Emotion versus Reason

 Emotion versus Reason

Stimulated by some words in Meeting on Sunday, I recalled that I preferred sorting disputes by recourse to reason, rather than emotion. This strong preference of mine emerged during the period around the break-up of my marriage. In many soliloquies I had silently verbalised my preference thus: suppose one party wants this and the other party wants that, how can they  negotiate, short of 'giving-in'? How can they each know the strength of the other's wanting? It seemed to me that the best way forward was to seek reasons and arguments; talk, therefore, in terms of money, time, resources, where numbers could be put on the strengths of each case. I suspect I still feel that reason is my preferred way out of an emotional conflict. 

However, as I made my way home from Meeting, two further realisations flooded over me.
[1] I have been on a number of training courses on 'Conciliation'. I understand the nub of the technique to be that each party is brought to see very clearly the emotional impact of the problem at issue on the other party. Thus, with the two contestants (A & B) and the conciliator (C) in a protected ('safe') arena, A and then B each explain to C their case, and how they feel. Conflicts that matter are conflicts of emotions. (Conflicts over facts are easily resolved, as Father showed us children: you can force it to an issue by offering a 6-penny bet on your favoured outcome, then you 'look-up' the answer.)
[2] It occurred to me that I was essentially admitting an inability to assess either my own emotions, or those of other people with whom I interact; or of both parties. This is close to admitting to  'Asperger's Syndrome', which I understand as a deficit in the ability to read the emotional significance of the observable actions of other people. It is very hard to know, as I had always assumed myself to be 'standard'. But perhaps I am deficient! 

I can certainly see the observable actions (or think I can). Nor do I think of myself as lacking emotions; the opposite rather, for I weep with joy when I see kindness, and I feel contaminated when protagonists in a drama tell a lie. But I might be suppressing my emotions, shuffling them out of (conscious) sight, precisely because they are too painful. 

How can I test that possibility?  Any such attempt sounds like a recipe for noise and stress. Perhaps I shall continue with my present strategies. 

Life after Death

 Life after Death

I think there is some truth in claiming that Christianity's great success, the feature that allowed it to become the world's 'biggest religion, was by promising 'Life after Death'. (A feature it shares with Islam, the 'second biggest religion'.) The idea that something, (the soul or core or essence of a person) could survive death seems to be basic to the human psyche and was well known in the Middle East long before Jesus.  It is certain that the idea of bodily survival after death was not the message that Jesus was trying to teach. Indeed, he explicitly scoffed at it (Matth 22:23 ).  But the idea proved enormously popular and, over the centuries, the idea of bodily survival was grafted onto the teaching of Jesus, and has brought many hopeful converts to Christianity. 

Did the initial disciples of Jesus, by emphasising the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus, perpetrate a scam? Or were they honestly describing their experience? By 325 CE, when the bishops met at Nicea, politics seem to have dominated the discussion. For the Nicene Creed quite explicitly promises the resurrection of the dead [See References below].  

Does Christianity (by which I mean, not the teaching of Jesus, but the more-or-less unified teaching of the Christian bishops in 325 CE) deliver any sort of 'Life after Death'? Yes, if you are inspired by the belief. No, if you cannot so believe. And many cannot. 

By distinguishing between the teaching of Jesus and that of the Christian bishops I have opened up the question -- was Jesus a Christian? I mean, could he have subscribed to the Nicene or any other 'Christian' creed on the question of Life after Death; does the explicitly quoted teaching of Jesus promise anything like that which Christian Bishops have promised in his name? If not, we may ask whether the explicit teaching of Jesus (such as we have) do better at delivering on its promises?

Jesus is reported to have said that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." (Matth 22:32).  He is also reported as saying that the idea of meeting up with your spouse after death shows a misconception of Heaven; "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. " (Matth 22:29 ).  Heaven is (he suggested) more like when a king prepares a wedding feast for his son, and sends out invitations, but the invitees do not come (Matth 22:3 ).   So he sends out invitations to all and any. (Matth 22: 9).  They come, but those that come to the party in the wrong frame of mind get nothing out of it. (Matth 22: 12).

Was not Jesus saying something like: God is for the living, and Heaven is for the living, not for the dead. That we are invited to join him, in Heaven; so should we not attend? And if we accept the invitation, and go to the party, it surely behoves us to attend in the right frame of mind; count our blessings and feel glad to be there. 

