Cultures, vultures, and the problem of free will...

Several things have come to the Beard's attention recently... unrelated things mainly, or rather things related only by the fact they are made up of human experience... as are indeed most things... apparently... Indeed, the inter-relatedness or otherwise of things has long been of interest to the Beard, as those who have had the misfortune of talking to the beard in the pub will attest... or not attest, depending on their attitude to attestation.. but I digress.... But then again, what is the world of human experience but a digression, the most major one most of us will ever experience... or not experience, as the case may be... but regardless, it seems that the topic of conversation in scientific circles is the old chestnut of free will... new genetic research or some such has cast the whole idea into doubt... it seems that we may not have free will after all... again... now, where the Beard, as you may not know, is, if not a believer in, at least a hoper for, free will, his take on the matter is this... in the final analysis, it really doesn't matter... But Why??!!? I hear you ask... or not ask, or some strange halfway house between the two... simply this... whether we have free will or not makes absolutely no difference to our lives... our experiences will be the same, our pasts will not change... all that will disappear is the illusion of choice... and, let us be honest,if free will does not exist, if we are indeed automatons, then we have in the apst been automatons with the illusion of choice... and that means that even if we now know that such choice was an illusion, then we can get that illusion back... indeed, it is probably hardwired into us... but then, carrying on with the whole theme, it must also be programmed into us to doubt our existence, doubt free will, have the illusion of choice and then lose this and regain it... or not regain it.. but the best that can be said is this... that if we are automata, or automatons, then nothing is our fault, and we can at least relax knowing that what we do is all we can do... if, of course, we are programmedto relax... And I think here that we have the reason that all of us desire free will... that we do actually like to be able to blame people for their actions... if we are not automata programmed to want to blame people for their actions.... but as I have said, it doesn't really matter, so I will continue to hope that we have free will, since that is what I was programmed to do... The Beard is a great believer in freedom of choice... not that I believe that all choices are valid, or that people should be allowed to choose to do what they wish... oh no, far from it.... but no, the Berad believes that we all make choices, and that we are all responsible for our own choices.... that's why he has trouble subscribing to the old Judaeo-Christian (a nd mainly Christian, to be honest) idea of the devil being the root of evil... evil, in the Beard's non-too-humble opinion, is simply the making of a choice that harms the majority, or goes against the agreed social code... and thus means that those who do evil are not the poor victim-tools of some supernatural being, but are selfish, odious scum... Take for example the nine men convicted today of running a sex ring in Rochdale... they knew what they were doing, and delighted in it... and now their lawyer is appealing against the sentence... not because he thinks they are innocent, but that he believes that the BNP were behind the conviction, possibly by perverting the jury... now, the BNP are not my favourite party, and this event shows to a certain extent why they should never be allowed to run a bath, let alone a country, but they are not to blame for any of this... it wasn't the BNP that coerced and forced girls, some as young as thirteen, into these acts... and neither was it the Pakistani community, or Islam... neither was it their parents... The race card has well and truly been played on this one... and the faith card... and the "uncaring parents card..." One of the accused even said that if the parents let the kids out on the streets dressed as they were, then the parents didn't value the girls... so why should he?? Peopel have claimed that this is "definitely" a Muslim thing... that Hindus would never do such a thing... but it's nothing to do with faith or race... partly it's a cultural thing, or rather a mistake caused by misunderstandings between cultures... a good muslim girl would never dress that way... or be out on the streets... but there are plenty of Muslim countries where they do and they are.... like the Birka, this is a culture thing... in western culture, showing legs is not considered a bad thing... in Pakistani culture it is... in Malay culture, it isn't... and a lot of them a re Muslim... and, like rude signs, the person brought up in a certain culture interprets the signs differently... when westerners see a young girl with slapped on make up, they think Jordan... when traditional Pakistani men see the same they think prostitute... but then, when peopel stare at us in the street, we see it as insulting or threatening, where I'm told in Pakistan it is jst seen as normal... but more than a culture clash, it is this... most traditional Pakistani men when seeing a girl dressed in skimpy clothes with too much make up would indeed think this girl to be a lower class of person... but they would then either ignore her so as not to associate with something shameful, or they would wish to help that girl get out of the shameful situation she is in... they would not see it as right to rape and abuse her.. and this is where it becomes a matter of individuals... much has been made of the fact that whereas most child abusers are white, they work alone, whereas this was a gang of men who knew each other... but then, there are internet rings of white men doing the same thing... and its not surprising that they knew each other... unfortunately, families are sometimes the worst environments, and people do have atendency to seek out acqaintances with similar interests... if these men had been in a white family, they would almost certainly have done the same thing, and to the same girls... it is mainly white girls who are allowed on the streets late at night, and who belong to a culture that sees alcohol as being necessary for a good time... and are therefore far more vulnerable... the truth of the matter is, there are evil people wherever you look, and this is their own choice... and where it would be nice to get rid of all the evil people in the world, it just won't happen... so we need to be vigilant... and more than anything we need to help people in vulnerable positions, by keeping an eye open for the signs, and butting in where necessary, no matter how rude it may seem... As the beard has admitted, he's not one fro the Judaeo_Christian_Muslim stuff, but the book of genesis puts in quite well, when YHWH asks Cain where Abel is... in essence, we are all part of the same human family, and we should all be our brother and sister's keeper... the maybe we'll all be happier... and please everyone, lets stop blaming bad things on race, culture and faith, and concentrate on the real problem... the selfish, evil men and women who choose to hide behind race, faith and culture, blaming these three blameless things for their own deliberately harmful choices... for without them, the rest of us could live a lot more happily... But my time for digressive behaviour is alost past... an early start beckons, and so does the beautiful Mrs Beard... so it just remains to say that until will is free, and you is me, and land is sea, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shame, blame, and the man with no name...

