All the pretty snowbirds

As I pushed my shopping cart out across the Fifth Street bridge this morning, I thought what a pleasant surprise it was to see the Snowbirds back once more on our Island. Ethereal smoke trails and the sound of freedom echoing out across our land! Thank heaven we still have them, a symbol of our power and the glory of our military might, flashing across the skies, a beacon for our industry, our ambition and a symbol of our peaceful emissary to the world. It is so nice to see that, even in these hard times, we can still find the courage to ignore the naysayers who call for their demise, who preach of our economic doom, who demand a selfish and insular economy at the expense of our military machine. That we can still ignore those same people who demand that we retreat into obscurity and forget the vital importance our government attaches to showing off our prowess to the world. Yes, we are facing hard times, and homelessness and poverty are on the rise, but the Snowbirds have been listening to our concerns and, to save us the cost of their fuel, they will not be providing their usual display for us at the culmination of their rigorous and dangerous training. I add the word dangerous here, to emphasize how truly gallant their endeavors really are, performing those perilous kinds of maneuvers, at breakneck speed and at tree top height. That calls for a special kind of courage and responsibility. Their ‘planes could fall from the sky at any time, and in any place. But that risk, and that economic cost, is a small price for us to pay when it helps us to identify with the risks that those pilots take on our behalf, skimming across foreign lands in our defense; keeping us safe and secure in a world that is rife with terrorism. And so welcome back Snowbirds! How nice is to see that our protectors and defenders are making sure that they conserve our resources only toward the daunting task of building new societies in the image of our own; and are curtailing their daring-do patriotism only to the bare and basic necessities required to blaze their bravery across the peaceful and pastoral climes of our island. Thank you so very much, we really need heroes like you in times like these.

LOVE AND ANARCHY

As with all of the other animals that inhabit this earth, our only proven function here is to perpetuate our own immortality through the continuance of our species. Any other aspirations are speculation and egotism, inspired as a defense against the lifelong fear of death ingrained by the traditions of our morbid culture. That culture also tells us that, if we were to revert to our basest nature, if we were to exhibit a total disregard for the prescribed, traditional and ordained laws and tenets of gender interaction within our culture, then our society would crumble. If we were to disregard those sacrosanct rules, and indulge in adultery, incest, fornication, prostitution and whatever other pleasures of the flesh might turn our cranks, then society would fall apart; society would revert to a state of anarchistic sexual mayhem and we would be reduced to living in a state of fear and lawlessness. We would exist in a world that offers no justice, no compassion and no protection for the innocent. We would live in a world without love. By following our traditions, we preserve the “status quo”; we judge our relationships, our immediate sexual interactions and our emotional reactions to each other only on how they will reflect both upon ourselves and our societal environment. We view life only through a mirror, as did the Lady of Shallot (Tennyson); scared of the unknown curse that unbridled passion, lust and a societally unfettered attraction to the opposite sex might bring down upon our immoral heads. We see love as a curse, as a fatal disease, and we take all of the emotionally sanitary precautions that we can to guard against it; we look into our mirrors instead of leaping. How did we come to this state? Why did we become so divorced from life, so divorced from our instincts, and so fearful of the consequences of stepping out of the civilized roles which we think that we need? Why did we relinquish the autonomous control of our prime function on this earth, a God given inherent passion to procreate our species, in favour of a prescribed, regulated, ordained, man-made and societally sanctioned ecclesiastical construction? And what would happen if we did step away from our self-imposed roles as emotional slaves to society?