I feel the same way. I feel that to love creation with all one's heart, and with all one's mind (Matth.22:37), and to love and treat your neighbour as you treat yourself (Matth.22:39), creates a better world, an acceptable world, a world in which to be glad, in which to be grateful, and for which to wear festive clothes.  Even if plenty problems remain. In that sense I find that Jesus delivers.

The part that dies and the part that lives on.

To get anywhere in discussing the question of Life-after-Death, it is essential to be quite clear about the concepts of material reality and ideal thought. (The term 'Spirit' is undefined and is therefore avoided.) It is also essential to seek the truth, and embrace it.  

Life, as far as I understand it, requires a flow of oxygen to the heart, and to the brain; without that flow, life and thought is impossible. 

I attended a Quaker funeral at Whitley Bay Crematorium in 2008. One Quaker read a poem of Betty Walters about a leaf, containing the consoling idea that it, the leaf (i.e. the poet), might be reabsorbed back into 'God'. So I refrained from reading the poem of Francis Thompson that my mother had quoted as she prepared herself for death, though I think it excellently appropriate, and making a slightly different point – that birth implies death and death implies birth; "Nothing dies but something lives". 

Instead, I found myself developing a thought I had started earlier in the day – that there are two parts to a person: a part that dies and a part that does not. What we love about a person is not a kilogram of cardiac muscle, or mushy liver. That, of course, is the part that dies. What we love is the husband, father, grandfather, the earner, the musician, the student, a smile, an anecdote; in fact more the idea of a person than the reality of a person. And that is the part that does not die, but lingers in the memories of the still-living. So, in effect, I have reached the conclusion that, to our emotions, a person (alive or dead) is more important as an 'idea' than as a 'thing'.

I am not able to believe in Life Everlasting 'in the flesh', so get no comfort from the Christian promise. But I do find some value in the undeniable fact that ideas about the good points of bygone people linger in the minds of the living; and may linger for a generation in most cases, and for two millennia in outstanding cases. In thus lingering, these memories support us in our endeavour 'to find heaven on earth'. 

References:

Several Christian Creeds

 (https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43801/creeds.pdf )

[1] "We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come". (Nicene Creed, CE 325)

[2] "I believe in .... the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." (Apostle's creed, c. CE 500, Wikipedia)

[3]  "41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;

 42.  and shall give account of their own works.

 43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
         44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." (Athanasian creed, c. CE 500, Wikipedia) 

Palestine could lease land to Israel

Palestine could lease land to Israel.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are deemed illegal. 

(The Palestinian West Bank is land taken by Israel by force in the war of 1967, and the Israeli presence is thus against International law. )

Israel covets that land.

(There are many Israelis who want to live in Arab land with such a fierce craving that they break the laws of normal civilised life in attempts to oust the Arab residents. The political majority in Israel condones that barbaric behaviour, thus showing itself not competent to govern the area.) 

Land purchases between states have been agreed in the past.

(Admittedly with mixed success. Florida was acquired off Spain in 1819 for $5million of settled citizen claims. In 1848, by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the USA paid Mexico $15million plus $3million in claims for 1,360,000 square km of land, i.e. Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah. The USA, in 1867, purchased Alaska off Russia at a fair price; $7.2million for 1.5million square km of land. Neither side particularly wanted the land.)

Could Israel occupy and enjoy Arab land legally? 

(Perhaps Israel could buy some land. But, if Palestine did not want to sell, perhaps they could agree to let out the land for an annual rent. Or negotiate a 99 year lease, as the British did with Hong Kong.)

Or are we living in a more barbaric, Post-Enlightenment, age?

Is happiness elusive because mostly in the mind?

 To a pen-friend I was fated never to meet.

I think of myself as searching for a happiness which seems destined always to evade me. I wonder if that is because the happiness I seek is imaginary. 

In our heads we can piece together imaginary animals which can be thought of, but which could never exist; like centaurs with the body and legs of a horse. Similarly we can imagine a day of sunny summer weather, then add in a wonderful meal, a punt, my charming companion a gifted pianist. But poor old reality stumbles along, completely unable to keep up with the fantasy. There are empty beer cans on the grass, a fly in the ointment, and the pretty girl does not want to make love with me. 

Should I be content with the dream, or learn to be content with reality, and its empty beer cans? 

Standing Charges for Energy

 Dear OFGEM,

You ask for feedback on the question of Standing Charges, (to the email address StandingCharges@ofgem.gov.uk.)

