The Eloquence of Confusion

I can’t quite believe that I’m about to defend AQA. Firstly, a disclaimer: I hate AQA exams and wish that one day the entire institution will implode and create a black hole that sucks in all the terrible exam boards that have turned education into nothing more than a tick-box exercise that leaves you with nothing useful other than a nice shiny certificate to say that you have some sort of pointless qualification when in fact you have never learnt the subject that you claim to have a qualification in, only how to do the exam.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I shall move onto the matter at hand. The question “explain why some people are prejudiced against Jews” in an AQA exam is apparently racist. There are lots of angry people (who like to get angry about these sorts of things) saying that such a question is antisemitic because it suggests that prejudice against Jews is acceptable. I just don’t see it. Asking someone to explain the causes for prejudice does not mean that that person has to explain that such a cause is viable. Indeed, the very fact that they use the word “prejudiced” and not “rightfully hateful of” is quite telling. When has a prejudice in any definition meant ‘acceptable hatred’? Surely it means a judgement without any real basis on which to make it.

Moreover, if we do not allow ourselves to acknowledge that yes, some people are prejudiced against Jews and even try to sociologically explain such prejudice, how are we ever going to improve society? I absolutely hate using the phrase ‘political correctness gone mad’ but in this case, I am obligated to do so. If this question gets thrown out, does that mean that the history questions examining why Hitler singled out Jews will be ignored because they ‘might suggest Hitler was right’? The only way to prevent such atrocities recurring is if we truly, and unabashedly, examine the actual causes of such horrific racism, such as the need for scapegoats during a time of economic problems and political instability - a situation of which Europe is worryingly currently on the brink (just look at the neo-Nazis in Greece).  

I mean seriously, what kind of world do we live in if we can’t even contemplate the idea of finding the root of a problem in the fear that by acknowledging its existence, it will metastasise? Maybe if we don’t try to explain antisemitism, antisemites will eventually just realise that there’s something wrong with their attitude on their own - but God forbid we should actually point out the fact that such an attitude exists and that there may be bases, albeit ridiculous ones, for such prejudices. The only way to really attempt to eradicate such disgusting attitudes is if we find the root and find a way to combat it from the source. The exam question, I’m sure, was not expecting people to write something as superficial as “because the Jews killed Jesus” - this is a deep anthropological question which any relatively mature student should have been able to answer aptly.

Now moving onto the Pakistani men who are raping young girls. By accepting that yes, the majority of men recently implicated in such abhorrent crimes are Pakistani, this does not mean that all Pakistani men are rapists. But we need to acknowledge that race and religion is an issue in this instance. A certain minority seem to think that women in their community are second class citizens, making white girls who dress less conservatively even lower than second class. To deny that this mentality has not arisen from a race-related issue is to ignore the issue itself. To ignore the issue is to make combatting the problem nigh on impossible.

We should not be afraid to call a spade when it is a spade, rather than trying to evade the issue in the hope of not offending the other spades, while opening up a niche for extreme right wing parties to point out the spade and then turn all spades into threats and scapegoats as fuel for their own agenda. Thankfully, I’m not the only one to acknowledge it - many, including perhaps most notably Baroness Warsi, have identified that race is a real issue and that it is up to the community to sort out the attitudes that have driven a very small minority to believe that their atrocious acts are justified. 

It is certainly important to respect other races and avoid racism but have we gone too far? Is the government becoming so afraid of appearing racist that we are actually, conversely, making racism more widespread? 

As you may know, I love languages and words and all things literary. So I thought I’d share these with you. 

1. Pronunciation - interesting because it’s an incredibly ironic word, being so often mispronounced. It is ‘proNUNciation’ - like ‘eNUNciation’ - not the atrocious monstrosity of a made-up word that is ‘pronounciation’. It’s painful just writing that.
    
2. Tolerable - interesting because it’s from the Latin tollere, literally meaning ‘to lift’, like you would lift a load of bricks. I really love how a word which is now only really used in a figurative sense has evolved from something so literal. Our language is full of wonderful imagery, even when we don’t realise it.
    
3. Curfew - interesting because this word comes from the French couvre-feu (literally: ‘cover fire’ i.e. ’lights out’) back from the mediaeval era when there was a bell rung at a fixed time when the hearth had to be put out before sleeping. It evolved into a word used for a black-out during war time and is now synonymous with any fixed restricted period of time, whether or not turning lights out is involved.
    
4. Antidisestablishmentarianism - interesting because seriously, who didn’t spend their childhood learning to spell this just because they found out it was one of the longest words in our language? Perhaps it was just me. But despite its notoriety in Spelling Bees (even though it is rather simple if you break it down) I do rather enjoy the fact that it is a word that in itself contains a double negative.
    
5. Panther - interesting because it’s from the Greek πάν (meaning ‘all’) and θηρ (meaning ‘beast’) so literally ‘all beasts’. Obviously it has evolved from the generic term for wild creatures into the name we know today.
    
6. Candidate - interesting because it’s from the Latin candidus meaning ‘bright white’. This adjective was used to describe the bright white togas that candidates standing for election in the Roman Republic wore. Therefore every  time anyone mentions a ‘candidate’, they are really referring to an ancient Roman tradition of elections.

I really could go on but English revision awaits. Be sure to look out for an almost inevitable second instalment! 

