The art world

Yesterday evening I attended this private view. I was fairly ignorant of the art world and thanked the host for all the free wine and beer and for opening their house as a gallery for the general public.

At private views pictures are for sale and there are usually no prices on them, not even any explanations. This gallery consisted of a few fairly large photographs which looked like stock photography. I thought that one (which turned out to be a night sky) was actually empty until I examined it closely. (I have recreated this work above - it took me literally 8 seconds.)

The theme apparently was “In Search of a Private Paradise”. One artist concluded that it was impossible to find one, which made me want to point out Richard Branson and his Necker Island.

I could seriously have believed one piece was a joke if someone had told me so:

“In her video, Donna Conlon presents a sequence of lights blinking to the sound of Christmas tunes translated into Morse code in an attempt to search for messages, greater truths, evidence of another world.”

This was indeed a projector running a black film with some little fairy lights and a few random letters. It was in a sense pathetic. But put away your Hubble Telescope, forget about your Mars Lander and terminate your SETY programme. Maybe these fairy lights will have more success.

There’s nothing wrong with having a look at some photos and having some nice drinks. That’s great, and I will do it often. But when I discovered these items were priced at more than £3000 each I nearly dropped my can of Stella Artois. They were, as mentioned, indistinguishable from any stock photography or any decent photography you would find on Flickr.

There is a line I have spoken of before. It is the line where a price continues to rise but the intrinsic value of an item does not. It amazes me how many people fail to see that line and still spend their money. This entire movement is a case of Emperor’s New Clothes, and the only winners here are the “artists”, who must, on occasion, be laughing all the way to the bank.

Spice Girls Reunion

The “Spice Girls” have announced a reunion. Well, what other choice did they have? None of them have any discernible talent, and none of them have solo careers. I just wonder if there is still a hope of preventing this happening, so that we, the public, can avoid any forthcoming “music”. Perhaps someone could start a petition - or at least a Facebook group..?

On a much happier note, a real band, The Verve, have also announced their return. This is indeed welcome news!

The university system

In 1991, disillusioned with the lies and superficiality of advertising, I began to immerse myself in philosophical texts. I decided to formalise my study if possible by going to university. I gained a place at Durham university, and naively imagined a seat of learning, full of the more discerning, sensitive and intelligent individuals from society. I looked forward to going.

Life often seems to be a series of rude awakenings, and once at Durham I began to realise that the typical student was a spoilt, immature, hostile, superficial, insecure, arrogant, self-centred and unreflective individual with a love of sport and no particular interest in learning. Why was this, I wondered. How could it be?

It is because university is simply part of the system, part of the establishment, and part of a vicious circle. People who have been to universities and now have boring faceless jobs, go on to hire other people who have been to universities and stream them into boring faceless jobs too. And in order to get to the universities people do not have to be intelligent in a wide sense, they simply have to be able – and willing – to play a particular game (the exam game). Those of us who respect truth and freedom have a natural aversion to this fabricated game.

It helps in playing the game to go to a private school, where you are taught the rules of the game and how to succeed at it. The rules of the game have nothing to do with a love of the given subject, or often even an ability in it. Those who play the game best are usually those who follow rules best, and who feel not the slightest discomfort with fitting into the system - not the true mavericks and geniuses of this world, who often fail at formalised study. When it came to my own exams, by far the hardest part was accepting the game. Overcoming my dislike for it. For me, formalised learning kills a subject - be it literature, philosophy or programming. And I know there are others like me.

There were a number of intelligent (I mean wise) individuals at Durham, but they were vastly out-numbered. Being able to play games and do puzzles does not constitute real intelligence, depth or virtue, and certainly does not constitute wisdom. Indeed it does not even guarantee the person knows more about the given subject than might somebody else who has been inspired to self-study (I would always employ this person first). Therefore employers should never automatically judge people who have been to university as superior to people those who have not.

Johann Hari

I have some sympathy for Johann Hari, because he is an outspoken anti-theist and obviously well informed on some subjects. He writes for The Independent, and though this newspaper is hardly independent, I had previously thought of him as something of an intellectual. Imagine my dismay, then, to turn on the TV and find him as a guest on “Big Brother on the Couch”. I thought it must be his doppelganger. Needless to say I turned this rubbish off (in fact I turned the whole TV off) after a very short period of time, but not before wondering why Hari had dumbed-down to such a degree.

The psychopath in your carriage

Psychopathy is not fully understood and is variously defined depending on which medical text you read. The Wikipedia describes a psychopath as a person who “has no concern for the feelings of others and a complete disregard for any sense of social obligation”. Let’s just take another close look at those key characteristics:

“No concern for the feelings of others and a complete disregard for any sense of social obligation.”

