In the news today

Another day, another set of politically correct headlines on the Today Programme this morning. The trouble is there is no more truthful alternative on the airwaves in the UK. For that we need to turn to the Internet and the likes of Pat Condell.

Today we had the Bishop of Rochester declaring again that “a moral and spiritual vacuum” has occurred in Britain since the sixties, and that lays the door wide open for radical Islam to take its place. But “radical Islam” is a tautology: Islam is radical. To prove this to yourself all you need to do is actually read the Koran. Anyway, the bishop has accordingly received death threats from Muslims, as do most people who dare to criticise “the religion of peace” as it expands steadily across Europe.

I’m not so sure about a “spiritual” vacuum, sadly, with the continued prevalence of astral projection, meditation, tree-hugging and all the other weird and baseless things people believe in, but a moral vacuum is obvious, and of great concern. The trouble is though that this, of course, should no more be replaced with “Biblical values” as the Bishop claims, than with those from the Koran. Were that to happen, we would all be thrown back into the moral Dark Ages. For 885 examples of the kind of values found in the Bible, see here. That should surely be enough for anybody.

The next article was about the mother of Victoria Climbie, the girl who was abused and killed by her foster parents in the UK and this abuse was not acted upon because of incompetence and political correctness within London Social Services. Her mother was shocked about this and rightly so.

What we are not allowed to say, however, is that Victoria travelled from the Ivory Coast under a false passport and that Mrs Climbie was irresponsible for ever allowing her child to go with these foster parents, one of whom she hardly knew, the other who she had not even met. We’re not allowed to say that, partly because this kind of “informal fosterage“ (to which we inexplicably open our doors) is a custom in West Africa, and to criticise it would be to go against the grain of cultural relativism - the odious partner in crime of political correctness, both of which are currently eating away at our society. We’re not allowed to say it, but I’m saying it anyway, and I will continue to say whatever is true.

The bishop is right that we need to get a grip on morality in this country, but wrong (as are so many) about where the answer is to be found. The moral vacuum in the United Kingdom must be replaced by enforcement of the law, the elimination of political correctness and promotion of secular Humanism, and it had better begin to happen soon.

Musing

I stroll down the road away from my property here in Balham, heading towards the centre of the district. I pass the usual overgrown front gardens full of junk and wonder why the councils here have no authority to order people to keep their properties in a good state of repair, as they can in America, then I remember political correctness. Of course, what right have they to tell people to keep the environment pleasant to behold? This is a society of rights more than duties, and that is its fundamental problem.

I continue on my way. I step around slow moving “trendy” loud-talking smokers, killing themselves, and me if I let them. I move back from the gutter to the pavement, now ahead of them.

The poster of that obnoxious foul-mouthed chef has been replaced by one of Sir Michael Parkinson (no, he didn’t win a Nobel prize, he’s just a chat show host). He’s saying:

“Once you’ve tried Sky Plus you won’t be able to imagine life without it”.

That sounds to me clearly like a reason not to get it, whatever it is, than to get it. One can imagine a similar ad for heroin. Who wants to be hooked on something you don’t need? The intrusive advertising everywhere, on video on the underground now, brings Blade Runner’s dystopian society ever closer.

I arrive at a bar where they picked up furniture for free and charge £3.20 for a pint. It costs only 40p to make the equivalent at home. I’m shocked by the price but I like the change of scene. I don’t like the people, I like the place, which is like a time-warp back to the 1950s.

Young men nearby play snooker, lazily. They’re in the de riguer Balham “man-boy” uniform of jeans, striped polo shirts and trainers. They chat about unsubstantial things. Extreme profanity is injected into their conversation casually: it has lost all shock value for them. This seems disgustingly decadent to me. They couldn’t care less if I hear them. Not necessarily because they don’t care about offending me; rather because it would seem to them quaint and unlikely that anyone could ever find their language offensive. They’re that far gone. They have jobs: they seem to work in advertising (no surprises there, then). I know from experience that their true colours will likely not need to be hidden in their workplace: this manner would more probably be admired. But are these really their true colours? It is perversely possible, in this morally topsy-turvy society, that this vulgar abandon is affected in order to earn respect. Conversation gets around to girlfriends too - they have them, of course. I think about what I would do with these people in my company. Sack them. It’s that simple.