Citizens, our country is in need of drastic change. We should acknowledge that state spending must be cut in order to heave this country out of the deepening abyss of debt. In order to restore our country to its former glory, a major overhaul of the system is necessary. Moreover, there is clear evidence that we are suffering as a result of climate change. Fossil fuels can no longer be the answer - we must find alternative fuel if we are not only to reverse this global crisis, but create a much more self-sufficient state to avoid diplomatic conflict. To avert such impending catastrophes, the needs of the many must take precedence over the needs of the few.

I therefore offer this humble solution, aptly named “The efficient utilisation of expiring populatory resources for the overall amelioration of society”. By relocating those over the age of 70 years to a governmental facility supplied with the bare minimum of commodities, the rest of you, citizens, shall be able to reap the benefits. 

The government is currently spending a ridiculous amount on care homes, pensions and the NHS needs of the elderly. By relocating them to one governmental facility, the economic benefits will be vast. The savings will help us focus money on areas more deserving of our spending while supporting a better quality of life for those currently suffering from austerity measures. This comfort will encourage people to spend more and create economic growth. Additionally, the extra space will solve our housing crisis as we shall utilise old care homes to provide modern accomodatory facilities for those at the foot of the housing ladder.

Moreover, as opposed to present circumstances where these people are of no real use to society, having retired from active life, they will be newly employed by simply placing them on bicycle or treadmill dynamos. We have been on an agonising search for alternative fuel which can both be relied upon and does not produce dangerous radioactive waste. Here lies the answer. The constant supply of energy provided by the movements of these relocated people shall ensure a much greener and self-sufficient power supply than fossil fuels and, with so many persons fitting into this age category, it will be much more reliable than the capricious wind or solar energy. Yet even if these supplies become exhausted, their bodies are excellent sources of carbon which will be able to keep the country running until new supplies are found. They shall be literally giving their lives for the greater good of their fellow citizens who so desperately need electricity.

This will also certainly solve the terrible crisis of an ageing population as by removing them from our sight, we shall restore vibrancy and vitality to society, inspiring a new generation of innovators and change-makers. No longer shall we have to endure the poor driving abilities of the elder generations; no longer shall there be so much bigotry towards multiculturalism and young people from those who do not comprehend social change and the broadcasting of endless auction and housing programmes will be wonderfully diminished.

It is our duty as a government to provide the greatest number of our citizens with the greatest good. Here is the solution. While it may be a sacrifice for some, the overall benefits far outweigh any drawbacks. Therefore, I beg you to support this proposal that will empower change and bring an end to the long-debated issues that threaten the integrity of this nation. 

Democracy. It literally means “rule by the people” yet I want to understand why this is something that people think is so incredibly important. A good starting point with this post has to be Winston Churchill (hence the title). He said that the best argument against democracy was a one minute conversation with one of the electorate. I couldn’t agree more because let’s face it: the general public are stupid.

How many Average Joes truly understand the complexity of politics when (or even if) they vote? As an individual, most of us can only think of our own, selfish needs. A politician is therefore surely going to attempt to meet, or look like they’re meeting, those needs in order to get votes in order to get power. There are two major problems with this system. 1) most of the individuals are going to care more about their own needs than the needs of the state as a whole and would prefer short term solutions that they can see rather than long term solutions that will be less visible but ultimately more beneficial to everyone. 2) politicians, in trying to get votes, will make bad, short term decisions in an attempt to please everyone rather than trying to do what is overall best for the country.

A good example of this is in the Treaty of Versailles (History GCSE coming in handy). Here, Lloyd George recognised that if Germany was weakened too much economically, she would stop being a beneficial trading partner to Britain and feared what would happen to the people itself if he punished her too harshly. However, since an election was round the corner and the electorate wanted him to “squeeze Germany like a lemon” (yes, the simile is accurate, even if the exact wording is not), he had no choice but to support the ridiculously high redemption payments which arguably led to political extremism and arguably led to Hitler’s rise to power which obviously led to WW2. In this crude and over-simplified light, I would like to note how ironically, the British democracy did therefore contribute to the rise of a fascist party and the destruction of German democracy.

So we’ve established a few of the glaring flaws of democracy. But now I would like to argue that we don’t even live in a democracy ourselves. I mean do you really think that in being able to choose one person out of about five (ish) actually credible parties counts as ‘rule by the people’? I strongly believe that party politics is not democratic, especially not right now. Of course, when the Tories were the upper middle class traditionalists and Labour were the trade unionists, it all made sense because of the class divides but now there’s no longer a true ideological difference between the main parties. They only really differ on tiny little details and most of the time it’s just because one of them has to oppose everything the other one does because they’re the Opposition. If you as the electorate want something truly radically different, you pretty much have to become a communist or a racist.

Our democracy is broken. While I personally believe that true democracy (i.e. rule by the people for the people) is as unattainable as true communism and as undesirable, party politics makes it even less attainable. If politicians are to truly represent their constituency, they should not be putting forward their own views at all. In a world where the government is run by the people themselves, the people themselves should be taking action other than just voting. Active participation is what is vital in a democracy and if the electorate become lax just because they think that once they’ve voted in a government, that’s all they have to do, then it is their own fault that the democracy is broken. If it is rule by the people, the people are the ones who should be participating rather than complaining.