I am going to argue here that many people in society - not just a few, but many - exhibit these character traits to a significant degree. They walk among us and we tolerate them every day, yet we consider them “normal”. It is time we stopped granting them this honour, even as they threaten to become the statistical norm, and instead consider them abnormal and indeed to some degree psychopathic. If we don’t like their behaviour, we should “out” it for what it is, and we should start applying some social pressure to change it.

Who do I accuse? That’s the scary thing. I am not talking about killers, rapists and the like. I am not even going to need to discuss people who callously and misguidedly manipulate others in relationships, as in the film Closer. I need only discuss everyday people who commit more trivial crimes, but moral crimes nonetheless, making society worse for everybody around them - and invariably get away with it.

I’m talking about:

• People who have loud public mobile phone conversations as if there is no-one else in the carriage, while listeners cringe around them. The listeners never opted to hear these usually boring calls, and should of course be considered, but these days increasingly rarely are.
• People who fail to even recognise the existence of others as they walk down pavements in the formation of a human wall.
• People who blow their smoke into your path without the slightest care.
• People who remain mute towards their customers having been thanked at three different points during a transaction.
• People who slump down next to you in your tube carriage and treat it like a fast food restaurant.
• People who cause you to have to turn on your iPod quietly to drown out theirs which is so intrusively loud.
• People who have loud conversations and, especially, use vulgar language, without any regard for the fact it might be offensive to those around them.

The kind of people most of us living in London encounter every day and who make our lives just that little bit worse.

There are now armies of these people - they threaten to out-number us. It’s time we fought back. They are not just rude - that would suggest some kind of intention on their part. No, more seriously, they lack the capacity to empathise with their fellow human beings. They do not even know they are being rude.

It seems to the rest of us (and we feel like a rapidly decreasing number) that these ignorant people have important parts of their personalities missing. They sometimes seem otherwise normal - so how can they possibly behave like that, we wonder? Are they not embarrassed, or ashamed at all? They are clearly not, and in this sense precisely they exhibit the two key psychopathic traits mentioned. These are people who are unable to relate as rounded human beings to others around them. They lack the normal checks and balances of social behaviour. They view strangers who do not fall into their personal sphere of acquaintance (and who they assume will be of no use to them) as objects, not as people the same as they are. They have not the slightest care for what you think.

It’s true that any considerate strangers are not the same as they are, of course, they are superior in at least one way, and they need to unite, because the fact is that seemingly small issues like these eat away at the fabric of society and weaken it considerably. They erode mutual respect and lead to increased frustration and hostility. When we feel we are being insulted by everyone around us it divides us, it doesn’t draw us together.

So, what should the civilised among us do about these others whom we currently quietly tolerate… these people, so common now, who feel no obligation to treat others around them with basic respect? At the moment their reign is strong. They capitalise and free-ride on our moral economy and often go unchallenged. They do lose out through their ignorant behaviour, but they do not know. They cause us to lose out too though - and we know.

Psychopaths are generally thought to be incurable. But although these people exhibit at least two typical traits of psychopaths, they probably rarely possess the full range. They may be treatable through societal pressure.

It was Edmund Burke who said all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing, and he was right. The “tolerance” of which we British are so proud is a double-edged sword which must be wielded with care. Too much tolerance can be a bad thing, and can become part of the problem. Our sense of tolerance is becoming a moral shortcoming, and for our own sakes we need to take it in hand. (Likewise, we must resist political correctness and its pernicious but ubiquitous partner in crime, moral relativism.)

So, if you care about the state of society, show this article to other people. In public places, if it seems safe to do so, openly ask people to stop being so rude. Or openly move carriage. If you see someone else have the courage to object to another person’s rudeness, do not remain silent. That makes you part of the problem. Lend support, lend agreement, immediately. There is safety in numbers, and only the tolerance of the civilised has made the ignorant so safe - a tolerance which now being abused (in much the same way as we have previously seen our tolerance of religious fundamentalists abused to such terrible effect).

Things only change when people start acting in numbers, when they are not defeatist and they start applying pressure. Let’s start applying pressure on this issue and reclaim our right to a civilised environment, one without a person with psychopathic traits in every carriage. If we do not take any action, if we continue to take it lying down, we have no right to complain as we see respect for others - the most important feature of our society - continue to disintegrate around us.

Arguments against atheism

There are only two significant arguments against atheism, and neither of them is based on any suggestion that religious claims are actually true, just that religion might be useful. They are moral, consquentialist arguments.

