I have only become more aware recently of how effective community can be at promoting well-being. But - and unfortunately - most of the hardship that exists in other countries is not the sort that can be adequately addressed through individual effort, or through community.

Glamorous overseas lifestyles take many forms. Those who are concerned to promote human well-being would do well to stay put, and to direct their efforts at altering the agreements and precedents that govern relationships between nations, and that account for so much of the hardship that people living in developing countries endure.

Those who direct themselves at the improvement of human well-being should look to it that they get to where they are headed. But more than that, and because they might not get there, they should pay careful attention to those ideas that they contribute to and condone along the way.

And you can't just expect it all to go away

2011-03-04T16:49:00.002+13:00

A concern for human well-being is (and necessarily) a concern for the well-being of all human people: not only for those around us, and not for those on the other side of the world as well - but for all of the people who exist, for those who will exist, and even for those who have existed.

I think that there are good reasons for prioritising the well-being of those generations of people who are alive today. But I also think that we need to pay close attention to the future, given that our actions will have many significant implications for the lives of people to come. I also think that we should pay attention to those who have died, as some aspects of well-being extend beyond death...

But, and as I say, we must give priority to the well-being of those people who currently exist.

Our actions have implications for people of other generations. This is a relatively easy point to grasp. It can be illustrated, in the first instance, with reference to people of different, but (what we tend to think of as) living generations. Parents and children, for example. And those of us who have lost loved ones can appreciate how our actions impact on some of those aspects of well-being that were, and still are, important to those people who we have lost... But our actions also impact, or will have had an impact, on the people of the future.

Relevant to any discussion of our obligations to future generations is the issue of uncertainty. We do not know how many people there will be, and we cannot know what all of the consequences of all of our actions will be.

Considering this uncertainty brings forth one of the strongest reasons for giving priority to those people who are alive today: we cannot be certain that there will be any people around in three hundred years' time, and it would be unreasonable for us to sacrifice hugely significant portions of our well-being for people who might not exist. A concern for human well-being is, firstly, a concern for the well-being of those who are capable of achieving it - and those most clearly capable of achieving it are those people who are alive.

Concentrating on this uncertainty also helps to reveal that our actions have implications not only for the world in which future generations will find themselves, but on the demographics of those future generations themselves. Possible people are dependent on us for their existence.

These two issues - the implications of our actions for the world of the future, and the impact that our actions will have on the demographics of future generations - must be taken together. The decisions that we make with regard to one of these issues will have important implications for our obligations with respect to the other...

If, for example, we are unwilling or unable to curb our devastation of natural resources, we will have a moral obligation to limit the number of people that we bring into the world. We might even have an obligation to not bring people into the world. If, on the other hand, we continue to allow couples the freedom to have as many children as they desire, we will have a moral obligation to do what we can to ensure that the world that their offspring find themselves in is able to provide for their well-being.

Considerations of this kind are complex. But they are considerations that must be made. Neglecting our own well-being will not help to secure the well-being of future generations. But neglecting theirs won't, either.

No, no, no, you're wrong - when I was a boy...

2011-03-03T14:56:00.001+13:00

In primary school I invented a game, which I used to play by myself. Every now and then, I would come across a swarm of ants on the asphalt. I would put one of my feet in the middle of the swarm and let the ants (but not too many of them!) climb up my leg. Then, I would run across the playground! At the other side, I would check to see how many had made it across with me.

I think the aim was to keep one or two. Maybe it was more of a hope. I was probably more curious than anything else...

Most of the time, they would all fall off. I think there were a couple of occasions where an ant or two remained...

God knows what I did to the ones that managed to hold on!

Update

2011-03-01T08:55:00.000+13:00

This month, I will be interviewing Dan Weijers, co-editor of the International Journal of Wellbeing. I will be posting an article by Lauren Sheil, author of The Earworm. I will also be offering opinions on the relationship between politics and ethics, on honesty and approximate thought, and on the quality of the institutions that we should try to enact...

Article: Daniel Wilson

2011-02-28T07:24:00.000+13:00

Daniel Wilson is currently pursuing his Masters degree in Philosophy at the University of Auckland. This piece is entitled 'Active individual responses to a national catastrophe'.

Images of a devastated Christchurch in the form of photographs and video clips circulated online extremely soon after the earthquake itself. Within hours, national newspapers posted slideshow images including a partially destroyed Christchurch Cathedral. Before the end of the day this was followed by harrowing video footage of shocked residents crying in the street, the demolished Pyne Gould Corporation building, the bloodied face of a woman pulled from a crushed vehicle, locals running from collapsing buildings, and rescuers attempting to remove large masonry from around a motionless victim. For many years those of us physically remote from such catastrophic events could only be horrified by such images and feel relatively helpless to assist in an immediate and useful manner. We could observe the events unfolding and read about the crisis from a distance, but for many of us the objective distance resulted in a feeling of remoteness and an inability (though not necessarily an unwillingness) to contribute. The delayed, often impersonal, and limited avenues through which a member of the public could contribute often caused those immediate emotions of distress and urgency, feelings that would usually prompt one to act, to be transmuted into sentiments of concern or sympathy. This catastrophic event, however, has shown how developments in technology can replace impersonal, sometimes delayed, forms of public response with highly personalized, immediate means of individual action.