The fact of the people’s idiocy is why I don’t think this is a viable system of government but if you want to live in a democracy, you should make change happen yourself as MPs should be representing their constituents’ views rather than that of their party. The electorate have no right to complain about what their MP is doing unless they have specifically spoken to this MP and tried to make change happen for themselves, as an active democratic citizen. Lassitude of the populace is as blameworthy as the mistakes of the politicians. Since I now sound scarily like a revolutionary socialist (which I most certainly am not) I’m going to end on a different note.

I do not believe that ‘rule by the people’ is in any way a good form of government. I want experts who know what they’re doing to be ruling me; not some idiot off the street, who doesn’t even understand what taxes actually are, to have some sort of power over politicians just because he has a vote. I want to live in a state where the people ruling are ruling for the long term benefit of the state as a whole. Although no leader is ever truly going to be this selfless, I do like Aristotle’s wonderful (though admittedly idealistic) idea of ‘philosopher kings’ who are uncorrupted by worldly desires and well-educated in reason and rationalism. This impartiality is absolutely impossible in a democracy.

In my recent blog post about anarchy, I ended by saying that I think that a government should work on making itself redundant and I would just like to elaborate on this for a moment. I believe that a government’s duty, whether it is democratic, autocratic, monarchical or oligarchical (or any other types of crats or archs you can think of) should be for the benefit of its citizens and the state. Its duty should be to create an infrastructure so perfect that it can run itself. Its duty should be to educate the citizens so well that there needn’t be laws because they would never be broken anyway. In this utopia, a government’s sole purpose would be in foreign affairs and the rest of the country would govern itself. Unfortunately, people in power’s tendency to want to retain power probably makes this proposal rather impossible. Still, it’s always good for world leaders to have food for thought.

Democracy is certainly the worst form of government - except for all the others. I honestly cannot think of a realistic alternative that does not risk the creation of evil dictators. Therefore, as a necessary evil, if we are to tolerate democracy we all ought to participate as fully as possible. Or become philosophers. 

There are enough blogs and articles undermining the entire ‘Kony 2012’ video so I won’t dwell too long on the specific problems, although I do advise you to look them up. Suffice it to say that Invisible Children’s funding, motives and affiliations are all extremely questionable and should be treated with caution.

As for what they are calling for, it makes no logical sense. How on earth will getting rid of one person topple an entire regime? Even if it succeeded, how do we know that the regime that takes over would not be just as bad? The alternative regime supported by the organisation has also been accused of violent tactics. Look at Iran. Look at the Terror in France. Look at Russia. Change is not always better or any less violent than the old order. These situations are always extremely fragile and while governments should be aware of what is happening, their intervention can often exacerbate the problems. 

What I shall now talk about is the interesting phenomenon that has emerged: a new mindless internet mentality (note the amusing paradox of ‘a mindless mentality’). People are so easily convinced by internet propaganda and we are becoming more and more docile with the treatment of the information we receive when in fact we should be more and more vigilant. The internet means that absolutely any information can be placed there and, if put across in the right way, people will automatically believe it. It is scary how impassioned a 30 minute video can make the international internet community.

Everyone jumps on the bandwagon before they really know what the bandwagon is. People are accustomed to absorbing information as though it is fact without understanding the full story. We must learn to think for ourselves about everything before mindlessly supporting questionable tactics simply because a video told us to. The internet does indeed make change very easy to make and can spread information extremely quickly, yet this is exactly why we need to be careful about what we choose to support. Perhaps people feel like they ought to make a difference, and seize the chance to do so, as though clicking a ‘share’ button or supporting dubious revolutionary violence will automatically make you a moral person. 

Being  moral is consciously choosing what campaigns to endorse without being forced into it by a video of propaganda. Being moral is supporting peaceful and sustainable methods of revolution, while acknowledging that non-violent change can only happen organically from the people of a country, not from external intervention. 

Morality is not a Facebook status.  

Alain de Botton’s ‘Religion for Atheists’ brings up some interesting issues. He argues that just because you’re an atheist does not mean that you should reject the positive aspects of religion, such as the beautiful architecture or having timetabled space for contemplative meditation. I agree wholeheartedly.

Why should not believing the doctrine mean that we cannot enjoy aspects of the institutions that have shaped the lives of our race for millennia? The problem with secularism is that in our human-centric mindset, there is little time to think about the wonders of the universe. Just because you don’t believe that anything created the universe doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate it and live your life in a moral, structured way. (More on why secularism doesn’t exclude morality in a later post.) However, just because someone does believe that something created the universe, does not mean they have to deny evolution or the creation of parallel universes.

This leads me onto another point. If us secularists are to enjoy all the positive parts of religion, then why must so many orthodox religious people shut themselves off from the positive parts of secularism? Why should theism exclude rationalism? As someone with an experience of the Orthodox Jewish community, I will focus my argument on this culture, yet I am sure what I am about to say will ring true with a lot of other religions. (Disclaimer: I do appreciate that there are a number of extremely rational and intelligent members of this community and this is in no way me trying to make an offensive generalisation.)

There are far too many orthodox people who are so obsessed with the religious minutiae, such as the dress code or the food laws, that they are more willing to devote their lives to passing judgement on other people for not obeying the specific rules (the example of extreme Hassidic men harassing a girl for how she dressed in Israel comes to mind) than following the true essence of the religion. I’ve had far too many experiences where I have felt ashamed to admit that I may be doing something on a Shabbat (Jewish Sabbath), when in fact these people should be ashamed to be passing any judgement on me: passing judgement is against Jewish law anyway. But I shall avoid a theological discussion about the semantics.