The first is what I will call the “the argument from compassion”. This claims that although religious belief is groundless, it is cruel of atheists to deny weaker people delusions on which they depend for their happiness and sense of security. The second is “the argument from inspiration”. This claims that without religion we would not have all the classical art, architecture and indeed the moral deeds which are done in the name of religion. Both of these arguments need dealing with. The former is the stronger, but I’ll come to it second.

As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, artists have to make a living, and when most of this art was commissioned we all know who held the money (and, incidentally, who still holds much of it and receives unjustified tax breaks now). Even up until the middle of this century if you had the sense to be an atheist you had to remain quiet about it or risk unemployment, ostracism and even death. We therefore don’t know if these artists were really even believers at all. Furthermore, a lot of great art is made, and of course many moral deeds are performed, by people of no religious faith.

The first argument is more difficult for any compassionate atheist, and I consider it the most serious argument against outspoken atheism. A lot of people have very miserable lives, and say they can only manage to go on because of their belief that they will end up in some kind of paradise or will see their loved ones again. It does seem cruel to kick away their crutches. We have to consider also the extreme case of how we would feel if we knew a believer had actually killed themselves because we had destoyed their faith.

I think we can still do it. We need to point to two things. First, that their belief in these fictions actually damages the world, because even moderate belief lends credence to the fictions and indirectly encourages extremists. Secondly, there are other things in life from which they should be able to derive consolation. Friendship, love, or simply contemplating justices and beauty that the world does have to offer. These people can by all means imagine wonderful worlds where they will go in some kind of afterlife – call this escapism. But they should not believe – in the complete absence of evidence - that these worlds actually exist. As A.C. Grayling put it, such belief is ignoble. Even in the face of misery and hardship, and in their final hours, it is open to them, as Hume did, to at least refuse to compromise their their sense of dignity and maintain a respect for evidence and truth.

Hitchens vs. Hitchens

I have just listened to a discussion between Christopher Hitchens and his brother Peter Hitchens on The Today Programme. The latter came out with a number false claims, such that I found it hard to believe the two were related at all (but not hard to believe he had a job with The Daily Mail). He repeatedly claimed that atheism denies any kind of moral absolutism, which it does not (and his brother put him right on this), and he tried to say that foetuses are babies, whereas they are not - they are obviously foetuses. Thank goodness Hitchens C. is there to combat Hitchens P.

Regarding God is Not Great, it arrived for me today. It is eloquently written, well informed, and uncompromising. Hitchens comes across as somewhat aggressive and pompous compared with Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, who are measured and reasonable but firm. I guess he considers the situation to be an emergency and has accordingly brought out the heavy artillery in every respect. Everything he says is true, but if he wants to make converts (which should be what he wants) a more inclusive approach might be better. It is an emergency though, so this is a tough call…

I agree, however, with his rejection of the term “Bright” (which Dawkins has endorsed) as an atheist euphemism - it seems to me unnecessary.

My favourite quotation from this book so far is:

“The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant from his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species. It may be a long farewell, but it has begun and, like all farewells, should not be protracted.”

My second favourite is this:

“It [religion] comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species and it is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs. Today, the least educated of my children knows much much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion.”

Another nice quotation

“The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is… I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural.”

Joseph Conrad

Serious songs

A lot of people don’t like James Blunt. I don’t like his incongruous profanities on romantic songs, but it would be churlish or insensitive to deny he is talented. Proof enough of this is the song “Goodbye My Lover”, which is truly moving… The raw emotional honesty of this song approaches that of Nine Inch Nails’ “Something I Can Never Have”, which is as far as I am aware (and I am aware of more than 10,000 songs) in a league of its own.

This latter work is like a horror film in music. It almost needs a health warning. Sit back, turn out the lights, and listen to it through on some headphones… You will not hear anything deeper or darker, with more emotional intensity. Listening to it, you are aware that you are listening to a man who is in a truly bad place, from which there can be only one descent - a place which makes Thom Yorke’s predicament in “Creep”, Richard Ashcroft’s in “On Your Own”, and Robert Smith’s in most of his songs seem relatively pleasant. It’s a hard ride, but such a moving one, and it is a fine piece of art.

Advertising lie

Here’s an interesting one - Microsoft responsible for an advertising lie. The lie here is to exploit people’s fears and insecurities in order to try to sell something, and suggest that having the latest version of Office would have made things different, yet not provide any concrete examples to support this claim.

Although this advert masquerades as humourous, I always hate to see this tactic from advertisers - the one of playing on people’s insecurities. It is an underhand and devious one and Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves. They should instead have simply listed the useful and significant improvements in Office 2007 for people to see, if indeed there are any.