I have been against Standing Charges for a long time, both in regard to energy and water. There is, of course, a certain cost involved in connecting a house to the grid and in providing a meter, even when energy is not used. And some charge for those services is legitimate. (It cost a deal of money to build a car-making factory, a cost that is shared among those who buy cars, but not by is not imposed on those who do not buy cars.)

However, there is no reason why that standing energy charge should increase when the cost of fuel increases!!! It is clear that companies are using Standing Charges as a way to mislead customers into thinking that their electricity is cheaper than that of rivals, because their unit cost is cheaper. 

It is true that customers have no need to be fooled in this way; they can choose the company with the lowest standing charge (as indicating the most honest). Or they can do a more elaborate calculation using their own personal daily energy consumption.

There are two reasons why OFGEM might step in to moderate this ‘deceitfulness’. In a warming world with looming deadlines, there is some virtue in pressing down on the consumption of energy with a modest but consistent pressure. This effect is maximised when the standing charge is minimised.

For OFGEM to condone the practice of shunting some of the energy price rises into Standing-Charge-rises is to sully the reputation of OFGEM.

Yours sincerely, Ian West

Refs: 

[1] https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2022/09/standing-charges.html; 

[2] https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2022/10/average-electricity-consumption-part-2.html

(If you write to StandingCharges@ofgem.gov.uk, you might consider copying me in at: cawstein@gmail.com ) 

Terrorism

Terrorism

My Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1973) defines Terrorism as:

"Terrorism (te.roriz'm). 1795.  A system of terror. 1. Government by intimidation; the system of the 'Terror' (1793-4); see prec. 2. gen. A policy intended to strike with terror those against whom it is adopted; the fact of terrorizing or condition of being terrorized 1798." 

The term was invented by the French, and arose in the context of the French Revolution. 

My Collins English Dictionary (Millennium edition, 1998) has:

"terrorism (‘terǝ,rizəm) n 1 systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal. 2 the act of terrorizing. 3 the state of being terrorized. "

After the 11th September 2001 attack on the twin-towers of the World Trade Centre in New York the USA took up the word in a big way. But they found it necessary to narrow the definition to exclude their own governmental actions. Wikipedia is helpful here as they have a long article on "Terrorism". In that there is reference to the Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute page on Title 22 Chapter 38 of the US Code, (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/2656f) and their definition of terrorism:

"The term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".

I think the crux of the criminal act of terrorism is fourfold:  (1) intimidation, for (2) purposes of control by means of acts of (3) violence against (4) noncombatant targets. I do not see that the size, or the political standing, of the perpetrator affects the criminality. 

The terrorism is extra annoying if the perpetrator is small; extra damaging if the perpetrator is large.

It is hard to see how the State of Israel (and also the USA, UK, etc.) can avoid the charge of being a Terrorist Organisation.

(Please tell me if you think I am wrong: Cawstein@gmail.com.)

Failure to Understand the Benefits of Taxation

 Further to my post of 21 June 2023, which I hoped the Times would publish, I redrafted and sent the following to Professor William Davies who had just published an article on Inflation and Interest Rates in  the London Review of Books. 

Dear William Davies,

The rather rapid rise in interest rates in recent months is certainly putting a great strain on many young house-buyers. And it is generating a lot of comment in the media (by which I really mean Radio 4). Yet my analysis is completely different from that of the mainstream media. 

I believe a great deal of extra money was released into the economy during the COVID crisis, which must eventually cause inflation unless it is withdrawn. The fundamental dogma of the monetarists (that the value of money is set by the ratio of goods to cash) did not go away; it merely lay in wait. Devaluation (i.e.Inflation) would, in time, remove the extra money automatically, but is unfair in that if impoverishes those who hold or earn cash, but not those who hold assets. It is also destabilising, forcing a wage and price scramble.

The Bank of England is charged with suppressing inflation, but their standard (and perhaps only) means of doing so is to raise interest rates. This, however, is even more unfair than inflation/devaluation, as it enriches the rich and impoverishes the poor.  It is in any case ineffective while extra money is still sloshing around in the economy. 

By far the fairest means of getting the extra money out of the economy would have been by raising income tax rates. This, however, seems unthinkable in a democracy, because too few people understand the relationship between taxes and the benefits they fund (like roads, education, health, etc). Witness the surprising fact that every one of the candidates for the leadership of the Conservative party promised to degrade the quality of our public services, (entailed by cutting taxes).

Is this basically correct? And has anybody said it yet? I think not.

Please comment directly to Cawstein@gmail.com

 The Evolving English Language

    I know, of course, that language evolves; and that it is by this evolution that we have reached the present state of English as it is spoken today. 