What makes Judaism such a wonderful religion is the debate and the intellectualism - ancient Jewish texts are filled with rabbis arguing with each other. I would happily cite a number of insightful Jewish thinkers in a philosophy essay. Yet for a lot of people, the rituals have become more important than the meanings and there are so many people too afraid to question and debate their religion and so it has become stagnated; this means that Judaism is essentially losing what it (and what many other religions) is about through the fear of the people to question. I don’t understand how there are still people who think they would be blasphemous to accept that the world was not created in six days.

I do not understand how these people can have Jonathan Sacks, who says that it is ridiculous to take the torah literally, as their Chief Rabbi and yet still be so close-minded that they refuse to even intellectualise their own faith. Why can we not join Aristotle with Maimonides? Or look at the effects of Aurelius’ stoicism upon Jesus’ teachings? Why can we not synthesise secularist and religious principles in order to find truth? People are so afraid of applying rationalism to their faith, as though somehow this secular thought will break it down.

Yet what Sacks argues is that scientific rationalism and religious faith are not incompatible. Both aspects are important and both aspects have important contributions to each other. Science and religion have completely different purposes: one is about empirical and logical certainty and debate, the other is about how to live your life. There is no reason why you can not be extremely religious and still read and even accept the theories of secular scientists and thinkers. If the Chief Rabbi can quote Aristotle and Descartes in support of arguments evoked by Judaism and remain a pious Jew, so too can all people of religious faith.

Philosophy is filled with fascinating religious thinkers - do we reject their thoughts just because of their religious beliefs? Of course not. We must take their theism into account when looking at their theories, but we do not ignore them; quite the contrary. So too should religious people allow secular thought to help them understand their own religion and faith and to question what they see to be truth. They should accept that science can be true and secular works can be meaningful even if they don’t explicitly mention God. 

Time to do what philosophers do best: argue for a really obscure and unconventional point of view (since this seems infinitely more interesting than writing about eighteenth century Russian domestic policy). I shall start with Papua New Guinea and hopefully end up with a really fun twisted idea of morality.

Apparently, there are a great deal of murders going unchecked in Papua New Guinea because of a belief that people are practising ‘sorcery’. This is a genuine belief, allegedly ingrained in their culture, and many innocent people have died as a result. My question is: how evil are the people who commit these murders? Aside from those using sorcery as an excuse to kill people, what about those who genuinely believe that these members of their community are evil and are plotting against them. They believe that if they purge their society of this evil, they are acting for the greater good. I would like to compare this to a cold-blooded serial killer. You cannot deny that a man who goes round hacking people to pieces because he enjoys it is completely different from one hacking people to pieces in order to purge the universe from what he believes to be evil. In his head, this is for the greater good. In a serial killer’s head, this is simply for some twisted sadistic pleasure. I’m not saying that either of them is any less psychologically disturbed or misguided than the other yet one is certainly a worse person.

This naturally brings me to the Nazis. Let’s just put Hitler to one side for a moment and focus on those brain-washed Nazi officers. Of course, there were certainly a great number of Nazis who were genuinely sadistic and horrible people but there were also a great number who were convinced that their actions were for the ‘greater good’ of Germany - they were purging their society of what the believed to be ‘harmful’ to it. Is this an evil motive? In fact, is there really any sane person who wakes up one morning and says “you know what, today I’m going to be evil because, well, I LIKE IT!” We have therefore established that either someone committing these atrocities is insane or they are deluded and neither of these states are really their fault. To them, these were not atrocities. What they committed was, according to them, for the good of society. In fact, who is to say that there is any absolute morality (apart from religion but… well that’s another debate for another time)? Who is to say that any action is always good or always bad? Surely neither the Nazis nor those murderers in Papua New Guinea genuinely believed that they were committing bad actions. 

Time to throw some French Revolution stuff into the mix. While it’s reasonably easy to argue that Hitler and Stalin were indeed sadistic, power-hungry maniacs (probably falling into the ‘insane’ category), I maintain that Robespierre was different. The key difference is that while it seemed that Hitler and Stalin used ideologies as excuses to justify their dictatorial reigns of terror, Robespierre started with a clear philosophy and stuck to it. Yes, the result of trying to impose a ‘general will’ on the people by eliminating all those who didn’t agree with it wasn’t exactly good but his actions were driven by a constant quest for ‘virtue’. By following Rousseau perhaps too literally (believing that people had to be forced to be free), Robespierre was trying to fight for the good of society. Just like Mary I who wanted to save people’s souls by burning them, Robespierre was acting for what he believed to be the greater good. 

Who is to say that this ‘greater good’ is any worse than what we in today’s society see to be good? Morality is subjective and judgement should be too. Therefore before we condemn the Papua New Guineans for the crimes many of them have committed in their crusade against sorcery, let us call it a tragedy that such delusions exist and must result in the death of innocents. These delusions, not the deluded, are what need to be challenged.

As promised, I have decided to talk about anarchy. Please listen to some Sex Pistols while reading this. 