I move on. Walking through the smokescreen of junkies outside the door, I sit in a new place and observe the pub-going people of Balham. It is fashionable to dress down - for the women too. Everybody is dressed.. well, as if they just don’t care. I wonder what people from earlier eras would have made of this. Wealth has increased, standards have declined. It has perversely become a statement of one’s status to say “I don’t care”. But - though common - it is in fact a shameful and decadent statement.

I’m reading a book on evolutionary psychology and Darwinian theory called “The Moral Animal”, by Robert Wright. I wonder if it will be too reductionist.

I look around a little more. I note how many women seem to go in for the fake blond look now. I wonder why. It seems a little ironic that these women, who typically have no intention of adopting a natural female role (until, of course, it is too late), are interested in appearing youthful and appealing. Personally I prefer dark hair, and had they kept theirs that way, it would have had the added appeal of being genuine.

A quotation from Charles Darwin during his voyage on the Beagle takes on a greater poignancy than he can ever have feared it would in London today:

“As for an English lady, I have almost forgotten what she is - something very angelic and good.”

A man stands before me a weird mixture of country squire and urban pygmy. On his head he wears a flat cap but up his entire leg is a tattoo. Men are dressed as boys - t-shirts, trainers. They all drink lager. Women are dressed… unremarkably. They’re not really dressed at all. Not tailored. They all just wear nondescript things that hang on them, devoid of any femininity.

These are only the people in the pub. There are others, elsewhere. But I’m sorry to see what I see and I’m sorry I cannot report more favorably about this, my country. But not that sorry, because I expect I will do what two million others have done in recent years: I’ll leave for somewhere better - a society where people have more well-earned personal pride and that is not destroying itself through a combination of political correctness and cultural decadence.

I listen to Damien Rice to drown out the loud noise. It’s very nice. I wonder whether I can safely leave my book on the table while I pop out briefly. I remember myself: it’s a book, not a Playstation. It’s extremely unlikely anyone in here would even care which book it is.

Damien Rice’s “Eskimo” soars and I return to my book, only to look up when Offenbach’s beautiful “Barcarolle” draws such a contrast with my surroundings. I fondly remember my beautiful girlfriend, the epitome of all things that are lacking here, as she sang this sublimely in Florida.

You couldn’t make it up

One of the headlines on respectable news programme Today this morning was that British prisons, awash with drugs, are so comfortable now that people are breaking into them, leaving ladders up, and nobody even wants to use them to break out.

It’s hardly surprising when prisoners are paid to work while in there (and even paid to play Scrabble), get to choose the colour of their cells and make a multitude of contacts at the “University of Crime”. I suppose we should be grateful that playing on their Playstations and playing pool do not count as paid activities too, but certainly the whole situation is unbelievable.

I do not understand why prisoners are not forced to work constructively for society, ideally in an area related to their crime. Why don’t I see chain gangs cleaning graffiti off walls and dredging out canals as I go about my business? There are miles of graffiti throughout London to occupy them. Perhaps they could fill in the craters and pits in the roads that the councils ignore too. This would be a warning to others to think twice before offending, and certainly a warning to those offenders, as they make their atonement.

As for prisoners being paid, they should run up debts at their own expense as the country teaches them discipline and responsibility. None of this will happen of course, not because of logistical problems, but because Brussels will always over-rule the UK and claim any such measures “violate prisoners’ human rights”. But being a constructive member of your society is a duty and not a right, especially for convicted criminals, who have a debt to repay.

One sometimes wonders if the runaway political correctness of the United Kingdom, already causing decay in the fabric the society, will lead to all-out civil war if not taken in hand before long.

Fitna

“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.”

Arnold Toynbee

Fitna is a film released on the Internet by Dutch MP Geert Wilders which has caused great controversy across the world, with many people condemning it before it was even released (so, of course, before they could possibly pass any valid comment on it). The fundamentally religious don’t even need to see or read things any more before condemning them: so thin skinned are they that just the mere whisper that things might be offensive (perhaps because they state uncomfortable truths) is enough for fatwas to start flying.

Usually western nations capitulate to this pressure, and the Dutch government accordingly disassociated itself from Mr Wilders’ film very quickly. Many others have too. Even the cartoonist who originally drew controversial cartoons of the alleged prophet Mohammed seems to have treated this as an opportunity to “clear his name” and nullify any outstanding fatwas, by drawing a cartoon of Mr Wilders instead.