    I also know that English is spoken differently by the English, Scots, Irish, Welsh, Yankees, Canadians, Indians, the Hong Kong Chinese, etc., not to mention the myriad different social classes into which our present British culture can be divided.

    I make mistakes, and am a shockingly bad speller. I can make allowances. Yet I cannot resist the idea that some departures from my English are plain wrong; they cannot simply be  dismissed as variants of equal standing. They seem to me to be undeniable errors; errors by the following criterion: that if the speaker saw both variants, his and mine, he would agree that his was wrong and mine was right. 

Nominative and accusative cases.    Take for example the very common usage: 

    "Me and my friend went shopping." 

(Instead of My friend and I went shopping). No one says "Me went shopping." It is the addition of "my friend" that causes the trouble. (Perhaps there is some awkwardness about "I and my friend", which is solved by reversing the order into "My friend and I.). 

    But you can fall over backwards as well as forwards. There are people who know there is dangerous ground with 'I' and 'me', and who erroneously think they can avoid social pitfalls by sticking with the former pronoun:

     "Tickets were kindly give to my friend and I."   Or
     "..legislation...that allowed Michael and I to get married."

But this is just as bad as avoiding "I". Again, it is "my friend" that causes the trouble; no one would say "Tickets were given to I"; or "that allowed I to get married". It is certainly a great help, in understanding these problems, to have been taught the concepts of Subject, verb and Object; the concept of Nominative case (I) and Accusative case (me)

Conditionals: past, present and future.   I was shocked when Hannah Fry said on the radio:

    "They may never have met if not for a few tattered bits of paper". 

Surely she meant "They might never have met but for a few bits of paper." It is over, past tense, they did meet. 

    There is some arcane and obsolete grammar around hypotheticals and subjunctives, some of which lingers on in scraps and jingles: "So be it!", "Would that it were so!". Traps for foreigners. And it may be that Hannah Fry is speaking correct (albeit contemporary) English. However, my version so exactly captures the fact that they did meet, though, in other circumstances they might not have done so, that I think Hannah would concede. 

    Or take Terry Eagleton, in the LRB 45(13) p. 12 of 29 Jun 2023):

     “Emma Raducanu may have led a fuller life if she had played less tennis…”  

No! Surely she “might have”; but it is now too late; it is past tense. However, I am somewhat daunted by finding this in the (somewhat) learned London Review of Books.

    As a scientist, I attach particular importance to using language that makes a clear distinction between an hypothesis and an observation. 

     "When oxygen is limiting the cytochromes become reduced." 

     "If oxygen were limiting the cytochromes would become reduced."

Tweedledee is a help here.

"Contrariwise", continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be [i.e. 'might still be']; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Compared with/to; differ from/to

    I think the prefix is a reliable indicator of the correct, I mean the most appropriate, preposition. "Con" and "com" mean "with" (in Latin). So I would always compare one thing with another. Yet Shakespeare famously wrote:

    "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

and people have been wriggling ever since, trying to justify the "to". Perhaps Shakespeare wanted the explosive brevity of "to" – and 'hang the logic!' 

    I have a similar, but opposite, problem with the common pairing of "differ" with "to", and even greater problem with "than":

    "Adam is different to his brother." (UK)

    "Adam is different than his brother."  (USA)

In my head differing is a process of moving apart. I prefer "to differ from". 

Well and Good: the vanishing adverbs

    "I'm doing good, thanks."

   Well, he may be doing good to somebody, but not to the language. He means to say he is "doing well". Verbs are qualified by adverbs, nouns are qualifed by adjectives. A large fraction of the population of the USA have more-or-less abolished adverbs. They "run quick" and "think smart'. It raises the question (thought it does not "beg the question"; see below), is it important to be able to distinguish between adverbs and adjectives. That is worth a thought, later; for now I shall cherish the richness I inherited, and scorn the apparent degeneration of the language. 

Begging the question

    On the BBC, one frequently hears the modern (naive) use of the phrase "To beg the question", where 'beg' means simply to 'ask',  'suggest', 'raise', 'pose, or 'provoke'; perhaps with a touch of urgency.

    "Aresnal paid a million pounds for X, which begs the question "Why?"

    The earlier erudite usage is now very rare. In my youth the phrase, only used by educated people, meant 'to pre-empt the question'; 'to pre-suppose the answer to the question', 'to assume a premise as shaky as the conclusion being deduced from it', 'arguing in a circle'; in Latin "petitio principii". 