The term “anarchist” is used much too loosely these days. From being used to denote teenage hooligans to violent terrorists, it seems that an anarchist is pretty much anyone committing any violence against… anyone. In fact, it has a history of being used as a derogatory term against any enemies of the monarchy since the English civil war. The word “anarchy” is now used to mean any disorder or chaotic environment and was notably thrown about blindly during the riots this summer. Anarchy is treated like something we must avoid in the same way the Americans were (and still are?) so averse to their idea of “communists” (i.e. anyone who doesn’t agree with them). It’s time to overturn the myth and look at what anarchism really is and give it, as a serious political theory, the attention and credibility it deserves.  

Let’s start with the etymology. Yes, it’s Greek, and yes, I will be using the Greek letters because, well, I’m just that awesome. So we’ve got “ἀν” (an), meaning “without” and “αρχος” (arkos), pretty much meaning “ruler” or “sovereign”. (And monarchy comes from “one ruler” and oligarchy comes from “a few rulers”… I could go on but I think you get the idea). So “anarchy” basically means an abolition of the state. Since anarchism is a political theory which has been debated about for literally centuries, it is impossible for me to cover every aspect of the theory without writing a book on it but I shall now try to give a general outline of the idea.

The essence of the debate comes down to, as usual, human nature. So while Hobbes is convinced that the essential man without government would live a life which is ”solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, anarchists would contend that a perfect community built on mutual understanding would be able to emerge, if only we abolished authority. Anarchists have a sort of idealised view of an anarchic utopia where people would be able to co-operate in a peaceful, harmonised society - like in a kibbutz or even, dare I say it, a family. It doesn’t exactly sound like the state of disorder and chaos so often associated with anarchy today. 

Yet, like communism, although it sounds good in theory it would be impossible to achieve in practice. Humans are by nature competitive. There is a necessity for some sort of regulation of this competition in order to create this harmony of which anarchists speak. If anarchists could find a way to create laws without a state, then they really would have the perfect way to create a free and equal society. Nevertheless, anarchy does make more sense than communism. Marx was not an anarchist; he still believed in a government except rather than by the elite, this government would be by the proletariat. Bakunin, one of the founding fathers of anarchism, remarked that Marx’s communism would eventually result in oppressive systems of government and tyrannical dictatorships…

Anarchists believe in social revolution from the masses yet with no intermediate dictatorship to secure the society. As opposed to communists, the people would not first have to be enslaved to be free. Yes, they may support violent revolution but the essence of the idea is a much more beautiful and interesting than the idea of absolute chaos. Whether in France, Spain or America, anarchy has never really succeeded for more than a short space of time. But maybe that’s because anarchy ought to develop organically rather than be forced into the chaos that we imagine it to be as a result of a crazy revolution. In the midst of such social revolution, someone is always going to attempt to take power, thus destroying any chances for a perfect anarchic society.

I’m not an anarchist. As nice as the theory is, it seems to be completely unattainable unless practised in a very small and isolated society. Nevertheless, we would do well to consider this perfect idea of human society. Perhaps the government should strive, with anarchy in mind, to one day reach a point where it could make itself redundant. Somehow I doubt that this summer’s rioters were calling for this Bakuninist stateless utopia.

Until very recently, religion was a central element in society, being completely inextricable from politics. We understand now that a theocracy makes no logical sense and is the mark of a backward state (Iran comes to mind). Secularism is now rife in this country and would no doubt cause your average sixteenth century man to go mad, convinced that our entire community will be thrown into a vat of molten lead in the afterlife.

Is this secularism detrimental to contemporary society? According to a number of high-profile figures, including the Prime Minister, it is. The decline in religious values is to blame for a decline in social standards. Apparently, the riots have been breaking out not because of dissatisfaction with today’s government or with the current economic climate, but because there are not enough religious people to know better. Because of course, back in the days when “atheist” was a term as derogatory as “anarchist” is today (blog about anarchy soon to follow, don’t you worry), there were never any uprisings… 

The argument is that religion forces people to think about community and the greater good, rather than being so focussed on individual, selfish needs. But are we seriously blaming secularism for this egoism rather than capitalism? Surely whether or not we are all religious does not change how capitalism works, which is essentially a system about selfishness. Yes, business ethics are taught by religion but as rational and sympathetic creatures, I am sure that as humans we can create a secular and ethical code for working.

I concede that religion provides us with a useful reference point for moral values, yet is this to say that atheists are immoral people? I do not deny that this society needs its values restored. If we were to embed the Roman pietas in our society, I do not doubt that this world would be a better place. We need to give our citizens something higher to aim for than superficial personal gain. What is lost in society is an idea that we are in a society; that there are qualities in people and in our community beyond the weight of their purses which ought to be respected.

I do not deny that people would be better people if they had a moral code by which to live yet I do not think that religion is the way to do this. We need uniformity and a collective understanding that whatever values we have chosen must be respected and followed by all. What I am trying to say is that we desperately need a social contract. Yet this would be a contract, not a covenant, and rather than an invisible being making us accountable to it in an alleged afterlife, we would hold each other to account every day.

In case you didn’t know (which is unlikely, since if you know me you’d know it’s all I ever talk about these days), I’ve applied to Oxford for French and Philosophy and since I’ve already written several philosophy posts, I shall explain why I want to study French at university and why I hate most of the French A level. Aren’t you in for a treat?