“On the attainment and practice of Machiavellian “virtu”: … As a liberal society, our ethical destinations are always sought by the collimate paths to the edges of the swamp. Rarely do we venture into the evident morass we see as the direct and expedient route. We refuse to inflict such discomfort on our companions, in the mistaken belief that the easily travelled route is the moral. And yet, when they arrive, they have earned nothing“

The rape of young Hildegard


“Say nothing to me.” said the little one, “My eyes are new and I see not what you might see, but only what my eyes alone tell me. Your eyes reflect your life, you see all and so much more and yet you still do not see what I see.”
“But I know more than you, I have wisdom and have been taught how to see. My life has been used in understanding; in gleaning beyond what the misleading light of my senses tell me. I have learned to put to one side the lies that they show me.”
“But I have only my senses. Why would they lie to me?”
“Because you know nothing of divinity, you know nothing of what it means to be mortal and to yearn for more than death throughout your life. As you grow older you will see that the more that you know and the more that you learn, the less you can rely on your dark’ned mirrors, on sight and sound and taste and smell. You will see that this is all an image, a reflection of something, of someone else.”
“But this reflection is my life. Why should it be more than that, why would I want more than that? Does the cat see more than his eyes tell him when he sights the prey of a mouse? Does the dog or the pig perceive their world only as a reflection? Do they look and yet assign some other portent to what their eyes and their noses tell them? Does the cat say, ‘No that is not a mouse’? Does the dog say ‘No that is not my tail’? Does the pig say’ No that is not a truffle’?”
“But you are not like them, you have a purpose, you are more than that; you have reason.”
“And does this reason tell me that I do not see what I see? Does this reason tell me that what I have is not enough? Does this reason tell me that what I see is not true; that it is a lie, a faded reflection of some infinite and abstract thing that I cannot see? I see the stars. I see the green of the grass, I see my world. When I see something that I do not understand, I reason to it with the senses I have within me. Is that not reason?”
“It is reason. But when you learn from others who have gone before you, when you study the texts and the tablets; the scrolls and the knowledge that mankind has amassed from the beginning, then you can reason with truth. You will know that the things that you now see with your innocent unguided eyes will then show you something or someone else, that you did not see before.” “But then will I not be seeing what I see, but what the people before me think that I see? Will my sight be still my sight, or just a dark’ned mirror, an image, a reflection of something or someone else? You say that I cannot trust what I see. You cannot see what I see, and yet you say that what you see is the truth. You tell me that the bright light and the fire are not just bright lights and fire. You say that they indicate an entity that speaks to me from beyond the limits of my own world. You say that he created this world and then bemused our senses to where we cannot see what we see; from where we cannot trust what we trust. Your words make me doubt my senses and put my trust to something my senses cannot see. Should I then discount all that I see; should I ignore all the sight that is my world; should I close my eyes and stumble blindly toward my own death? For this is the choice you present. To believe not in what I understand, but to forsake it all for some defeated comfort in mystery. Say nothing to me.

The Search is on!

The Search is on! The Olympic torch has landed in Victoria. Yeah! Glory and Fame awaits us! But there’s a problem! The Olympic committee needs thousands of torch bearers to carry that torch, and they are asking for anyone who wants a chance at this glory; the chance to show the world who and what we are, to come forward and help them all make millions. Oh! Sorry, did I say that out loud? They are looking for a cross section of our society to represent us and carry the flame, to reinforce the myth, to show how the spirit of the Olympics lives in Canada, how it lives in BC. The spirit of the modern Olympics, peace, human rights, international brotherly love and universal friendship, continuing on from China, right here onto our own back doorstep! Isn’t it wonderful?
I have a suggestion, to continue that same spirit we saw and ignored in Peking; let’s start by cleaning up our town and our Island and our Province. Let’s start by knocking down all of the cheap housing in Vancouver and Whistler, just as in China! Who cares if the denizens have to go and live on the street? But that might embarrass us when the tourists arrive, so let’s give the unwashed and the poor, the homeless and the disabled something to do, instead of sitting around begging on the streets. Let’s give ‘em jobs up the mountain! Let’s replace the government workers, those public servants who are being paid to take time off from running our country to work up the mountain, with people who don’t already have jobs? We could put them into those Taiwanese souvenir animal thingy outfits! We could make them all look like transcendental beavers and marmots on steroids, Like a Walt Disney nightmare! Think of the money we will be sending back to the sweatshops in China to make all of those costumes! Oh sorry, did I say that out loud too?
But wait! Giving jobs to the needy, the dispossessed and the people scratching by on disability pensions might be difficult, because in Canada we now have three quarters of a million children living in poverty. In BC there are four hundred thousand families who are in danger of becoming homeless. In Courtenay alone there are three hundred people who are registered with the social service ministries as being either homeless, or in immediate danger of being homeless. And that doesn’t even count the number of people couch surfing, living with in-laws or friends! Giving all of them jobs is going to be a challenge. But the Olympic committee needs thousands of torch bearers and they are asking for anyone who wants a chance at this glory; this chance to show the world who and what we are, to come forward and help them and their nepotistic friends and business colleagues all make millions. Perhaps that is the answer? Perhaps we should let the poor and the homeless, the forgotten embarrassments of our internationally friendly, peace loving, human rights aware country, carry those torches? They could stuff those symbols of our humanity into their shopping cart handles, and pick up some cans and bottles as they stagger down the bumpy roads of their lives, as they limp down the super new highways of the mountain, and sneak down the neglected by ways and alleys of our own home town.
I would be ashamed to carry that torch; it is a symbol of billions of dollars being spent for the ambition of a few, for the enrichment of an elite, for a misplaced patriotism that should be directed at our own real “team”; the people who struggle against really impossible odds, those of living in a country that has neither heart nor concern for the well being of its own citizens.