Text messaging allowed outsiders to contact those who they were concerned for (and even assisted in the rescue of those trapped within the debris). Recent changes in social processes and technologies have given online communities the means to be more effective in coordinating swift responses to major events. Facebook and other social networking sties were soon active with local and international messages of concern for loved ones and expressions of sadness and condolences for those affected by the quake, followed quickly thereafter by notifications of various online appeals, text donation numbers, and events in support of Christchurch. Various Facebook pages quickly arose to coordinate offers of accommodation and transport for those who need it. The following day, an online bargain buy site was emailing subscribers promoting the Red Cross Christchurch relief fund rather than their normal deals. Organizers were able to coordinate, promote and stage a gig in support of the victims within a week, and a website was set up providing access to music downloads for quake donations. In short, various technologies that either did not exist, or were in their infancy only fifteen years ago, served to bring many people closer to the catastrophic events unfolding in the Christchurch CBD and surrounding areas. In particular, online and mobile technologies have provided the capacity for many to engage, not simply as voyeurs, but also as active agents through the near instantaneous dissemination of digital video and images that allowed outsiders to observe the traumatic events afflicting the city coupled with social media technologies that facilitated the swift response of concerned parties (witness the impact of online public pressure on the Lotteries Commission to donate money to Christchurch earthquake relief efforts).

Nightly we are presented with images of devastation that occur large distances from home. Often the dutiful consumption of grim media reports (‘if it bleeds, it leads’) engenders a habituated response of sympathy followed by a muted quietism. Typically the victims remain as depersonalized anonymous individuals in photographs, or incomprehensible statistical figures who bear no relation to our everyday lives (consider the 2010 Haiti earthquake and Pakistan floods). It is not often that we are in such close proximity to this kind of major upheaval. The Christchurch quake brings home to everyone in New Zealand the multitude of concerns of those affected and left homeless by the quake. It also conveys the real human toll, beyond the depersonalized statistical toll, that puts individual names and faces to those who have not survived.

The swift and active public participation in the events of the Canterbury quake is a positive contrast to the often passive public response that accompanies news of many disasters around the world. While the fact that this is a New Zealand tragedy has motivated many across the country into action, I additionally suspect that the efficacy of the public reaction to the Christchurch quake can be partly attributed to our effective technologically mediated social environment which provides rapid access to important information and the means for individuals to engage in coordinated communication and collaboration with other concerned parties. International emergencies, by contrast, often provide the New Zealand public with impersonal avenues for aid (typically financial) that relieve largely anonymous victims. In the case of Haiti, not only was the disaster physically remote, but as the poorest country in the Western hemisphere it lacked the financial resources and the technological means to tap into online social networks in the same way. This leaves the public in these poorer countries at a further disadvantage through their inability to engage with major disasters in the ways that I have described.

As has been exemplified by the events following the Christchurch quake, those who are physically distant from traumatic events now have the capacity to actively participate in personalized, timely, and useful ways: through raising awareness of crises through online social media, coordinating and participating in events and campaigns involving many distributed parties in a prompt manner, and providing financial resources to relief organizations efficiently. Technological developments have enabled New Zealanders to move beyond depersonalized collective action and instead act as individuals who are vastly more involved and engaged with what is happening around us (at least nationally) than has ever been possible in the past.

For links to various Christchurch quake appeals, see: http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/christchurch-quake-appeals-launched-4038581

Information on the various ways in which creative organizations are supporting Christchurch can be found here: http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/news/industry-news/2011/feb/81747-creative-support-for-christchurch

‘Songs for Christchurch’ can be downloaded through the following link: http://musichype.com/songs-for-christchurch-donation

For information on the Student Volunteer Army see: http://www.sva.org.nz/

For offers of accommodation, see ‘Quake Escape’ here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quake-Escape/113483948727733

For an article on Lotto donations for the Christchurch quake: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4708826/Half-of-Lotto-sales-to-go-to-Christchurch-Minister

Moon and sea

2011-02-27T08:51:00.001+13:00

I have always found Māori culture beautiful.

I count myself as one of the privileged few who went to Papatoetoe North Primary School. There, we learnt about Māori culture. We learnt about the language - colours and numbers, but also some important concepts - we were taught songs, and were told stories. I recall learning about Rangi and Papa, the sky father and the earth mother, and their rebellious children. I used to enjoy the stories about Māui: how he and his brothers fished up the North Island, how they slowed down the sun, how he stole the secret of fire...

I have just finished reading a book by Cleve Barlow, called Tikanga Whakaaro.* I have always found Māori culture beautiful - but this book has revealed to me another dimension of its beauty.

The book has given me an appreciation of how encompassing Māori culture is. As well as expressions of wonder, progress, love, it involves itself with hunger, survival, war. As well as concerning itself with the extraordinary, it takes on the everyday...