    "Is tax-evasion wrong? Surely not, because many people do it."
    "It seems that foxes enjoy the chase, as they show wonderful spirit."

The verb 'to beg' must have meant something more like the present 'to beggar'; i.e. 'to denude', 'to impoverish'. Two rather different meanings for one word, 'to crave' and 'to deprive'; like the verb 'to want', which currently means both 'to lack' and 'to desire'. 

    Now that the people at the BBC have adopted an altogether different (and, dare I say, simpler) meaning, the case is lost. The phrase may still be used in its original sense, but mostly as a signal of membership, like wearing a college tie. It flags someone who knows the elements of logic, and a little Latin. 

    Maybe those of us who wish to retain the older meaning should adapt the phrase, and say "To beggar the question".

Attendee

Given that:
'payee' means the person paid, while payer means the one who does the paying;
'addressee' means the person addressed, addresser is the one who addresses; 
'employee' means the person employed, while employer is the one who employes;

using 'attendee' to indicate someone attending (a function, conference, dance, etc) (as is common in the USA and growing in the UK) is clearly an error. The correct term (by this logic) would have to be 'attender', and that word is widely used for that purpose in the UK. 

    (It is hard to think what the word "attendee" could possibly mean, or to what it could correctly be applied. It would have to be a person to whom attending had been done?)

    I think the name for this formation might be the Supinum. In Latin the word 'dare' (=to give) gives rise to the word 'datum' for the thing given. Similarly, 'sputum' is the thing spewed; and 'elutum' the thing washed out. However, I have found this hard to confirm, and I am not a Latinist. It seems to me that "Payee" etc. are derived in a similar way.

The end 

I audition at the Tree Café, Taipei City

 I audition at the Tree Café, Taipei City

汐止夢想藝術村

That was an interesting evening, in mid-January 2003. Let me tell you.

According to an advertisement posted in Taiwan's English Language newspaper, the Tree Café at Xizhi wanted 'foreigners' for bar work and to play music. I was interested in the latter. I had said on the phone to Amy Tsai that I would be at Xizhi at 7pm.  She had suggested I catch the Red 2 bus from the central station and ask for 'De Vone Li', but outside the central station, which is large and would take 10 -15 minutes to walk round, no-one knew Xizhi and there was discussion as to whether I meant "Hsi-Chih", or "Si-dger" (The Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese languages differ in their pronunciation --- particularly of Sh and S). Fortunately I had anticipated that one, and had drawn out the symbols (汐止) in my dairy. 

I did not want to get on any old Red 2 in case I ended miles to the west of the city instead of to the east.  An alcoholic Australian with a native lad wanted to help, but did not know which way was north. I was eventually persuaded to give up the Red 2 and go by train. Everyone involved (and by then there were several) thought that would be safest. The man at the ticket kiosk told us to buy a ticket from the automat. Which the lad, constantly urged on by the Australian, did for me. He indicated the 18.37 hrs departure from platform 3A, and I scuttled off. 

I caught the train and eased myself into a comfortable seat, but grabbed the ticket man as soon as he showed. Just as well! I was on the wrong train; this was the express to Haulian, 4 hours down the east coast. I wanted to tell him that it wasn't wholly my fault, but realised that wasn't the point at issue just then. I had to change at the next stop, fortunately only minutes away. By 7.15 I was at Xizhi railway station telephoning Amy Tsai on my mobile (which only worked if I treated the call as an international call ringing out of Taiwan and back in again). I offered to take a taxi, and indeed did so, which was just as well; I would never have found 'Min-Zu second street' let alone the Tree Cafe. Even the taxi driver had no idea where it was, but phoned and got instructions. It turned out that the Tree Cafe was some 10 mins drive north of Xizhi railway station.  (In fact it is still there, at: 95, Minzu 2nd St, Xizhi District, New Taipei City 221, Taiwan.)

Amy Tsai turned out to be young, elegant, relaxed, slightly amused, and sitting on a high stool by the bar. It was mid January, but a fine night. Some diners were out on the patio at the far corner of which a couple of smart 'foreign' waiters were waiting by a bar. A Chinese girl was playing tinkly music on an electric keyboard and singing into a microphone. That would be where I would perform. We sat out at an empty table and I was offered a drink. I understood that they aim to have music every night of the week, and besides the Chinese singer they have an American who plays the guitar and sings his own songs, a French pianist and an Australian. They seem to prefer 'foreigners' for this side of the courtyard; they have a second restaurant nearby with a traditional Taiwanese atmosphere. 