Now, it may or may not have escaped my attention (or even yours, my observant readers) but apparently the UK has been ripped by bouts of civil unrest... or as we used to call it, a bunch of pillocks smashing stuff... The Beard is not about to go into the rights and wrongs of the matter (by which you, dear reader, will immediately understand that he most certainly is about to go into just that...) except to say that an awful lot is being said about the causes of all this, and obviously the apparent solutions...and of course, the role of the police force...

Regardless of what several people have claimed as the causes, a regardless of the rights and wrongs of the police shooting in Tottenham of a suspected drug dealer, it remains to be said that the fmily of said victim behaved in a fairly decent way, protesting peacefully, and wanting to know quite reasonably exactly what had happened to their son... as anyone would... and then, just as grief gets hijacked in celebrity circles, so did theirs, by a far more dangerous group of people... now, whether this was the gangs thinking, hey, lets rob some stuff, or whether it was set up by the police to sabotage any possible cuts to their budgets, the end result was a few greedy people taking advantage and a few more just following the lead for whatever reason... lets be honest, we all know plenty of people who just go along with stuff... even whole nations have done it in the past... whether its for fear of bullying, or for lack of resistance to peer pressure, or down to a general apathetic opposition to actually thinking about what to do personally, an awful lot of people do just go with the crowd, much to the delight of the film, music and fashion industries....

But going along with the crowd is a choice, no matter how you come to it... and choice is where good and evil collide... as the Beard has stated before, societally good is choosing to go along with the mores and laws of the society we live in... evil is choosing not to... but choice it is indeed, and all those involved in last weeks thuggery made that choice to do it.. they are ultimately responsible for their actions, regardless of background and motive...

Evil, of course, divides itself into two groups... the immoral and the amoral... and it's the latter group that worries me most... you see, immorality I can cope with... it is quite simply a morality of its own, just one that goes against the societal norm... often immorality simply turns morality on its head... but immoral people do not necessarily see themselves as immoral... if the Beard may use the idiom of modernity, they actually see themselves as differently moral... for example, it was not long ago that consenting adult homosexuals were seen as immoral...they themselves had their own rules, and obeyed such laws of the land as they saw to be "good," while deliberately disobeying others.. and attempting to change those laws for their own benefit... very immoral... but notice... they accepted that morality existed, and they accepted that their morality was different to that of society... The Nazis in 1930s Germany saw themselves as moral... they never thought of themselves as the baddies... in fact, they saw themselves as doing good... luckily for a lot of peope, we didn't... Darth Vader, with his rigid Sith code was very moral... and probably saw the rebel alliance as immoral... and verse vica...