Māori culture - like all cultures - has developed in response to humanity. All of us, as people, can benefit from learning about it. By immersing ourselves in other cultures, we can arrive at a fuller appreciation of ourselves, and of the world around us.

It is true, I haven't seen very much. But of the things that I have seen, Māori culture is one of the most beautiful.

* Cleve Barlow, Tikanga Whakaaro: Key concepts in Māori culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

...to me it makes a lot of sense

2011-02-25T09:57:00.000+13:00

Racism is not as simple as many people seem to think it is. Complex differences between people do exist - and, for a number of reasons, these differences frequently correlate with skin colour.

'Racism', as the term is used, is deeply problematic - and not only because of what it involves. The term conflates and distorts the set of problems that it is supposed to encompass. In many ways, it stands in the way of efforts to address those problems.

Racism is discrimination on the basis of race. But ethnicity is a multifaceted thing: it involves complex cultural differences which have their roots in history, and which manifest themselves socially. Skin colour is, perhaps, the least complex of racism's many facets - and yet, discrimination on the basis of skin colour is what 'racism' is commonly reduced to.

Discrimination on the basis of physical features is necessarily more than just that.

One could argue (although I probably wouldn't) that equating racism with discrimination on the basis of skin colour alone is, in itself, racist, because it fails to understand the nuances that racism involves, and because at least some of its consequences are, in themselves, discriminatory...

'Racism,' as a term, is not equal to the set of phenomena that it is taken to represent. It is too simple. And - and unfortunately - simplicity will only deliver us to a certain point.

If we are going to confront the problems that plague us, we need to address ourselves to their complexity.

Clouds and waves and flame

2011-02-24T07:39:00.003+13:00

The hardest thing about the passage of time is loss. Loss takes everything; it changes what was. If we could somehow know that the past is there somewhere, existing, waiting to be lived through again... we wouldn’t have to let go, or explain, or blame. We wouldn’t have to reinterpret and reinterpret everything, over and over again…

And even when their kids were starving

2011-02-23T08:16:00.001+13:00

Friendliness is generally thought of as a good thing. And a lot of friendly actions only have positive consequences. But friendliness, in itself, cannot serve as a substitute for genuine concern. It is important that we bear this in mind.

Friendliness can do a lot to facilitate human well-being. Being around friendly people can make life more pleasant. It can also help to ensure that other people are benefited by our presence.

But friendliness is not always indicative of a concern for people. It can be very self-serving. Being friendly towards others can get them onside, can charm them into doing things that they otherwise might not do... Friendliness can mask a person's true intentions; it can obscure their values. To paraphrase Shakespeare: one may smile, and smile, and be a c*nt.

Friendliness can be a very good thing. But we should, I would suggest, pay more attention to cultivating and expressing a genuine concern for other people than we should to being friendly.

We should look to it that our friendliness does not permit, or encourage, harmful behaviour in other people. And we should be prepared to stand up for what is right. In order to do this, we need to be able to withhold approval...

As far as we can, we should try to trust others. But we mustn't be naïve. No one action can reveal the quality of a person's values.

Friendliness is no substitute for genuine concern.

Interview: Conor Gearty

2011-02-21T07:42:00.009+13:00

Conor Gearty is Professor of Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics. His web-publishing project, The Rights’ Future, ‘explores the history, development, and current success of the human rights ideal’.

Tell me a little bit about The Rights’ Future.

After I gave up being director of LSE's Centre for the Study of Human Rights I was thinking about ways in which I could still reach wider audiences, now that I was back in a regular law department. The openness of the intellectual culture at the centre had really appealed to me. Years ago I had already tried out a CD project about human rights – it had been aimed at lawyers and was marvelous, all of us involved thought – but it bombed completely. Ahead of its time, maybe. But now the time seemed right for a web-based engagement. I had an excellent web expert already: Caroline Mockett had set up my personal web site. So over last Summer I conceived the structure of the thing, along the lines of a cross between a railway line and a CD – main tracks, side tracks, common tracks and so on. My wife Diane had the brilliant idea of using videos to introduce each segment so as to give the thing life. We launched in October and end in February – so about five months, twenty weekly tracks. I have been really pleased with how loyal and engaged my readers have been. They also contribute comments as we go along so it has been vital for them to stay engaged – and many have, I am delighted to say.

What led to you becoming so interested in human rights?

It grew out of my work on civil liberties in the UK in the 1980s. Even then human rights were being talked about, as was a Human Rights Act as a solution to the problems of freedom which I was describing in my work at the time. In those days I was hostile to human rights as I assumed that any human rights law would be bound to give judges priority over the legislators. But this has not turned out to be the case in the UK, so I am more comfortable with the topic now than I was then.

Who has had the strongest influence on your thinking about rights?

My first co-author Keith Ewing showed me how you could be a good legal scholar while also being actively engaged in society, trying to argue your case and push your point of view. The two were not mutually exclusive – this is the valuable lesson Keith Ewing taught me. Apart from Keith, other influences on how to think about rights have included Martti Koskenniemi, the late Richard Rorty, and the late John Griffith (from LSE) – interestingly, maybe all of these are in differing ways rights skeptics!