I saw the film on the first day it was released, just before website LiveLeak removed it from its servers due to death threats against its staff from Muslims (who thereby ironically endorsed the film’s message). But the funny thing is that Mr Wilders (who is of course in hiding and under armed guard 24/7) actually says very little in the film. Most of the words shown are quoted directly from the Koran, and it is those words - and the images of those following them - that offend. The trouble is, Muslims are obliged to follow this text fundamentally. Like Christians when it comes to the bible’s more difficult passages advocating stoning, they’re not at liberty to pick and mix - if it’s the word of God it’s the word of God - and this is the problem to which Mr Wilders wishes to alert us.

Fitna is a disturbing and offensive film, certainly, offensive to anybody who values modern humanist morality, but it shows mostly news footage and verses from the Koran already known, so should hardly be banned. Whether Mr Wilders has an ulterior right-wing motive is another matter, but this film as it stands is merely an exercise in free speech, one that has been crushed by a creeping totalitarianism to which we in the West continue to capitulate.

Straight edge

“Straight edge” is a new movement arising out of the “hardcore” music scene. Since “hardcore” is in itself vague, we need further clarification, and it turns out to be the hardcore punk genre to be precise.

It is evidently a reaction to the self-destructive behaviour common to this scene (and others), with ex-drug addicts deciding to abstain from drugs, drink and smoking completely. This is great, and particularly good that they do not do so with any religious baggage. They do so just because it’s healthier.

However, they need to be careful that their backlash is not just as severe as the problem they are rejecting. Sometimes straight-edgers also reject all sex before marriage, and there need be no harm in some moderate alcohol intake in the right circumstances from time to time. It’s self control that really needs to be learnt, and moderation.

Unfortunately another sign that their backlash is nearly as severe as the original problem is the straight-edgers’ tendency to tattoo themselves with three Xs to announce what they won’t do, tattoos always seeming to indicate a somewhat desperate mental state.

Lastly, there is the fact that they have represented their decisions as a “movement” and given it a name at all. There does not need to be such a movement any more than there needs to be the term “atheist”, when for both simply “rational” and “sensible” will suffice.

But on balance, “straight edging” is a good thing, and if the tattoos mean one less paramedic attending a drunkard lying or fighting on streets my parents can no longer walk in the evenings, that’s most welcome indeed.

Arrival at Gatwick Airport

I don’t often write diary type entries here, preferring to make wider points, but here is one which simply endorses points I have made before with some further personal experience.

Today I arrived back to Gatwick Airport from a stay with my girlfriend in Florida. I always like to note my impressions as I re-enter the United Kingdom and reflect as to whether or not I miss the place. First impressions count.

That the weather was inferior in London goes without saying. My first impressions at the airport were as follows:

• Upkeep: bad
• Staff: good
• British public: shocking

I say shocking, but they’re not really, not any more. I should rather say “as expected”. Fat people, people with studs in strange places, tattoos, badly behaved children either being disciplined with expletives or not at all. Apathy, slovenly dress. Rudeness and urgent selfishness. Bitten down nails. Shaven heads. Poor diction and careless grammar. I did not see evident religious delusion, but I know I will see that too as I approach London. I’d see it sooner if I was travelling from Heathrow through Hounslow (a place where I lived for several years).

I saw for the first time, on the plane, the programme Little Britain, which has been tremendously popular in Britain for several years. It struck me as on the whole unpleasant, irreverent and childish, and simply vulgar where it might have been witty. It celebrates and trivialises the decline of British culture in a voyeuristic and mercenary manner (much as Big Brother does). It’s also just plain weird. As such it has much in common with another programme I have seen: Peepshow. The title of this programme is even tawdry, and the only redeeming feature I could find was its novel first person filming technique.

(I have encountered religious delusion now, at Norbury, in the form of a man wearing a long white garment and a very unruly beard. On his feet beneath the garment are some Nike trainers and in his hand is an iPhone. I think I can hear drum and bass coming out of his earphones. Is this the modern happy marriage of faith and science or a grotesque and contradictory combination? It’s the latter.)

I observed an American man in the dentist in Florida wearing an amusing t-shirt saying:

“I can do anything your previous husband could!”