But I run the risk of digressing... as I say, one of the problems with certain alleged cultures today is a pervading amorality... that is, that these people do not believe in the importance of morality at all... as opposed to the immoral, who have their own morals which they wish to enforce on the moral, the amoral person has no rules... they just want to get rid of all of them... it's very almost the flip side to anarchy (the Beard's ideal governance system apart from Rule-of-Beard, as you may or may not recall me telling or not telling you...)in that where anarchy has no leaders, amorality has no rules, save those which the amorl can impose for a short time to get their way... as an example, just to over gild the cherry and mix metaphors further... an immoral would be ruler will have his set of rules... he may be persuaded to change these rules slightly, but his own code will remain basically intact... an amoral person will attempt to force his desires on others.. if he makes rules, he will be liable to change them on a whim for personal advantage... in other words he has no respect even for his own rules...

And therein lies the problem.. that these riots were orchestrated by the amoral.. these people genuinely don't see why its wrong that they should steal stuff, or hurt people or smash stuff... they have been taught since day one that they should have what they want, and if they can't have it then they should take it... from an early age all they do has been praised, so that they see praise as their right, regardless of what they do... they have been defended by well meaning (and less well meaning) parents to whom they can do no wrong... that's right.. in this case, as in so many others, the Beard blames the parents...

Not just the parents though... any authority or pseudo authority figure is to blame... from the auntie who buys the toy the mother has already told the child they can't have, to the teacher who lets pass bad behaviour for fear of the lack of support from those above and below, to the care home assistants who for want of an easy life choose not to enforce punishments... we're all to blame... but it stems from the parents...

In my day (Oh gods!! no!!!!!) when a kid got into trouble at school, he or she got detention... not these soft detentions they get nowadays, at break or dinnertime, but real proper "you will stay two hours after school" detentions.. if they missed their bus home and the parents had to make a car journey, or if the child had to walk home in the dark cold and rain, well, that was tough, they'd misbehaved and that was that... and in all those years, with kids walking home along unlit roads, some with no footpaths, not one of the detainees was kidnapped, murdered or run over... some parents complained, but the teacher responsible would refer them to the headmaster, the head would refer them to the education department, and the education department would send them a letter telling them how important it was that they taught their child how to behave around others... there was never any mention of disciplining the teacher, no apologies no nothing... just "your kid misbehaved... now shut up." Nowadays there would be a parent at school shouting and swearing, knowing his child's rights, demanding compensation... and unfortunately getting it... what a great example to the child... "Don't like the rules? Then don't obey them.. it doesn't matter... nothing will happen to you..."

And that's why folks... the majority of kids are well brought up, regardless of background... and again regardless of background, a minority of kids are brought up by idiots... and unfortunately its the minority that become visible...and lead the ones of the majority who either think the minority is cool, or are scared to go against them... as young Macduff said, the liars and thieves are fools...

As I say, regardless of background... it's noticable that a large amount of those being brought to justice are actually from allegedly nice middle class backgrounds... but they were probably rewwarded for such everyday stuff as putting their toys away, or doing their homework, or helping around the house... or, to take from personal experience, they were rewarded for not making too much mess for mummy to pick up, or trying hard on their homework before letting dad copy and paste, or for pretending to offer to help around the house knowing that mum will do it anyway and give you a tenner to by stuff with for offering... or even worse, were taken out on a treat to make up for that nasty teacher telling you off...

Teachers must shoulder some of the blame though... too large a proportion are only in the business because the pay is good (and it is... don't argue... nearly everyone I work with is on less than 14000 quid a year, for working 40 hours a week, 48 weeks a year.. so anyone who gets a starting paypacket of more than 20,000 need not apply to the debate!)and there's very little chance of getting sacked... now some teachers are still there for the vocation, and good luck to them.. but those who care are hamstrung by regulations and fear or reprisal, and those who are in it cos it's like staying at school and getting paid, well, what do they care... most don't even care about the subject they teach (humanties graduate teaching high school science anyone??)so why should they care about discipline?? lets be honest, they still get paid...

And lest anyone think this is a jealous rant, well, it is... but at least I'm honest, and well intentioned...

Pity the same can't be said for the rioters, certain teachers, numerous parents and a small element within our police force...