The problem with French A level is that it isn’t academic. Some examiners got it into their warped brains at some point that A levels should have some sort of practical importance. They’re wrong. As previously explained, the whole point of academia is that it has no specific practical use. I don’t care whether I never meet a French person in the future (although I would like to); the reason I am studying French is not so that I can hold a conversation with them - that is simply a nice side effect. The reason why I am studying French is because it is so beautiful. This takes me onto grammar.

I love French grammar because it can be so precise. Although it’s not as intricate as Latin, admittedly, personally I find it has a perfection and beauty that I feel no other language that I know of can achieve. We are always told in our A(wful) Level that there are pieces of grammar that French people don’t use and therefore we don’t need to learn it. They are wrong. It is not a case of necessity but a case of academic understanding. You wouldn’t tell a Maths student to stop learning certain formulae because people don’t use them in every day life! Why can we not be taught the fundamentals of this fascinating language? Why can we not study in detail the rules of the past historic or the imperfect subjunctive?  

The way I see it, there are several aspects of every language. Only one of these is how people actually speak it; the other aspects include these fine points of grammar that really make French such a perfect and fascinating object and the more æthereal ideas such as its literature. For me, learning grammar rules that not even French people adhere to is like learning a deep mathematical proof or a specific syntactical point in Latin: although these will never be needed in ‘real life’, they are what colour the subject and these abstract constructs allow us to reach the world of Understanding of which Plato so reverently speaks.

If I just wanted to be fluent in French, I’d spend a few months there. I wouldn’t choose to study it for four years in such depth and detail. This is because the French I want to study is not the French people speak - it is this perfect French that I want to grasp as well as the French literature, French ideas, French history and French politics which truly interest me. The ideas of the Enlightenment are so incredibly engaging in the way in which it seemed that everyone was so certain that they could say or do anything, breaking free from all social impositions that had been upon them for the past few centuries. French films are also so different from many other films as their depth and originality means that they can be interpreted in almost exactly the same detail as French literature.

We don’t study English Literature just so that we can read more books. We don’t study History just so that we don’t repeat past mistakes. We don’t study Maths just so that we can count better. These ideas are as preposterous as the idea of just studying French so that we can speak it. The act of studying something academically means that you are making a commitment to study something for its own sake and for its own abstract value; not for a practical purpose. Therefore we study it to gain a better understanding of the great achievements of human history so that rather than simply learning enough to have enough food on the table in the future, we never stop learning everything that makes human culture so separate from animals and so beautiful.

In short: stop teaching me how to talk about sociology and conversation skills in French and start teaching me Voltaire.

Time for a rant which begins with the Americans. This week, they released a film entitled ‘Anonymous’ about William Shakespeare actually being Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. The makers of this new film are also creating a lesson plan for schools to teach children in their curriculum about the ‘real’ Shakespeare. I have no real quarrel with the film itself as over the years, there have indeed been many speculations over Shakespeare’s identity: he was a woman; he was a group of different people; he was Marlowe under a pseudonym; he was a pink fluffy dinosaur who learnt to write… (the usual). All of these ideas seem as ludicrous as each other and I would happily prove each of these claims wrong (except, perhaps, the pink fluffy dinosaur theory as I do rather like that one), yet this is not my point.

My point is that these Americans have missed the point. I do not care whether Shakespeare was gay. I do not care whether he had a dead son named ‘Hamnet’. I do not care whether in actual fact he was one of a thousand immortal monkeys with a typewriter. The literature remains the same. This naturally brings me to the revolutionary essay by Roland Barthes: ‘La mort de l’auteur’ (of course it’s in French - you should know me by now!). In this essay it is argued that as soon as a piece of literature is created, the author dies. The literature is a living being in itself, as is the reader, yet the author is dead; pushing up the daisies; shuffled off his mortal coil - you know the drill. Rather than anchoring a text in a concrete piece of the author’s experience, we should be taking every text as an entity in itself. 

Aristotle said that the difference between art and history was that art is universal while history is confined to one event. Shakespeare is undeniably universal - from ‘King Lear’ to ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, there is always something about the way he has shaped the characters or the overarching themes which fill each play that speak to us even 400 years later. Yet the moment we attempt to link it to a biographical event is the moment when it loses this universality and becomes superficial and mundane. Instead of focussing on the deep philosophical ideas brought up by Hamlet, we become immersed in the question of whether Shakespeare wrote this tragedy because he was feeling particularly depressed about the death of his son. Surely it is more important to allow a beautiful text to speak to you in its own way rather than get bogged down by pointless questions about Shakespeare’s ‘true intent’?

The very idea of looking at the author as part of his text is a relatively new one. If we examine old texts, such as ‘Beowulf’, we see that there is no real author since the author himself is not important. We barely know anything about Homer and yet his works have captured the imaginations and influenced the techniques of thousands upon thousands of readers and writers. I believe the problem is our obsession with finding a real answer. If we come across a fairly incomprehensible text, it often becomes clearer when a critic offers a parallel with the author’s life, creating a more definite ‘answer’ - yet therein lies the fatal error. The whole point of literature is that it has no answer: we should not be attempting to find what the author wanted to say but instead we should be searching for what the words do seem to say to us as an audience. Literature flourishes with the mind of the reader and its growth can never have an end, as this perpetual changing of interpretation and understanding is what makes texts which have been read again and again for thousands of years still new, relevant and exciting today.