I regarded this as both a wry comment on society and quite hopeful on the man’s part. At Gatwick I saw a British yob, gold chain around neck, chewing gum with his mouth wide open, posturing and invading the personal space of others. He was evidently very proud of himself. He wore a t-shirt with a slogan too. It said:

“Can’t you tell I’m taken?”

The worst thing about this is that he undoubtedly was. It is easy to find company in the lower echelons of the pyramid of civilized behavior - much harder where the air grows thinner. While they are supposed to be light-hearted, the messages of the t-shirts seemed to me to accurately articulate a much wider zeitgeist of each of the two countries. One amusing and optimistic (perhaps a little arrogant), the other crassly arrogant and egotistical, full of hubris, and at the same time making insulting assumptions of others.

I arrived at Balham, one of London’s desirable districts. Police sirens blaring. Pot-holed streets. Shambling youths with hoods up who don’t seem to have properly merged with society (maybe don’t want to). Or perhaps they better represent society now, and I am the outsider? More likely so. Their darting eyes are not shy of mine, but if their glance is returned it will be interpreted as confrontation.

People smoking as they walk, unwanted second-hand smoke is inhaled. Litter abounds. Games of “chicken” as human walls show no signs of parting for oncoming pedestrians. Why not part? Well, that would be “losing face” in front of one’s friends and a stranger. All too often these days friends are strangers and strangers aren’t friends.

Welcome to London. It is not one of the worst places in the world, by a very long way, but it is fast becoming one of the worst places, socially, in the civilized world, and the Home Secretary herself is scared to walk alone here. Come to London, but come in an organised, safe way, and don’t come to stay. The only valid point the religious fundamentalists have is that this society is in moral decline and in much need of guidance - but the guidance required must never be allowed to come from those quarters.

State of the nation

We ought not to think of Britain as always coming last at everything. After all, it does have:

• The highest level of teenage pregnancy in Europe, and rising.
• The highest obesity level in Europe, and rising.
• The highest prison population in Europe, and rising.
• The highest incidence of binge drinking in Europe, and rising.
• The highest consumer debt in Europe (double the European average).

It also has:

• A rising rate of violent crime, with twice as many offences as in the last decade.
• A worryingly high number of illiterate adults and school leavers.
• A declining manufacturing output with the lowest number of people working in the sector since records began.
• The lowest place in Europe’s child well-being table.
• A falling over-all fertility rate.
• A declining rate of marriage (now at its lowest rate since records began).

I wouldn’t look into or list these things, if it didn’t actually seem that way on the streets.

What, broadly, are the causes of these problems that threaten Britain? Affluenza, status anxiety, selfishness, political correctness, the embrace of a “rights before duties” attitude to life, apathy, the safety net of the welfare state, a culture of instant gratification and a widespread abandonment of personal integrity and responsibility. Akrasia.

I won’t discuss the issues any further here because they are analysed in detail in many excellent books I have mentioned on my site. If politicians would only read them and act on their findings, they might be able to reverse the self-destruction of a once great nation.

Etta James: At Last

Etta James’ classic song put perfectly to excerpts from the film Funny Face, which was made in 1957, when women were ladies and men were gentlemen. Note for example how Audrey Hepburn is elegant, wears dresses and is not drinking, smoking, marching, swearing or putting up a cold front. She is contra all the recommendations of odious and damaging programmes such as Sex & the City and has, instead, a certain innocence and warmth, and a slight vulnerability, which is highly attractive to men. Fred Astaire wears a hat and treats her with the respect and kindness she accordingly deserves.

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I dedicate this to my beautiful girlfriend, who is like Audrey Hepburn but even more female (!) and who I would not exchange for the starlet or anybody else.

Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple is the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels, an ex-prison doctor with considerable experience of dealing with the criminal underclass and disadvantaged of Britain.

Let’s digress briefly to have a look at two of the words I used there. “Underclass”. They’re not really an underclass: people across the social spectrum display psychopathy and I am dubious of the notion of class at all - it at most provides vague boundaries. “Disadvantaged”. In a land where healthcare is free, benefits are paid and libraries offer free books, no-one is really, truly disadvantaged. If you want disadvantaged, try Somalia instead.