Fascist aesthetics
Okay I've kept quiet, but I have to vent a little bit! Susan Sontag scares me; she should scare me, because she is always right. She wrote most of her stuff in the seventies and eighties, and what she said is now coming true, especially with her exposure of fascist aesthetics. Her idea was that massed armies of humans, all aiming for one ambition, are a powerful and highly addictive force. We see it, we hear the trumpets and our emotions are aroused. It's an aesthetic experience. And, when we see the masses of humanity, we want to join in. It's a natural and correct emotion, it makes us belong and it makes us a part of something great, grand and sublime. Unfortunately it also allows us to suborn the discussion of our own debates. We assume that if everyone else has "sussed it out" and they are all for it, then someone else has done thethinking, wieghed the pros and cons, and therefore who are we to question or criticise. We go along unthinking, with our eye on the ambition, certain that we are right because of the numbers! Again unfortunately, that ambition is normally an abstract. Words like patriotism, freedom, racism, and power become more important than how or why or who. We leave that tothe leaders and the organisers and the politicos. If you or I were in Nuremberg in 1933, we would be waving our flags and raising our fists, just like the people we now despise.So that was then but now is now. But aren't we doing exactly the same thing today?If you don't believe me, then think about something simple, politically correct and assumedly unassailable. The marchs, runs, walks and bike races for cancer. Of course we join in, of course we donate, and in doing so, as we run along side of our peers, we are a part of our society, weare doing something good, noble and worthwhile. But how many people know where the money goes to? I mean really goes to? Does it all get collected and sent to Jane Austen at the Cancer research hospital in Van? Does it go to Micheal Borealis in St Margarets hospital in Toronto?Who knows, it's for a good cause and someone is looking after all that. It is an abstract idea that we trust to others. Is it corrupt? No of course not, but we still suspend our own debate and suspicion in favour of the good sense of our collective peers. And that is where the danger lies according to Susan Sontag, because abstract ideas are always open to interpretation , and who we trust with that interpretation may not have the same ambition as we do.Here's a letter I wrote yesterday to the local rag about the problem with handing over control of our actions to the invisible leaders of the masses; you probably won't agree with what I'm saying, but perhaps it might show how insidious and beguiling I find that those fascist aesthetics can be."And so we all stood out in the rain last week and remembered. What worries me is what it was that we were all remembering, and why. I lost my grandfathers, my grand uncles and a generation of my ancestors to a petty argument between the incestuous royal families of Europe. I grew up in a world without fathers or uncles because of yet another war. I grew up in a world where orphans were the grand majority. Do I remember those heroes? Do I remember the sacrifice they made? Yes of course I do. But I also remember why “poppy day” was engendered, and I remember the message it was designed to send to us as the future ambition of those heroes.“Lest ye Forget” are obsolete and antiquated words to broadcast the most important lesson that man can ever learn. But they have become misinterpreted, misused, bastardised to something else entirely, and it is that that has me worried. Poppy day was not engendered to glorify war, never to invent a heroic military heritage, and never to provide credence to continue to participate in, nor instigate yet another war. It was evoked to bring the message, in the name of those who fell, that war is never worth the cost of one father, never worth the price of even one uncle, and that it is the “glory” of war that must be avoided at all costs.Because men and women have fallen in the name of freedom does not necessarily mean that anyone who falls tomorrow is also dying in the name of freedom. That sacrifice has to be justified upon its own merits or lack thereof. And to use the death of my ancestors, who I’m sure would be turning over in their graves if they knew how their deaths were being used, to promote the “nouveau warrior” status of my peace loving country, to inflame our hearts with politically favourable rumblings of an economically devised militaristic patriotism, to promote the past and future “glory” of war…!“Lest we Forget” has become an abstract mnemonic, we mouth the words, and we standin the rain. But it is the real antecedent of that mnemonic we should be remembering: “Stop it!” That is what those heroes would want. That is what “poppy day” was meant to say. Tidied up myths, politically correct legends, existential thoughts of war, uniforms and the inherent “glory glory” stirrings of a cheap and phony patriotism can only beget an atmosphere of fascism and aggression. The dogs of war are loose once more and this time they are wearing red poppies on their collars."