Now the Beard has long been an advocate of police corruption, as long as it's openly corrupt... if we all knew how much to pay the officer to get out of a speeding ticket, well, we'd all be happier... and if these corrupt coppers were moral or immoral enough to prey on those who harm society, then really... what harm do theyu do? The beard knows, as do we all, certain elements who seem to get away with all sorts of lawbreaking simply due to lack of evidence that will stand up in court... and I won't lose sleep if certain anti social elements are banged up without the full weight of proof... as long as they definitely are a menace to society...

But the role of the police is confused, and that's why they're having so much trouble now... for so long, they've been told to try to convince an untrusting society that they are part of that society... and even worse, part of the community... a lot of people know deep inside that the beat bobby is not and never will be their friend... they don't want the bobby as their friend... and any bobby who tries to be will be viewed with deep suspicion... and then something will happen, the police will attempt to enforce the law, and it becomes very obvious that the bobby is definitly not your friend...

Far far better would have been to leave the police alone to say, "You know what? We're not anyone's friend. We don't want to be part of your community. We are here to enforce the law, nothing else, and that's what we're going to do... regardless of whether you like it or us or not..." And then they should have been left alone to do it... the role of the police should be to help society... society as a whole.. the policeman shouldn't be the guy in the stab vest who tries to play footie with th eyouth, he should be the guy who tells the youth to stop bothering the shopkeeper... but he should also be the guy who the youth can go to if he's had his phone nicked by a bunch of amoral thugs... It would help us all out...

But the Beard, as is his wont, grows tired of ranting, as I'm sure you grew tired many paragraphs ago... so it remains to be said that choice is good and bad, and so is the law, and morality is a two sided coin... and until we all learn to make our own choices instead of following those around us, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cocoa, Rococo, and Rococo Cocoa

Well, it seems that a lot has happened in the last seven days or so... a massacre in Norway, the death of Amy Winehouse, and Morrisey saying some unwise things... again... now, I'm not going to agree with Morrisey's take on the Norway happenings, that worse things happen in slaughter houses every day, mainly because this reasoning is true only if you believe that all life is sacred and that all life is equally important... if you do, and of course the Beard respects your opinion as he respects all such things, then the slaughter of cattle is exactly the same as the slaughter of people.. but the beard believes quite happily, and with no diminishment of his character, that some lives are in fact far more important than others... for an example, I really don't care much about the life of a potato; only so much as to want it to continue until it's big enough to cook and eat... and the life of a chicken to me is less important than my own... sorry guys, but at least I'm honest...

Strangely, its been found that if a person's behaviour can be proved to conflict with that person's own self imposed moral code, then that person is actually more likely to change their moral code rather than their behaviour... which comes as no surprise to this hirsute blogger at all... which is possibly a good explanation, but fro what I'm not too sure...

Which sort of brings me to Amy Winehouse... now, it must be sad for her family to lose her, and I mean no disrespect to them, but we see her yet again the sad modern disease of people mourning her who really shouldn't be... after all, we didn't know her... all we ever saw was what the papers showed us... personally, I didn't think she was that great... I can listen to Back to Black, but nothing else she did stirred or moved me... in the Beard's eyes, a female pop artist needs to be either very talented, or rather good looking... and to me, Winehouse was neither... sorry guys...

But the Beard's main problem with Winehouse was this (and he admits that this was not altogether her fault...); that she was held up as some sort of role model... it was almost at times that young girls were being actively encouraged to be like her... just as the equally untalented Lily Allen was held up to us.. in the case of Amy, the message given out was this... get drugged up, behave badly, run yourself into the ground, and everybody will love you.. you'll get a recording contract, loads of money, and you will be a success... but she wasn't was she?? Unless success to you means being a drug addled loser with lots of money who dies at 27.... the Beard hopes truthfully that she'll be a better role model in death than she was in her short life....