The language of rights is used on both sides of the political spectrum. Those on the right, for example, speak of the right to private property, and the rights of corporations. You seem to have great confidence in rights as a tool of democracy. Tell me about the relationship between human rights and social democracy.

Well this is what my web book is all about really, trying to fill the term ‘human rights’ with a strong social democratic content. The first track in the project is all about this, looking at the rights out there in international law and seeing in them far more than the civil and political stuff you usually associate with rights – all these other social and economic aspects (rights to health, education, water, and so on). Working through this whole spectrum of human rights, one can see immediately that it’s a topic that is about more than just liberty and freedom. It is about having the chance to lead a successful life. And I think that the making real of a promise to make such a life possible for all is what social democracy is about today in these post-communist days.

What are the biggest human rights challenges facing us today?

Track six deals with exactly this. Obviously there is the total rejection of human rights possibility. More likely is that the term gets taken over by the powerful and rich who use it so as to be able to pretend to be respecting human rights while they continue with their unjust and unfair conduct.

As well as promoting ideas, much of your work is concerned with encouraging people to contribute to the various debates that surround those ideas. Do thinkers have a responsibility to encourage others to engage with ideas?

Yes. Academics have such freedom to think, and such attractive working conditions. The least we can do is throw our ideas out there for the public to engage with.

The Rights’ Future can be found at www.therightsfuture.com.

That is, I think I disagree

2011-02-20T09:21:00.006+13:00

We exist in a state of confusion. And the confusion that permeates our political arrangements has come to inform our more personal judgements. People have always found it difficult to agree. There are, of course, good reasons for trying to accommodate difference. But difference has become entrenched - and this has led to some very negative consequences.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, no matter how malicious those opinions might be. And this is, I think, the way that it should be: people should have the freedom to think, and to think what they like. But when opinions inform action, we must pay attention to them. The reason for this is that if we don't, other people are likely to be harmed because of them.

There are, of course, limits to what a person can do - regardless of what he or she thinks. These limits have their basis in the social and political culture within which people act. They serve as a sort of safeguard against maliciousness. But - and unfortunately - these limits are not fail-safe.

Tolerance has its place. No one person is always (or even mostly) right; and we can all benefit from listening to each other. But to say that no one of us is always right is not to say that there is no right: it is not to say that we cannot - individually and collectively - come closer to appreciating what is right...

We should pay attention to difference. Where it benefits us, we should celebrate it. But we must be discerning. Difference is not valuable in itself, and much of difference is harmful.

Difference has become entrenched. Cultural considerations discourage us from passing judgement on the thoughts and actions of others. 'You could be wrong,' we are told. 'And anyway - each to, you know, each to his own.'

Confusion is easy to exploit. And it is exploited. Confusion is exploited by irresponsible people - people who are other-regarding only insofar as being so promotes their own interests. Tobacco companies, alcohol companies - the people who both work for them and can be held responsible for their actions - take advantage of the confusion that liberalism entails, and end up - and very deliberately - exploiting vulnerable people...

There is, as I have suggested, a lot to be gained by paying attention to difference. But confusion is undesirable. We should strive to understand the causes of confusion. We should pay close attention to the ways in which our attitudes towards difference exacerbate confusion. And we should try to separate out those areas of thought in which confusion plays a legitimate role from those in which its presence is only harmful.

Exploring our differences can enable us to better secure human well-being. But difference needs to be harnessed. Combating confusion will help us to forge a better world for all of the people who live in it. It is, I would suggest, this goal that we should aim at our confusion.

They must be joking

2011-02-19T09:25:00.002+13:00

Underpinning freedom of expression is a coagulation of claims, which, when taken together, suggest that if each of us is allowed to express our opinions, all of us will be better off. One of these claims involves the assertion that freedom of expression can lead to truth. The idea is that when people exchange ideas, they gain an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of views, and are able to supplement those of their views that are untenable with better ones.

All of those who think that the free exchange of ideas necessarily leads to truth, and many who only think that it is better than the plausible alternatives, view freedom of expression as a wholly good thing.

You might think that I am one of those people. I am not.

When it comes to freedom of expression, I have serious misgivings.

A lot of people push harmful ideas. Many of those who express such ideas have the means to ensure that they are listened to. And for a variety of reasons - including a lack of time, a lack of attention, a lack of interest, and underdeveloped thinking skills - most individuals are insufficiently equipped to assess the various ideas to which they are exposed.

I am not one of those who think that freedom of expression necessarily leads to truth; nor am I one of those who hold that, because the alternatives are so ghastly, freedom of expression is a wholly good thing. And yet: I am committed to the exchange of ideas. I am committed to the idea that individuals should be free to engage with a variety ideas - both good and bad, and even those that are obviously harmful. And I go out of my way to seek out, and - at times - publish, ideas that I disagree with.

My commitment to the exchange of ideas is part of a broader commitment: to creative and critical thought. My commitment to creative and critical thought also involves a commitment to the development and exercise of thought, to responsibility, and to philosophical honesty. My commitment to creative and critical thought rests on the claim that, when exercised in certain ways, thought promotes human well-being.