Those points cleared up, let us return to Theodore Dalrymple. While I was astounded and mystified by his complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Sam Harris fine book The End of Faith (as was the author himself), he is otherwise coming from very much the same place as myself. He writes, for example:

“Returning briefly to England from France for a speaking engagement, I bought three of the major dailies to catch up on the latest developments in my native land. The impression they gave was of a country in the grip of a thoroughgoing moral frivolity. In a strange inversion of proper priorities, important matters are taken lightly and trivial ones taken seriously.”

He is concerned about the decline in values, lack of personal responsibility, emphasis on rights before duties and the general cultural malaise and decadence currently prevalent in the UK. Any right-thinking, compassionate and realistic person of conscience should be. We’re not saying everything is bad, of course! But we’re saying some very serious things are, and they are affecting the happiness of the citizens of this country.

Dr Daniels is obviously an erudite, sensitive and compassionate man who has seen so much that he feels he must now speak out, and he has done so in several books which I am reading. There is also a very interesting video of him speaking. If only the government would take on realistic and well informed people such as Dr Daniels as policy advisors instead pandering to political correctness, there might be hope for this society. Meanwhile, Theodore Dalrymple watches and comments from afar, and this is understandable. We are morally obliged to stand up to self-imposed decay, but we’re not morally obliged to stand within it.

The Retreat of Reason by Anthony Browne

Having read only 10 pages of this 121 page pamphlet The Retreat of Reason, by Anthony Browne, I am already able to say that this book is likely to follow The End of Faith in my estimation as the second most important book of our age. Indeed I would go so far as to say that this book summarises and articulates well many of the things I have said on this site, and if there is a book I would like to have written myself,
this is it.

The Retreat of Reason is very well written, in a calm, rational and eloquent tone, and is certainly insightful, but it isn’t, so far, an especially profound book - it isn’t Principia Mathematica. It is simply stating facts - but they are facts that usually dare not speak their name - and that is the point.

The book addresses what is essentially a modern manifestation of fascism (one which is all the more reprehensible for the way it poses as the opposite). One which subverts free speech, truth and even free thought and threatens the very fabric and future of our society. It addresses the insidious march of political correctness. Interestingly, criticism of political correctness is, itself, outlawed by political correctness (the mechanism is self-protecting). This book ignores all that and proceeds to analyse and expose the problem in all its guises with uncompromising truth, concern and accuracy.

I will not quote from the book, because virtually everything I have so far read is worth quoting, but I will strongly recommend it to anybody who cares about the state of their society, and I look forward to reading this one too afterwards.

Aric Sigman: Remotely Controlled

I recently read this book and it joins the ranks of some of the best I have ever read. Why? Because Aric Sigman is motivated mainly by respect for truth and a concern for fellow human beings rather than by money. In other words, he has integrity.

In this book he is not afraid to take on the big TV corporations and produces a great deal of research to confirm what, really, should be obvious to all: too much TV, and the kind of TV generally broadcast, is bad for us, and we do watch too much.

Personally I had cancelled my TV license before even reading Mr Sigman’s fine book. There is potentially a danger of him “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” because some TV can be okay, but he does not say people should stop watching it all together, just that they should be more selective and not accept TV as a substitute for real life.

I say that too, and when you consider that you can listen to the radio free of charge and pull down any useful TV from the Internet these days, one might wonder how the broadcasters (especially the BBC) expect to survive at all. They only survive because people don’t read excellent books such as this (because, as Sigman notes - of course - they’re not promoted or even mentioned on TV).

Really the arguments of Remotely Controlled fall into two broad categories: watching TV is actually physically bad for us (which he fully backs up) and the programmes on TV generally promote bad values, which do not have our - but rather the broadcasters’ - interests at heart. This might seem obvious as well, but it is not obvious to everyone and it’s great to see it all written down so clearly.

Finally, Aric Sigman is concerned at the surrogate role TV has - it becomes a surrogate mother, a surrogate teacher, a surrogate friend. It even becomes a surrogate life for many people. Aric Sigman is saying (and I am certainly saying): show it the door. Stop letting it steal your personal relationships and time from you. Stop thinking people have some particular credibility just because they are on TV. Realise what is going on, read this important, excellent book, think for yourself, turn off your TV and take back control of your own life.

Television: Opiate of the Masses