Gordon came over and I was introduced. I missed his name and asked if he was Amy's boss at which she laughed and agreed. When I looked at his card, I saw he was Tsai also. I was about to gaff again, about fathers and daughters, when Amy told me he was her older brother. She was 26. We chatted a bit. Gordon wanted to know how much the fiddle cost, how long I had been playing. "You can try one" he said. "One evening?". "No" he said with an easy laugh, "one song."  But the Chinese girl was still singing. 

So Amy took me on a tour. She and her elder brother run a sort of community here. Their father had been a builder. They seem to own several blocks of flats, two restaurants, one selling Chinese food and one Western, a furniture-making workshop, a bakery, and more. Amy called it her "Dream Community". She gave me a loaf of freshly baked brown bread which looked excellent. It is the two restaurants that make the money, apparently. The Swiss furniture-maker was trying to walk past on the other side. "Ah, my friend Martin!" and I was introduced. "I was admiring your furniture"." Oh its nothing, really", he said with a self-deprecatory shrug; showing that he has been here long enough to know the Chinese response to a compliment. He excused himself and bustled off. Back at the patio we could still hear the music, but the girl had gone. My opportunity. 

        I tuned, but forgot to tighten the bow, as happens now and again on occasions like this. I played “Newcastle” and a couple more Playford tunes that I had put together for Professor Rowntree's retirement. To my surprise there was applause when I stopped. So I tightened the bow a tad and played "The Little Black Rose", in A flat and "The Rose of Tralee" in A. I felt I had done all right, had done myself justice. 

And indeed, Amy and Gordon thought so too, so I am to play there for two hours every Monday, starting 3^rd Feb; if all goes well. Amy drove me to the bus stop and an hour and a quarter later I was home in my flat on the Yang Ming University campus. 

(See also https://occidentis.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-girl-on-bus.html.

Comments would be welcome to Cawstein@gmail.com)

How solid are the concepts of 'fairness' and 'moral equality'?

 (This post was prompted by hearing Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss "Rawls' Theory of Justice".) 

[1] Should laws be fair? What, then, is 'fairness'?

   It is clear that laws are useful, if only to regulate society. And it is clear that they are only useful if they are obeyed by a majority of citizens (a 'consensus'). We can believe, without extensive research,  that successful societies have laws that are obeyed. Further, that the enforcing of laws (i.e. the process of ensuring that they are obeyed) is most easily done when the laws are spontaneously accepted by a majority of the population as right, as just, as fair.

    Experiments on animals show that the concept of fairness is very basic. Thus, social animals like apes, dogs and rooks are very aware when one member of the group gets more, or less, than they themselves are getting. Justice requires fairness, but may not be exactly the same thing. Images of stern-but-just punishments come to mind. Perhaps Justice requires calculation, scaling a punishment up or down to match the 'crime'. 

    As for 'right' and 'wrong': it seems to me that in-justice and un-fairness must be 'wrong'; so cannot be 'right'. But there may be more to 'rightness' than the avoidance of injustice and unfairness. Perhaps a proactive element?

    Aristotle, in his "Ethics", famously (and ponderously) considered all uses of the word 'good', as when we praise a 'good' carpenter or harpist. We can admire – says Aristotle – a generous man but sneer at a showy vulgarian. What – he wonders – if a good man kills his mother? At one stage Aristotle equates 'goodness' with happiness; "to a good man, virtue is pleasurable in itself". But I get bored. I am more interested in the question of who will be the judge? Is it I, or you, or us, or God?

    From written sources we can see that, for thousands of years, priests in divers cultures have sought to tell their several tribes how to behave, claiming to know how things are; the good foods, the bad foods; how to pray for rain, how to ensure reproductive success.

In the three best known, most successful, arrogant and murderous of the monotheistic religions, the priests even claim to know the mind of God. 

    We also see, from the example of the Greeks, that there have long been philosophers who try to dispense with the authority of the priests, by attempting to derive from reason alone the rules of what they in any case find to be generally accepted as good behaviour. But that is hard work, and in many cases remains unconvincing. That lack of success is (perhaps) why many people still entertain the concept of God; an unknown to explain an unknown. And why the murderous monotheisms were, and remain, so successful.

    But perhaps we just like virtue and justice, as ants like sugar, and fruit-flies like alcohol. It is my thesis (here as elsewhere [1]) that morality is better seen as a question of biology than as one of philosophy, or (heaven forbid) religion.

