Senseless Sensibilities

So David Jason puns on the radio and we lose our heads! OK. This is a short one cause really this will make me cry if I think about it for too long.

The offending remark appears to have been as follows:

Q: What do you call a Pakistani cloak room attendant?

A: Mahatma Coat!

Yes. That was it. Apparently race groups have been up in arms. The papers are writing shocked little stories and all those involved have apologized for the "offensive" gag. Really? Honestly? What exactly was "racist" about that joke? Did the gag suggest racial inferiority? Did it demean an ethnic group? No! It's a play on words. It's a pun about language. Is it funny? Not really. But really why are we all so sensitive at the moment?

When the world faces such real and present danger does it make sense for us to waste our energy on such trivia? Short answer: no.

Networking, Serendipity and Never Ending Hope.

Life is so unfair! Honestly. The good guy doesn't always finish last but he doesn't finish first as often as he deserves either. Bad things happen to good people while worthless idiots sail through as if borne aloft on the sweet breath of angels. You can try and try and still fail while blind chance brings fortune to the undeserving.

You know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. People are often blind to the converse. As terribly unfair as life can be, that very unpredictable nature means that no obstacle is truly a bar to success. No matter how unfavorable the odds the little guy can still win out. You might not be lucky enough to have been born in to money, or with fantastic connections or even clutching a winning ticket for the genetic lottery; bestowing upon you good looks, immense intelligence or boundless health and energy. But you never know! In a world were virtue is the only path to success the unfairness of it all would be staggeringly worse than it is now. Hope, in so many ways, rests on unfairness.

So there you go. You really should be happy to live in such an unfair world. No matter what your circumstances might be; you have hope. But that's not good enough for you is it? No, I can see from here that you're not going to be happy sitting back and crossing your fingers. Here perhaps we need to look to the classics for some answers. Now I know Machiavelli isn't a name often heard associated with much that is good. He's remembered as the bringer of immorality. But he did have some interesting things to say about luck. He said that a Prince must learn to master his fortune. That is to say, if you want to be the boss, you have to make your own luck. This suggests that luck isn't some ephemeral concept beyond the reach of human intellect. Luck may be unpredictable but that doesn't mean you can't play the odds.

There's a rather wonderful book called The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I urge you to read it. He argues that we may not be able to predict future events but we can position ourselves in such a way that we are more likely to benefit from what may or may not happen. By understanding the impact rather than trying to predict the likelihood of future events we can prepare for what life throws at us. We can also proactively go looking for luck. Psychologists like Dr. Richard Wiseman have studied what makes people lucky and the fact of the matter is lucky people behave differently. They place themselves in situations where good things can happen to them. Luck, it seems, is something within you. This is where networking comes in.

A professional network is a powerful generator of serendipity. There's a lot more to it than just talking to people and being sociable of course. To begin with you have to make a choice. You have to choose to be genuinely interested in people and what those people do. Ask questions and really mean it. By understanding the people you work with you'll come to understand the myriad possibilities each relationship holds for your personal and professional development. Understand what people are trying to do and why they are motivated to do it. Much of the time this may seem to be of academic interest only but the more connections you make the more chance you'll come across a connection with practical applications. Understand how people are connected to one another. This takes time and the payoff is cumulative. Before too long the connections crystalize and the energy you're putting in starts to pay dividends.

Freedom of Speech

You're a bastard. You're stupid. You're mother is a cheap slut and you're father likes to touch up small children on the weekends. You represent all that is wrong with the world and personally deserve to die in horrible pain while the swirling ghosts morality taunt you with pithy one-liners and wave burning pictures of all your dreams in your contorted and loathsome face.

Hallelujah! Freedom of speech kicks ass! I can't tell you how morally enriched I feel having exercised my human right to say whatever I damn well choose no matter of its level of accuracy, usefulness or benefit to society. It really isn't possible to find the words. Largely, it must be said, because it's all just complete toss. The above was not an example of free speech. It was an example of threatening, slanderous and self indulgent crap. The trouble is that few people understand the distinction.

We do live in a confused and sorry world sometimes. A world where extremists and subversives have become the champions of free speech while the nominally mainstream have so clumsily abused logic that they find themselves in the role of some sort of Orwellian thought police; protecting the masses from the insane utterances of laughable fools while throwing away that which makes democracy possible.