"Particular" Justice

Aristotle states many times through the book, especially in regard to “the mean”, that we all operate with different levels of moral and ethical values. In all of the other subjects of this book, this makes “excellent” sense, and instigates a level of fairness and attainability to our moral ambitions. However, in Chapter Seven I find it a bit suspicious when he describes the values of Justice and applies this same individual or “particular” distinction in its application. By creating a “particular”, that is to say different reactions or judgments to different situations and circumstance, which in turn runs concurrently with a general or universal scheme of justice, he appears to invalidate his overriding concept of a universal set of tenets for “justice”. He makes a distinction at this point by that saying that “the particular” does not make the system of justice a relativistic system, and that the system is then secure from all of the negative connotations and impracticalities that that can generate. (Problems with relativitism-If First Nations law is legitimate because of cultural difference, then so is Sharia law, and so is infanticide in the Yamamoto Campasinos.) The problem for me is in the CONCURRENT application of the “particular”. I know that “justice for all”, must to some degree be a very individual and circumstantial procedure, or else it simply becomes a draconian set of absolute values. But by accepting individual specifics or “particulars” about all and any judicial actions, we (and Aristotle) leave ourselves open to a system that is not universal but will be different from day to day, and from case to case. Justice that is not even for all cannot be just. His proviso, that a ”universal” is invented with each new case, that is to say that if a specific defendant, accused of the same crime, under exactly the same circumstances, will be treated in exactly the same way because of the precedent set by the first case, cannot be true. If it were true then we would have a “universal” for almost every single action that warranted litigation. (Isn’t the proof for a “universal” tenet that it must be able to be applied universally without introducing a paradox?)
If the universal system of justice were applied initially to each case, and then the “particular” was applied after the fact, which is the way in which we administer justice in this day and age, then I would find his concept to be less problematic. But Aristotle does state that to be a judicial and therefore “just” system, that the “particular” must be an integral part of the “general or universal”. There is no distinction made in the outcome of any such actions, only that the action is judged (beforehand) on its motive and forethought or lack thereof. I think that has to be tarred with the same brush as Relativism, even though he denies it. As a Ps I am assuming that Aristotle intended the individual “mean” re: Justice, to also apply to a political or rather societal system. Which is funny because I criticized Plato for making the same assumption and yet ratify it with Aristotle! The vindication of Aristotle lies in the difference between our North American justice system, and that of Ancient Greece. We have a judicial system that relies on precedent, as opposed to the European and that of Ancient Greece, which had a system that was and is, I believe, called a “Codex”? Precedent does not apply.