[2] In what sense is each human being equally important? 

We are not equal in weight, or wealth; that is certain!  Yet it is frequently stated that all should be treated as equal. Is the universal equality that is being proposed an equality of moral worth? What, then, is moral worth?  

Is moral worth a concept we each invent to protect our own importance; to set a lower limit, a safety net. "I may not be a rich man, but I am a man." "If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

Some speak of "equal in the eyes of God" hoping (perhaps) to give thereby the concept some external authority. Or perhaps they feel that the phrase, if accepted, signals some sort of inherent human truth; a fact of nature. 

[1] West, I.C. (2019) "God for Atheists", AuthorHouse UK, or available from Amazon, Blackwells, etc or from cawstein@gmail.com

The Importance of Other People's hard Work

 The Importance of Other People's hard Work

    I noticed an article in The Daily Telegraph (Miss Chang, 22 July 20230) pointing out that the USA is getting relatively richer while the UK is getting relatively poorer, dropping from the worlds richest country (GDP per head) to the 5th. I wondered if the British knew just as well as the Americans how hard they wanted to work, and how much leisure time they wanted. Perhaps we have got it right  – for us. 

    Who, exactly, wants the British nation to work harder. Not, I suspect the British workers. Perhaps it is the owners, the directors, the accountants, and the stock market speculators. All of whom would benefit, without themselves having to work harder.  

    There seems no longer any doubt that capitalism is more successful than communism at making a country rich, but it gets rich at some considerable cost in sweat and blood; cost to the workers, and their immediate bosses. For the owners, however, there is very little to do, other than watch their bank balances grow.

    Another economic statistic that bears thinking about, is GDP per capita. There are a number of fluky countries away out at the top of the list; like Monaco and Lichtenstein. But why are Norway, Ireland, and Denmark as high as (or higher than) the USA, and therefore much higher than Britain? 

    Better distribution, perhaps. so wealth more fairly spread. (The wealth of the very, very rich may do rather little for the benefit of mankind, in general). Or do we British spend too much of our money on guns, bombs and battleships?

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Raise Income Tax!

The Editor, The Times, London; 21 June 2023.

Dear Sir,

    It seems to me that considerable money was created and spent into the economy during the COVID emergency, for the benefit of all. Either we recall it, or we let inflation adjust the value of the pound. 

    Inflation is a sneaky and unfair 'tax'; it erodes the value of cash savings, and penalises those on controlled wages, while those holding assets are immune.

    It is hard to make people save. One can only tempt them, by raising interest rates. But that also is grossly unfair, imposing an impossible burden on poor people with mortgages while rewarding those with savings. Nor will it work while interest rates are lower than inflation, and there is still plenty of money around.  

    By far the fairest, and most direct way of recalling excess money would be by raising income tax. Yet that seem unthinkable in a democracy, so we all have to stand around wringing our hands and and pretending there is nothing that can be done. 

    (Is it not marvellous how tenaciously, and how sneakily, the better-off defend the interests of .... the better-off?)

Yours sincerely, Ian West

(Comments please, to <cawstein@gmail.com>)

TAX: good or bad

 TAX: GOOD OR BAD FOR THE AVERAGE TAXPAYER?

Of course taxes lower our take-home pay; no question. But, equally obviously, taxes fund the many services that central government provides.  Are taxes, then, a good thing or a bad thing? And why did all the candidates for the post of Tory party leader promise to degrade further our public services?

The better-off pay more tax than the less-well-off, and, because of the 'progressive' tax system in the UK, the tax-rate is higher for the rich than for the poor. 

There must be an annual salary above which the paying of due taxes will render a citizen poorer (in that the benefits he enjoys cost less than the tax he pays), while below that annual salary the due taxes will amount to less than the benefits (roads, education, police, health).  What is that pivotal annual salary? And why do so many people think they are net contributors, when at least half the population are likely to be net beneficiaries?

Imagine a see-saw pivoted at the 'median' annual income, with the rich to the right side and the poor to the left side. It will balance, as that is the definition of the median (There are as many individuals earning more than the median as there are earning less.)

Now let them sit on the see-saw with their money; it will clearly tip to the right, because the rich have more money than the poor. In fact, if the incomes alone are weighed, the see-saw will balance at the ‘arithmetic mean’ income.

 (See Figure 1; data from ONS, Average household gross income, UK: financial year ending 2021. The “equivalised median” is said to be £37,900; the “equivalised mean” £48,700)  

Some of those people earning more than £48,700 per annum gross (or £37,000 after tax) might rationally think they would benefit from lower taxes (not-withstanding the consequently deteriorating services: congested bumpy roads, decaying infrastructure, sick population, etc..)