Situated, as it is, within this broader commitment, my commitment to freedom of expression involves the view that, as individuals, we each have a responsibility to do what we can to ensure that the views that we express are motivated by a concern for human well-being. That wider commitment also encourages the idea that the conclusions that we arrive at as a result of this responsible exchange of ideas should be translated into action, and utilised for the benefit of people.

Freedom of expression is very important. It is something that each of us should be entitled to. But we will not be deserving of this freedom until we are willing to exercise it responsibly.

Mini-interview: Lindsay Perigo

2011-02-17T07:46:00.000+13:00

Lindsay Perigo is the principal of Sense of Life Objectivists.

Tell me a little bit about Objectivism.

Objectivism is the philosophy of Ayn Rand. It runs admirably counter to every ghastly, fashionable, contemporary assumption and bromide. Readers wanting to find out about it should read her works — don't take my word for anything that follows! I am not an ‘official’ spokesman for Objectivism, and there are matters (not fundamental) on which I disagree with Ayn Rand. Aristotle is reputed to have said, ‘I love Plato, but I love the truth even more.’ That is the attitude one should adopt towards all great thinkers.

With all of those caveats out of the way, here goes:

Objectivism says reality is real, there's only one of it, and it is what it is independent of wishes and fantasies. Objectivism rules out any supernatural dimension and the alleged inhabitants thereof such as gods, ghosts and goblins. (My own term for religion is ‘goblinism’; for Christianity, ‘Goblianity.’)

Objectivism says man's mind is competent to discover this reality, and reason is its means of doing so. Reason is the application of logic to the material provided by the senses. Objectivism rejects the phony traditional philosophical divide between rationalism (logic is valid but the senses aren't) and empiricism (the senses are valid but logic isn't). Objectivism says the senses are valid and logic is not only a valid but also the only means of integrating the data they provide.

Objectivism says reason is a faculty of the individual. And it is volitional, a matter of choice. An individual doesn't have to exercise reason, unless he chooses to live and pursue happiness. He doesn't have to choose to live and pursue happiness... but if he does, he has to engage his rational faculty.

Objectivism says reason and volition are what render an individual autonomous: a free agent with free will. In this matter, men have no choice; their autonomy is a fact of their nature.

Objectivism says by virtue of this fact, morality is a necessity: a code of reality-derived values to guide a life-choosing, happiness-pursuing individual in his choices. (Note: morality, for Objectivism, is not something dictated by a goblin or a group. It is not, as goblins and groups have traditionally insisted, a synonym for self-sacrifice, but rather, a tool of self-fulfillment, my personal term for which is ‘selffulness’. ‘The purpose of morality,’ said Ayn Rand, ‘is to teach you not to suffer and die but to enjoy yourself and live.’)

Objectivism says the concept by which we recognise and ratify this fact is individual rights; that the proper social arrangement for men who have chosen to live and pursue happiness is one based on those rights, embodying individual freedom and its economic expression, capitalism. Such an arrangement outlaws the initiation of force by one individual against another. The enforcement of this prohibition is the only legitimate function of government. It is not for government to proscribe or prescribe our choices, as long as we are not imposing them on anyone else. By Objectivism's standards, most of what government currently does is illegitimate and most politicians are evil bastards, hellbent on making choices which are none of their business either illegal or compulsory. Ayn Rand would have called them ‘power-lusters’. In modern parlance, they are ‘control freaks’.

The foregoing is an all-too-brief summation of the Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. In esthetics, Objectivism glorifies man the hero — the passionate valuer... choosing, pursuing and achieving selfful values. By Objectivist standards, most contemporary art stinks.

What is it that appeals to you most about Objectivism?

The fact that by its standards, most contemporary art stinks.

I went to university to pursue a music degree, completely unprepared for a world of pretentious non-entities who claimed that the sound of breaking glass, traffic and chainsaws was both musical and beautiful. At this point in my life I had never heard of post-modernism and had no idea of the extent of academia's capture by this evil. Alas, I had never heard of Objectivism either. When I did encounter Objectivism, many years later, it made sense of the horror to which I'd been exposed at uni. For that, I remain grateful to Ayn Rand, just as I remain rather cross with the perpetrators of the horror, whom I call ‘pomowankers’ and ‘filth’. Most contemporary academics, in the humanities at least, are pomowankers and filth.

Give me some examples of the ways in which Objectivism's principles have influenced the choices that you have made.

Just one. The occasion when I turned my back on TVNZ and pronounced its news and current affairs ‘braindead’. I could not continue in that environment and remain true to my values. No amount of money and prestige could compensate for the self-denial that remaining there would have entailed. By conventional standards, this was a crazy choice to make. By my own standards, no other choice was possible.

I wish I could say all my other choices in life have been informed by the same degree of selffulness. Some have, some haven't. There have been spectacular clunkers — lack of due diligence, bad choices. Sometimes I think my epitaph should be, ‘What was I thinking?!’ In this respect I like to tell myself that one must keep one's reason constantly engaged—and, to paraphrase an old adage from the theatre: one is only as good as one's last choice!