Now, as I say, the Beard holds others than Amy responsible for this... ultimately, of course, she could have just said no... ultimately the responsibility was hers... but after a while, the drugs start to take over, and it becomes harder and harder to make that choice for the good... and the people who were in a position to help refused to... lets be honest here.. sending a star to rehab is just good publicity.... and it's very easy to solve anything with hindsight... but someone could quite easily have pulled the plug, withheld payment from her music, frozen her accounts, and told her "we won't give you any moey, airplay or anything but proper help until you get sorted..." They could have sent her back to her parents who could have then kept her from some of the bad influences that were affecting her, and they almost certainly would have helped her... instead she just got pushed down the same old line because it sold newspapers and records.... as I say, I was not a fan, but Amy could still be working now, singing for those who did enjoy listening, if it wasn't for greed and this awful awful respect we have for personal choice... and then to cap it all, as happened with Michael Jackson and Princess Diana, her mourning was hijacked by strangers... it must have been an awful time for those who actually did love her ( by which I don't mean the fans... you actually just found the music activated the pleasure centres i your brain, which is a different sort of thing...)

An awful time had by the people of Norway too... but the thing that truck the beard about the whole thing is the way that the blame was apportioned.. the earliest reports definitely claimed that this was an act of Islamist terrorism... despite no evidence of such a thing... and when it became clear that it was actually the work of a deranged Nazi, then it all became the fault of Islam for encouraging terrorists and immigrants for coming to live there.... because as we all know, if it weren't for that, this man wouldn't have felt that he needed to blow up and shoot people... well, get with th e programme, as our American brethren say.... that's the same argument that says it was the battered wife's fault for not boiling the eggs properly, or the woman's fault for wearing a short skirt... this man would have found someone else to blame, and would still have killed.... he may just have found different targets.... but personally I doubt it... but it all came down to freedom of personal choice yet again... whatever his beliefs and motives, he chose to do it, just as Amy Winehouse chose to take drugs... and choice is where evil lies... choosing to do harm rather than good is what evil is.. it's not down to devils or gods, it's down to us... to quote from Granny weatherwax... "There's only one sin, and that's thinking of people as things...." An associate tries to tell the witch that there are plenty of worse things, to which Granny replies, "Yes... but they all starts as thinking of people as things...." Which I think says it all... or maybe not... but whatever, a lot of it also starts with thinking that some lives are more important than others, and that some ideas are ore important than other lives... mainly when the person doing the thinking believes that none of the said lives are as important as that of the thinker him or her self....

Now, those of you who know the Beard will know of his love for open spaces, and yesterday saw him and Mrs Beard driving through the lovely Gloucestershire countryside to the amazing Painswick Rococo gardens... now, I'm sure that Paul Hervey-Brooks, the bod in charge ish won't mind me saying that the gardens are a fantastic mix of colour and dubious taste... set up many years ago by what passed then as new money, the gardens are full of strange little nooks and crannies, pools, enclosures, a maze and all sorts of malarkey... its the sort of place that the Beckhams of the 18th century would have set up just so that their old money neighbours could marvel at the expense and bad taste.... but taste is a strange thing, as tuna proves, and the Rococo gardens are that thing that, in a Beard's opinion, gardens should be... fun.... and they're getting better and better every year.... last year the Beard was privileged to watch a bunch of artists setting up their sculptures in the grounds, and this year was even more privileged to be invited to the preview evening of the sculpture season... even more sculptures than last time, varying from rusty metal birds, to giant dandelion parachutes and enormous conkers hanging from the trees... also a parade of possibly comforting, possibly disturbing designs lining the beech walk... now, the hirsute typer of this esteemed blog is a great fan of sculpture and art in locations like this... it makes the whole thing more accessible, which is, in my mind, a good thing... whether the viewer likes it or not, at least they have the opportunity to like it or not like it... too often art, like classical music, is seen as elitist... yet art is all around us... from the photo of the twins on the beach, to the grafitti on the railway arches,...not enough people go to gardens, and not enough see art... which is a shame... so, next time you're tempted to take a trip to some adrenalin soaked overpriced fun fair full of queues and idiots, don't.. just for a change, go and visit a park, or some gardens... there are plenty around... Painswick is a good place to start... and see if the kids enjoy it... if you approach it correctly, they almost certainly will... and you don't have to be a rabid horticulturalist... the Beard doesn't know the names of most of the things they grow nowadays, but anyone can decide whether a flower is pretty or not... give it a try...

But on that note the Beard notices that it has grown early yet again, and work and Scout camp beckon tomorrow... so it remains to be said, make your choices wisely, and regardless of your own importance, remember that others are just as important as you... so until all our cocoa becomes Rococo, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!