I agree with Barthes completely when he says that ”a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination”. Instead of trying to pigeon hole each piece of literature into a time period or a culture or a belief system, we ought to interpret the literature in the way that we as today’s readers see it. Once a text is written, the author becomes superfluous yet without the reader, a text is nothing. This therefore brings me back to Shakespeare. The great joy in reading or watching Shakespeare is that these plays have captured human psyche so perfectly and have such profound ideas that they transcend any barriers of culture or time. As soon as we try to impose a definitive answer on the great mysteries of Shakespearean drama by introducing a real author, we lose this brilliant quality.

Therefore I would urge the makers of this strange film to tear up their proposed lesson plans and replace them with a plan for a great philosophical debate about whether it could ever really matter who Shakespeare was, or if we are far better off to leave his identity in the murky depths of unrecorded history, thereby opening the gates into the illuminating eternal world of literature.

We are the luckiest people in the history of the world. We have in this country a near 100% literacy rate, near equality for women, compulsory education, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, political freedom… the list goes on and on. Yet what is the most important of all these things is the fact that at this moment in time, as you read this, we have accumulated more knowledge than has ever been accumulated before. We have access to the works of millions of writers, poets, philosophers, historians and the experiences of all past human endeavour to enrich our own lives. 

If you were to tell an ordinary seventeenth-century man on the street, for example, that we would one day have universal education in Europe and that nearly everyone would be able to read, he would most likely believe you to be as insane as those in Bedlam. Looking at it from this perspective, one wonders why the entire country isn’t filled with intellectuals and cultured, learned people who bring enlightening thoughts to every day life since surely a broader range of people now have the potential to achieve this. With more leisure time than ever before, there is so much more time in which to write about life, the universe and everything.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Socrates, Plato, Voltaire, Descartes, Keats, Tennyson, Marlowe and even Shakespeare have become books that sit on the shelves of academic institutions and remain unknown to the, now educated, masses. Why? Why in an age when we have access to more knowledge and culture and understanding than ever before is there such a stagnation and alienation of intellectualism? Instead, material goods and economics are all that people care about; vocational ambitions are all they aspire to yet when their corpses are rotting in the ground, what will they have left behind? 

We have the unique opportunity to build upon past achievements and create something truly spectacular yet we sit idly. Perhaps we ought to be oppressed in order that we may question the foundations of society, as the Enlightenment philosophers did, and in order that we may find a real truth and meaning to life rather than continuing to do what has always been done before. Revolutions are not brought on by oppression itself but rather by questioning and examining every single aspect of society and life.

People question what the purpose of art or philosophy is. Why do something that has no clear, practical goal? I could answer by using examples of arts and culture having an impact upon society but this is not the issue that faces us. Existence is just life, like any other life in the animal kingdom; living is about adding your piece to the patchwork of human understanding that we use to try to gain an insight into the meaning of everything. We are lucky because we are inhabiting one of the few points in history when we are free and able to question absolutely everything and to create nearly anything.This freedom is something for which as many millions have killed as died and must not be wasted.

It is time to stop this mundane act of existing and start living.

I tell a number of people of my aspirations to study Philosophy at university (French as well, but apparently studying a language is less controversial) and they always ask me “why?”. The annoying, unsatisfactory, yet typically philosophical, answer I generally give is “why not?”. However, I feel that I must take a moment to properly explain myself. Not only do I believe this will be a useful exercise to undertake in preparation for the looming prospect of an abyss of academic despair, i.e. an Oxford interview, but also simply to justify to myself and to you why Philosophy is and always will be the subject for me.

I believe I have already explained at some point in this extensive blog why academia is important simply for its own sake and how much I hate people expecting me to explain what vocation Philosophy will take me to - the answers being a) Everything and b) I don’t care where it will take me, I just want to study it! (Resulting in a few raised eyebrows since I had just shouted b) at the top of my voice without realising it) But the real question is this: of all things academic, why Philosophy above all else?  I do love History, English, Politics and even, dare I say it, Maths and yet I could never envisage myself studying anything in perpetuum (aside from languages, which I think I have already explained in my previous post) apart from Philosophy.

Reason #1:

Philosophy is everything. As I said, I love nearly every academic subject, yet all of academia contains Philosophy. Maths is a branch of Philosophy in itself (as my mathematical genius of a brother is constantly telling me) since it is pure logic, a clear aspect of Philosophy. History brings up many philosophical questions, especially once you push past the facts and look at the motivations and ethics of decisions made. Science is really about putting the questions of Philosophy into practice while asking whether such experiments can empirically prove a law, bringing up lots of juicy problems to deal with. Then there’s literature, something very philosophical both in the messages often brought up as well as the questions about the purpose of it in itself; whether it is useless or whether it is in fact necessary to society.

There is a reason why philosophers of the past were also mathematicians, scientists, historians, writers, economists and politicians. Philosophy encompasses all of these things and to separate it from these subjects would really be missing the point. I want to study Philosophy because I want to study everything.

Reason #2:

Time for a personal anecdote. It was Primary School and we had just learnt about Probability in Maths followed by the inevitable test. One of the questions consisted of placing statements along a line ranging from 0 (being ‘Impossible’) to  1 (being ‘Certain’). I placed the statement that ‘a fish will walk down the street tomorrow’ not at 0 but at 0.1. This was marked wrong, something about which I was extremely indignant. I don’t think I even knew what Philosophy was at the time but I did know that it was wrong to just assume that the event of a fish walking down the street tomorrow was impossible.