That said, to beat up on oneself unduly is irrational too, a hangover from religion, which enjoins a permanent guilt-trip. One cannot expect to be exposed to poison daily, from birth, for years on end, and not be poisoned to some extent. Keeping faith with the hero in one's soul doesn't have to mean saintliness or infallibility. It does have to mean ‘conscientiousness’. The best approach, I think, was expressed by another hero of mine, the astounding American freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll: ‘...to do the best that can be done, and then to be resigned...’

As an Objectivist, do you feel that you have any responsibilities to others — and if you do, how far do those responsibilities extend?

Emphatically not, except one: to leave them alone. Not to force anything upon them. All adult interaction should be voluntary, by mutual consent (and ideally, to mutual advantage — Objectivists call this ‘the trader principle’). Of course, if one voluntarily enters into an arrangement with another, as in a contract, then one has a responsibility to honour it, having freely chosen to commit. But there is no such thing as a pre-existing responsibility to others.

Charity and help — if that's what you're asking about — like everything else, should be a matter of choice, not compulsion. Love and generosity are destroyed by the attempt to bestow them indiscriminately and promiscuously in the name of some goblin- or group-ordained ‘duty’. Benevolence cannot occur at gunpoint... and the gun is duty's enforcer.

The gun's enabler is the doctrine of sacrificialism, the belief that we're placed on this earth to sacrifice ourselves to other humans — or, these days, to plants, animals and ‘the planet’. All of this is vicious poison, of course — the world is perishing, in Howard Roark's words, from an orgy of it — and Objectivism is its magnificent antidote.

To find out more about Objectivism, and to read some of Lindsay’s Perigo’s opinion pieces, visit www.solopassion.com.

They'll fill you in with all their sins

2011-02-16T09:24:00.010+13:00

Not all advertising is manipulative. But the fact that most of it is makes manipulation the only place to start when discussing it.

Advertising appeals to our vulnerabilities. It sells itself to our weaknesses. By targeting our common insecurities, advertising plays on our fears, and coerces us into doing things that we otherwise wouldn't.

Worse than this is the practice of creating new wants - which advertising does with reckless abandon. The tools that it uses are so powerful that they are even capable of creating new needs.
By directing itself at our emotions, and at those of our desires that cannot achieve expression, advertising threatens our psychological health.

If you think that this sort of advertising is a necessary part of competition, then you have, I would suggest, misapprehended the nature of competition. If competition is valuable, it is because it makes everybody better off - in the long run, at least. Sooner or later, apologists for capitalism will find themselves in this corner. But in order to make everybody better off, competition must adhere to certain rules. By selling those people that it is supposed to be making better off, advertising violates those rules that are needed to justify competition.

I have very little respect for those people who work in advertising: If you think that the choice between money and people hasn't been made, you are wrong. And those of you who would insist that they were not capable of making the choice in the first place are mistaken...

But not all advertising is manipulative. Advertising that makes us aware of beneficial products - products that cater to, or might cater to, our actual needs and legitimate wants - is useful. And advertising that is equal to the products that it is pushing should be celebrated.

But all the rest, we must struggle against.

Editorial

2011-02-14T07:16:00.000+13:00

The free press plays an important role in facilitating democracy – but in our society, and in societies like ours, the free press is failing to fulfill its functions. It has a difficult role… But its importance as an institution prevents us from making excuses for it.

The free press should do at least two things. It should act as an advocate for its readership: it should investigate issues of importance, and work to ensure that citizens are sufficiently equipped to hold the other democratic institutions that exist to account. It should also inform its readership: it should present new ideas, and challenge citizens to think (and think for themselves) about matters of importance.

The failure of the free press to perform these two functions is attributable to a variety of factors. Prominent among these is commercial dependence. Financial considerations are unavoidable. But our 'free press' is being held to ransom by commercial imperatives, and this is a problem.

A ‘press’ must generate itself. Most ‘presses’ achieve this through paid commercial advertising or by charging for content. But both of these means risk undermining the two functions of the free press.

Advertising is everywhere. And it is advertising – let us be clear – that generates most of the revenue for today’s ‘presses’. Advertising allows some ‘presses’ to offer content for free. But in advertising to its readership, a ‘press’ almost always facilitates the manipulation of those people. A ‘press’ cannot be said to be an advocate for its readership when it participates in that readership’s manipulation. But this shift towards commercial interests has undermined the advocacy role of the free press in a more fundamental way: most ‘presses’ have come to hold their own interests above those of their readers.

Charging for content can enable a ‘press’ to generate itself without selling its readership to commercial interests. But, and almost paradoxically, we as readers seem more willing to subject ourselves to advertising than we do to part with money. Charging for content is, in itself, less manipulative than advertising. But it often leads to a failure on the part of a ‘press’ to inform its readership: in charging for content, a ‘press’ becomes more dependent on its readership, and loses its ability to present its readers with new ideas, to challenge them, to make them feel uncomfortable…

It could be argued that financial considerations ensure that only the worth publishing gets published. Commercial dependence, it could be pointed out, helps to ensure interest and relevance. While advertising and charging for content force a ‘press’ to respond to its readership, that response is very often to its readership’s wants, rather than its needs. It is important that we, as citizens, are able to distinguish the worth reading from the not-, or not-so-, worth reading. But it also needs to be said – and clearly – that marketability is not a reliable indicator of value.