Take the recent Geert Wilders debacle. He made a film criticizing the Koran and was invited by a small number of Lords to come to England and present the film. Now lets not get bogged down here. The film may well be disagreeable to many but it breaks no laws and Geert Wilders himself is not a criminal. He's an elected member of parliament in the Netherlands not some paramilitary gunman. The reasoning behind barring him from the UK? His presence might provoke violence from Muslims! Where do we begin? Is it the fact that such a stance tends to suggest that our government agrees with him in the assertion that Islam is to violence as a media studies degree is to unemployment? Is it that it patronizes an entire religious group? Is that that our government seems to believe that the best way to avoid unlawful behavior is to pander to the potential law breakers and restrict the freedoms of the law-abiding? Worse than all of this is the fact that once again an individual with extreme views has been able to present himself as the champion of freedom. Banning him not only increased his profile but actually made the UK look small minded rather than the other way around.

Let us be clear. Freedom of speech is not the right to say whatever you please at any time and damn the consequences. Freedom of speech is the right to criticize ideas. Especially ideas associated with established powers. While many may wish to pretend that what goes on in religious circles is somehow separate from the world of politics and public life the truth of the matter is that religions are little different from political movements. So banning someone from criticizing a religion is little different from banning the criticism of a political party. That alone is worrying enough. And while I may, if I wish, vociferously protest against the beliefs of a political party it would not be OK for me to attack personally the individuals within that group. A person can be slandered, an idea cannot. That's the difference between free-speech and harassment. We must allow open debate and we must allow those with objectionable views to express them. What we must not do is confuse freedom of speech with the right to attack, oppress and marginalize. But how can the average man in the street be expected to understand the distinction if those who claim to know how to run the country can't see it themselves?

The Rising Tide of Fluffy Thinking

Is it just me or are we about to reach the Stupidity Event Horizon? It's a tired old line, I know. But this is not just normal stupidity. This is a special kind of unthinkingness that seems to be creeping in. I am, of course, referring to The Colour of Money.

For those who don't know (oh how I envy you) The Colour of Money is a new ITV quiz show wherein what, for want of a better word, we will call contestants attempt to win massive cash prizes by successfully predicting the amount of money that is held within 'cash machines' dotted around the stage. There are twenty to choose from each containing between £1000 and £20,000. 'Contestants' pick ten at random wherein a grotesque spectacle ensues.

The screen comes to life and begins to count up in increments of £1000. The 'contestant' attempts to hold his or her nerve and shout STOP! at the right moment; that moment being the one just before a horrid big X appears on the screen accompanied by a sound effect which is the non-verbal equivalent of "twat!" indicating that they have cocked up and lost the lot. All the while the 'contestant' mouths silent prayers to the god of greed and laziness. This is all fairly harmless in and of itself. What worries me more is the fact that the 'contestants' actually appear to believe that they can predict the contents of the machine.

Lets get this straight. There are twenty machines. They are randomly assigned an amount of money. There is no pattern! You can't figure it out! You only get to choose half of them so you can't even do it by a process of elimination. But this doesn't seem to penetrate the terminally mushy minds of those involved in the show. They ponder, they mull, they scratch their craniums in agitation attempting to make the mental leap that over a decade of compulsory state funded education has failed to convince them is not possible! I watched with growing rage as one particularly deluded individual turned to her three companions (what are they there for!?) and asked in all earnestness "what do you think?" and thereby revealed to all that while she knew the word "think" she had not a clue what the action entailed! The sad truth is that they don't think.

It's sad, it's infuriating and it's everywhere. We are surrounded by people who seem to believe that logic and reason are optional extras. Nice little additions like throw-rugs or table lamps. Non-essential. It terrifies me. And why does it terrify me? Surely they're harmless creatures who will live out their confused little lives in a blissful state of incoherence? Maybe so. But a mind devoid of logic is mana from heaven to those with despicable agendas. The vile and coldly intelligent types who are all too logical despite how much we may wish to believe they are crazy. The sort who send mentally disabled people in to war zones with bombs strapped to them. If we are wandering dribbling towards international mental meltdown then it will be the devils among us who benefit.

Getting Older and the Vagaries of Perception

I have come to a conclusion. I'm not getting older. Biologically perhaps. Chronologically most certainly. But psychologically I'm as young as I ever was. My dad tells me of a time when someone in his mid twenties would be pretty much a carbon copy of his father. He'd dress the same, speak the same and act very much like a classically middle aged person. But these days that doesn't seem to be the case. I have the same dreams, pretty much, as I did when I was sixteen. I have the same drive, the same ideals (mostly) as I did then. I am, for all intents and purposes, in a state of perpetual youth.