How do we know a species of fish won’t suddenly mutate overnight and one of them will climb out of the river and walk down the street? It may not be likely but it is certainly ridiculous to rule out the possibility. Let’s take an even more mundane example: the sun rising tomorrow. How do I know that the sun will definitely, beyond all shadow of a doubt, rise tomorrow? How do I know that the law of gravity will not suddenly be altered? Again, not likely yet still possible. It was several years before I read Bertrand Russell’s ‘Problems of Philosophy’ in which he actually poses this question. In fact, I found that a number of ideas philosophers have presented over the centuries are ideas that I have already contemplated myself. I realised that I was, and always had been, a philosopher.

Reason #3: 

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Possibly the most well known quote in all of Philosophy and yet the reason I decided not to heed the advice that I should not put a cliché quote into my personal statement is because these words, attributed to Socrates, explain exactly why I wish to study Philosophy for eternity. I physically cannot contemplate the idea of not examining life; I would certainly choose to drink hemlock rather than relinquish my right to question every single aspect of life. Philosophy is the very act of examining life and after discussing or reading about a philosophical idea, I feel as though I have found a slight meaning to an otherwise rather insignificant existence.

Reason #4:

I love a good debate. Philosophy is about taking an idea and attacking it from all sides to see whether it will hold up. Perhaps surprisingly, I am often one to actually sit on the fence when it comes to ethical issues yet if I were to discuss, for example, euthanasia, I would immediately choose an extreme point of view just to see how far I can justify it. I will argue why Hitler was good, for example, not because I personally believe it but because I love to play devil’s advocate and to consider every aspect of an issue while making an effort to ignore any influences that society has had on us. This way of thinking is what Philosophy is all about and my love of rationality and objectivity rather than using my personal feelings to judge a situation is fitting since it is something philosophers have done for thousands of years.  

That is all for now although I am sure that if I put my mind to it, I could write several volumes on this issue. I hope you now understand both why Philosophy is so incredibly amazing as well as why I ought to be doing it. All I have to do now is memorise what I’ve just written and tell Oxford… 

Dear Latin,

I do not want to drop you as a subject. You are so beautiful and so perfect that it pains me even to contemplate such an idea. The satisfaction gained from being able to understand you even when manipulated by such complex historical figures as Cicero or Caesar is incomparable. You are a welcome relief from my frustrating essay subjects where I feel I am always floundering in darkness, trying to find a non-existent path in the nebulous and subjective world of the humanities. You let me know when I am on the right track, when I have the right answer and it is this feeling of certainty that I would surely miss if I were forced to abandon you.

While I do not enjoy being the irritating intellectual who sits in the corner of the room adding pointless etymologies to complex words just because she can, that moment of clarity when the true meaning of a word is discovered simply based on its roots in you is something that no other academic subject can give me, except, perhaps, your close friend, Ancient Greek. To know that you have opened my mind to words genuinely written thousands of years ago is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, even if I must cease to be formally acquainted with you.

Please know that if by some twist of fate I am forced to give you up, it is not out of lack of love for you but out of necessity. Studying two rigorously academic courses and French A2 may become too much for me and I hope that you will understand that I will only abandon you if these other subjects force me to do so. Even if I can no longer study you at A level, I swear I shall never stop thinking about you. Every new word I encounter will lead me back to you; every piece of literature I study will bring to mind techniques that your writers have employed and every moment I think of how much I love language, I will remember you.

They say that you are dead, that you no longer have a place in the world. I beg to differ. As long as I live, you will always have a place close to everything academic that I ever do. Academia was defined in your terms and I will ensure they will continue to be so. You are not dead: you are immortal. Thus I will remain, as ever,

Your most humble servant,

A. Scholar 

One thing that really annoys me is a theory of parallel universes where every time we make a choice, another universe is created where we made a different choice. For example, they would say that although I am writing this post in this universe, in another universe I have decided to write an history essay instead. It sounds simple enough but it’s wrong.

I don’t claim to be a theoretical physicist, or any type of physicist for that matter, but surely the only way a parallel universe can be created is not by our own choices, as certain arrogant people believe, but only by the choices on a sub-atomic level where there is exactly a 50/50 chance of it happening. 

Onto free will. If you are you and your mind is always your own and the environment around you is the same then there is no way whatsoever that you will ever make a decision different to the one you made. My environment and my genetics define who I am and unless either of these things were different, I would always choose to write this post instead of the history essay at this moment in time.

Thus when we say ‘I wish I had done this instead…’ it is a false wish since there is no other way for us to have acted. The only reason that I think these thoughts is because I am programmed to do so by how my mind works and how my environment affects me. All choices I make are therefore technically predestined, not by some supernatural being or force but by the very fact that this is how my genetics have made me think and every reaction I have is how I would always react in exactly the same circumstances.

Back to parallel universes, then. Silly people who put humans at the centre of everything argue that it is our choices that create alternate realities. I would argue that they have this the wrong way round. Perhaps in alternate realities, our ‘doubles’ do make different decisions yet this is only because either a) the environment is different or b) we are different, based on sub-atomic changes. 

Different choices are a result, not the cause, of the circumstances of an alternate reality and what makes you you is the fact that you will always make the same choice in the same circumstance and therefore any alternate ‘you’s will not be you if they are making different choices.

Not exactly an enlightening revelation but it needed clearing up.