Financial considerations are unavoidable. If any given ‘press’ is to try to fulfill either of the functions of the free press, it must find a way to generate itself. But, and as we have seen, commercial dependence can undermine efforts to realize those functions.

I am not convinced that all of the available options have been explored. Charging for content has less negative effects than commercial advertising. It might be possible to harness this means so that the complementary aims of covering costs and fulfilling functions achieve balance. This would require an attitude of responsibility on the part of the press, and a willingness on the part of readers to support the efforts of those outlets that endeavour to act responsibly. It has also been suggested that trusts could fund newspapers, and even today some of the world’s major media providers are sustained, in part, by trusts. It is possible, also, that constitutionally stipulated state funding could be directed towards certain media outlets to ensure that the ideal of the free press comes closer to being realized…

As a political system, democracy is imperfect. It requires commitment, and it requires effort. The free press should inform our commitment, and help to coordinate our effort. We should strive for a press that is free not only from those other institutions that work to secure democracy, but from naked commercial interest, and from the baser motives of the citizenry that it serves. We must be as critical of our free press as it should be of us, and of the institutions that we allow to govern us.

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in

2011-02-13T11:49:00.000+13:00

For the past two years I have been struggling with the question of how we should treat non-human animals. My thinking has continued, and will continue, to evolve. It is an important topic - and an incredibly fertile one from a philosophical point of view.

I sympathise more with the welfarist position, broadly construed, than I do with the view that animals have, or should have, rights. Welfarists are concerned with the physical and psychological well-being of animals - but often stop short of saying that animals should not be killed. I do not think that this position is incompatible with the view that animals should have some rights - but I am not convinced that the language of rights can adequately capture what our ethical relationship to animals should be.

Death is not, in itself, a bad thing, and dying does not need to involve suffering. If we are concerned about animals, we should pay attention to the conditions in which they are kept, and the methods that are used to kill them - instead of fixating on the fact that they are being used, or on the fact that they are being killed. We can, I think, use animals (for food, and for some other purposes) but we should do what we can to overcome and avoid the cruel forms of treatment that seem to follow our use of them.

My thinking on the ethical treatment of animals has been informed by a number of views - including the view that we create our own values, and the view that we should see people as the most important thing. I would not want to say that animals are not important in themselves, but I do think that we should give more attention to the interests of people.

Much of our treatment of animals is unacceptable. In order to move beyond this state of affairs, we must try to understand the issues surrounding our ethical relationship to animals, and we must be honest in our thinking. Where animals are treated cruelly, we should do what we can to effect change.

When I analyze the stench...

2011-02-11T09:07:00.000+13:00

Many people see racism as a simple problem. And much of racism is horrendously simple. But in order to address racism - in order to overcome it - we must do more than focus on its simple facets. We must understand, and respond to, its complexity.

Racism rests on a false premise, and that premise is that groups of people are fundamentally different. By reducing racism to this premise, we can start to see its complexity - for racism clearly involves a lot more than the claim that there are fundamental differences between people.

While the claim that people are fundamentally different is (and emphatically) false, complex differences between people, and between groups of people, do exist. For a number of reasons, these differences frequently correlate with skin colour.

It is tempting to suggest that, because racism rests on an absurd premise, simple measures can be taken to address it. But the suggestion that racism can be overcome simply by getting to know people of other ethnicities is demonstrably false: people of different ethnicities can and do live in communities with one another, work with one another, and form friendships with one another - while harbouring racist sentiments.

In order to adequately address racism, we need to supplement our experiences of other people with theoretical considerations - such as the consideration that individuals should be accorded equal moral worth, and the consideration that the family, society, and culture into which every person is born is wholly arbitrary.

Complex differences between people, and between groups of people, do exist. We will not be equipped to combat racism if we are not prepared to engage with - or even acknowledge the existence of - these differences.

We must treat people as people not because differences do not exist (they do), and not because the differences that do exist are easily dismissed (some aren't) - but because people are people.

But I think a little more is needed now

2011-02-09T09:07:00.000+13:00

It cannot be doubted that Wikileaks and those who have associated themselves with it are, and have been, well-intentioned. And much of what they have done has been worthwhile.

The question that we are led to when thinking about Wikileaks is not, Do actions like these urge us toward a more just world? - for the answer is, 'yes' - but: How far can they take us in that direction? Unfortunately, the answer to this second question is less clear than most people suppose it to be.

In many quarters, Wikileaks is being celebrated as a new journalistic tool. It is that. But how useful this tool is, in itself, remains to be seen.

It is not the case, as some people seem to think, that leaked information alone is sufficient to ensure accountability. But we could be forgiven for thinking that it is. In our society, when somebody in power - a politician, say - does something that he or she shouldn't, and is exposed in the press, that person very often has to meet the consequences of their actions.