But I cannot think why anyone whose gross annual income is less than £48,700. would vote for lower taxes.  We should logically vote for increased taxes and improved services.

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 “The ‘equivalised’ disposable income is calculated in three steps: all monetary incomes received from any source by each member of a household are added up; these include income from work, investment and social benefits, plus any other household income; taxes and social contributions that have been paid, are deducted from this sum; in order to reflect differences in a household's size and composition, the total (net) household income is divided by the number of 'equivalent adults’, using a standard (equivalence) scale: the modified OECD scale; this scale gives a weight to all members of the household (and then adds these up to arrive at the equivalised household size): 1.0 to the first adult; 0.5 to the second and each subsequent person aged 14 and over; 0.3 to each child aged under 14. Finally, the resulting figure is called the equivalised disposable income and is attributed equally to each member of the household.”

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Time to Think

Time to think

Oh! How I love having time to think!  And how glad I am that I can still catch and entertain those ethereal, disembodied spirits that float into the mind, linger and vanish!   

My time has largely run its course, and I am slowing down. Not only do I get less done in a day than once I did; but time grows more treasured as it becomes more scarce. There is no part of my day more treasured than my "thinking time".

If I must make cuts I shall perhaps start with my tidying time, or dusting time. Practice time vanished a while ago, unnoticed, and perhaps wrapping presents will follow it. But I hope I shall always have time to think. 

I like to pause at the top of the stairs, to admire my daughter's framed butterflies, so carefully cut from old maps; memories trapped on paper; Helmeth Hill in the shape of a Swallowtail, Haddon Hill on another; Ratlinghope, Bodinnick Ferry, Glynn House, Trebarwith Strand. 

I love to stand on my terrace, straighten, by throwing back my shoulders, and look up beyond the roof tops, to see if I can spot any of swifts that have loyally returned to their  ancestral eaves. I fondly remember the screams of the returning swifts as they swooped in to their chattering young, nesting in the eaves some 3 feet from my boyhood bedroom in our generous old Shropshire house. 

I wonder if it is a dearth of flies that has reduced the number of these astonishing aerobats that complete their absurd journey from from Sub-Saharan Africa to Middle England. Or if it is head winds en route? Or have my neighbours pulled down their old stone houses, or poked out the nests from their eaves? What are insects doing up there, 100 metres above any possible source of food? Does the swift fly with its mouth open, accepting what comes, or does it actively swerve left and right to catch a tempting morsel? Would I see anything if I trained my grandchildren's telescope on that patch of sky?

The frequent glimpses of a tiny blue butterfly down at the bottom of my modest garden is less mysterious when I find that bird's foot trefoil is the food plant of the Common Blue, for I have a clump of it in flower down there. (Funny that nearly all of the dozen different Blues eat legumes; except for the Holly Blue (holly), and the Large Blue (thyme)). Ah! But I have masses of holly in that corner, besides the trefoil, and I might have been over-hasty in assuming my butterflies were Common Blues. (It is easier to tell holly from bird's foot than Holly Blue from Common Blue). I find [1] that I also have the food plant of the recently re-introduced Large Blue, for one of my herb boxes is over-flowing with Thymus serpyllum. The caterpillar of this intriguing butterfly has a trick of exuding 'honey' which tempts ants to carry it off to their nest, where it overwinters, feeding off ant grubs till it is ready to pupate and eventually emerge. That lifestyle is stunning in its improbability; but several related species do the same (Adonis Blue, Idas Blue, Alcon Blue).

Why do we not gradually fill up with trivalent Aluminium; as it binds tightly to protein? Does a spider get appreciably lighter when it abseils to the floor? Easy enough, I suppose, to measure the speed of swifts in flight 'in terms of its own body length'. Pigs, they say, are more intelligent than 3 year old human children. I wonder how that was measured. 

Reference: [1] David Carter (1982) Butterflies and Moths in Britain and Europe 

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Auto-regulation and its breakdown

Auto-regulation and its breakdown(s)

Regarding auto-regulation of cerebral blood-flow, there are several aspects to consider. The ones that occur to me off the top of my had are: the nature of the signal (perhaps cerebral [CO2] or [O2]), detection of the signal, release of the messenger, detection of the messenger by a target tissue, effect of messenger on target tissue (perhaps vascular dilation).