But there's a twist. While I am no older than I ever was, other people are getting younger. The average undergraduate is quite clearly no more than twelve years old. Look at them! They're a bunch of pre-pubescent chimps! They may have all the bits in the right places and their reproductive parts might well have dropped already but that doesn't change the fact that, while I have remained unchanged by the constant drumming of experience in to my eyes and ears and whichever other convenient openings to which this experience has been able to gain access, those who have come after me have actually been able to avoid becoming older entirely and have in fact begun to regress.

Something terrible has clearly occurred. Or is it so terrible? Perhaps this is just evolution's way of preparing the human race for immortality. It's bound to happen eventually isn't it? After all, we're supposedly pretty close to finding and disabling the genes for all sorts of terrible deadly ailments. We will soon live in a world free of cancer, devoid of degenerative brain diseases and, with any luck, where the gene that encourages people to listen to music through tinny speakers on their mobile phones while on packed buses has been found, given a bloody good hiding and obliterated once and for all. So when we do find the gene for death and flick the switch to standby we'll already been in a state where, mentally at least, we've become perpetual young adults! No need to worry; Jonathan Swift was wrong. We'll not all spend eternity as haggard old cretins but rather as horny twenty-one year olds with great skin, abundant hair and a never ending drive to dance on tables.

On the Subject of "why?" and the Irony of the Medium

It is the year 2059. You're a young, bright and hungry Undergraduate. You're hungry because you've just taken out the equivalent of a mortgage to fund your study and are, therefore, subsisting on protein pills and whatever in the future passes for Pot Noodles. You're studying Social Anthropology. You're first lecture? Jade Goody Studies. I kid you not.

You may not have thought about it this way yet but trust me; Goody is a phenomenon. A true world first for humanity. At no time in history has a life like hers been even remotely possible. We are living now in a world where a woman of no particular virtue and who has contributed nothing of any special worth to the human race has risen to a level of fame that was once reserved for the talented, the hardworking or at the very least the absurdly wealthy or privileged. She was born a nobody. She lived an unremarkable life for just over two decades. She applied for Big Brother 3 (2002 series). She became, overnight, a household name. But this in itself is nothing special. Not these days at least.

Jade was just one of a clutch of contestants to appear in Big Brother 3. She exists now among a sprawling number of "reality TV stars" who have appeared on various programs. A small number have gone on to live in the public eye to a greater or lesser extent. Jade, however, has gone on to live and will soon die, in the full glare of publicity. For those who don't know, Goody went on from Big Brother 3 to appear in Celebrity Big Brother (something about that is just so incestuous!) where she went from famous to infamous in a storm of race-shame, she had kids with another "reality TV star" and has, throughout, appeared in magazines, on TV shows and maintained a public profile out of all proportion with any personal richness she may or may not possess. And now, just shy of thirty years since her unregarded and inauspicious birth, she is about to die of cancer, tragically young and in terrible pain. Her wedding, a macabre fairy tale, has provided the final flourish.

What does it mean? How is Jade Goody a worthy topic for the student of the future? She represents the first of a new breed. A breed of public figure who live their lives in the media, who exist to be observed. She doesn't provide any great example nor does she invoke any great admiration. If anything she makes those who watch her feel superior! But she does provide something. What it is I don't know for certain but I can hazard a guess. We hear all the time of the atomized nature of human society in the modern, post-industrial, secular twenty-first century. We are disconnected, in so many ways, from those around us and any sense of true belonging. Through the likes of Goody we feel some kind of bond. She unites us and is, for better or worse, one of us. In a society where more and more people are choosing to reach out and broadcast their lives through Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and so on, there is clearly a very real need to be addressed.

We are at a point in human history where the issue of privacy is high on the public agenda. The ID Card scheme, DNA databases, CCTV, monitoring of emails and phone calls. We fear that our private lives are no longer private while at the same time we choose to make more and more of our lives public by our on volition. This apparent contradiction can be seen as a generational turning point. Very soon the first generation who have never known a world without the internet in almost every home and reality TV snooping in to the minutiae of 'normal' people's lives will come of age. They won't see the distinction between public and private in the same way as their parents. With technology embedded in everything we do becoming more hyper-connected every day and information sharing bringing about a new forms of consumerism and new ways of socializing the student of 2059 will see the early twenty-first century and the Jade Goody phenomenon as the moment when a new world was born.

So there you have the 'why?' of this blog. I'm writing here about a world that is changing in a very particular way. Just as the 9/11 attacks brought about a new era in international relations and the discovery of DNA changed the way we understood the nature of the natural world, the Jade Goody story is a bookmark in history. We will understand social anthropology as pre and post Goody. The irony of the medium should be obvious.