The information that Wikileaks deals in is (for the most part) of a different nature. But, and again, we could be forgiven for failing to appreciate this: most of the information is political, and much of it is concerned with injustice. The key difference is that most of what Wikileaks exposes pertains to global justice.

The mechanisms that ensure accountability in the global sphere - and they do exist - are much weaker than those that operate on the level of domestic affairs, in democracies like ours. If these mechanisms are not strengthened, we might see information like that which Wikileaks has recently released causing more harm than good.

It should be noted that those same mechanisms that ensure accountability on the domestic level can help to promote global justice. If Wikileaks was to release information that showed that our government was participating in war crimes, we, the people, would try to use the democratic procedures available to us to put an end to that injustice...

But this is a strong example; injustices are typically more subtle than this. The effectiveness of such mechanisms at promoting global justice are contingent upon our willingness to condemn injustice - and, unfortunately, the interests of most people are more in line with those of their governments than they are with the interests of justice.

It is very difficult to see what long-term effects Wikileaks' actions will have. The outcomes that they generate will be the result of many other factors, as well.

These leaks might help more people to see the need for mechanisms that are capable of ensuring a higher level of accountability in international relations... But this is speculation - so I will stop.

Article: Dylan Horrocks

2011-02-07T07:30:00.000+13:00

Dylan Horrocks is a New Zealand comic book writer and artist. The following article first appeared as ‘An open letter to journalists regarding Wikileaks’ on the Hicksville Comics website.

As the war on Wikileaks heats up to fever pitch, this has become an issue far greater than the nuanced specifics of the Cablegate leak and whether you think its release was flawed or its contents trivial.

Think back to the Pentagon Papers and ask yourself: would you like to have cooperated with Nixon’s attempts to suppress, persecute and harass Daniel Ellsberg, Neil Sheehan and The Washington Post? Or would you have taken a stand on principle?

The nature of the two leaks are, of course, very different; but make no mistake: this is that kind of once-in-a-generation moral challenge. As attempts to crush Wikileaks move beyond the reasonable and into the extralegal and Orwellian, this is becoming a profound moral crisis for free speech, journalism and democracy.

Frankly, I no longer care whether you find Julian Assange annoying and arrogant or how you feel about Gaddafi’s buxom nurse. The issues at stake now are far more significant, and the outcome of this crisis will shape the environment for journalism, whistleblowers, the Internet, free speech and democracy for a long time to come. In that, at least, there is a clear and striking parallel with the events surrounding the release of the Pentagon Papers and its aftermath.

So please: think about how your actions today might look in twenty years time, and please - for the sake of whatever ideals and principles first led you to consider journalism - take this crisis SERIOUSLY!

(And while I’m on the subject, please remember that Julian Assange is not the only person being persecuted over this. Remember Pfc. Bradley Manning? If anyone’s the Daniel Ellsberg in all this, it’s Manning, who is currently in military prison, being kept in isolation and facing over 50 years imprisonment – all for trying to do the right thing. A few more stories about him wouldn’t go amiss…)

Dylan elaborated on his views in the following comments:

Manning (if he did what he’s alleged to have done) copied those files after being shocked at some of the stuff he was reading. This included the trivial stuff, but also don’t forget that the war logs released earlier contain clear evidence of war crimes that had been denied by the US military, and the diplomatic cables show further illegal activity (espionage against the UN, for example). There are many many other examples in there of the American government lying to the public.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are founded on lies as egregious as those behind the war in Vietnam. For a soldier caught up in that to attempt to reveal what’s really been going on behind the scenes - puncturing the PR spin by leaking what the military and diplomatic officials have been saying to each other - I think this is an act of moral courage.

If much of the material he downloaded and gave to Wikileaks turned out to be chaff (or even, in some cases, went against his intentions), that doesn’t alter the fact that he was indeed trying to do the right thing.

Ellsberg’s leak was different in part because of the technology of the times. A major leak in the early ‘70s was much more difficult to carry out, and relied on a deep insider who had access to one of very few physical copies. Ellsberg had to smuggle boxes of files out (over weeks), and then photocopy them by sneaking into an office, night after night. Today, the nature of the beast has changed, and a leak like this can come from a lower-level employee who happens to have access to the network. As a result we get gigantic data dumps, from people who don’t necessarily understand the full nature of what they’ve got. There’s a downside to that, but it’s just the way it is now.

It’s worth noting that Daniel Ellsberg has spoken out many times in defense of Manning and Wikileaks. He himself repeatedly points to the parallels between his case and theirs. It’s easy for us to focus on the distinctions and to make armchair moral judgements, but whatever the merits or otherwise of the Cablegate and War Log leaks, it’s clear to me that Manning was, as I said, trying to do the right thing.

It’s also worth pointing out again and again (because much of the reporting gets this wrong): Wikileaks has not simply dumped the cables online. They’re being released in dribs and drabs, with the cooperation of newspapers, who are going through a redaction process first to avoid endangering people. That process may not be perfect, but it’s not the lazy mass infodump being reported and reacted to, due to (ahem) lazy reporting.

To find out more about Dylan Horrocks, and to read some of his comics, visit www.hicksvillecomics.com.