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mmoa_writes at 01:59pm on 26/06/2007
mmoa_writes at 01:59pm on 26/06/2007Exams are over, and basically they went quite well. But now I have to get back to business...
I watched 'Keith Allen is going to Hell' on... Channel 4, I think a few days ago in which the 'journalist' Keith Allen (yes, father of Lily Allen with a new shtick) travelled to America to meet the Phelps.
In itself, it was rather enjoyable. I had several of my illusions shattered (I always thought that having a University degree in philosophy made you impervious to such nonsense, but I turned out to be completely mistaken as one of their most vigorous members turned out to be a philisophy grad who had originally come to the compound in order to make an expose on them. Then, somehow, he ended up converted. I have been living a lie - it took me a few hours to get over this shock to my belief-system...) and in fact ended up wishing I hadn't watched the programme. The unfortunate tendency of getting to know people who have an ideology you find utterly disgusting, it that you learn to separate them from it and find that they actually aren't all that bad in themselves. They just have a really bad shtick (unlike Keith Allen's, which, in case you don't know, is his whole 'amusingly-disgruntled-father-because-my-daughter-who-doesn't-like-me-is-more-famous-than-I-am' act. It isn't actually that amusing).
My main problem, though, was in Mr Allen's approach. Oh, his shouting about was fun, but, well, maybe it's just that I'm a veteran of such debates (it feels strange that I'm not even twenty, but I have actually spent most of life debating on theology and logic and such with ignorant nuts. No wonder I'm so weird...) but I felt he missed out on some pretty good opportunities to at least get the more intelligent of them to think (Mrs Phelps, if not for her beliefs, is actually quite a dear).
He of course brought up the fact that one of the children was illegitimate which did nothing to release their persecution complex and actully made him look as silly as they were. After all, why mention it if he was saying it didn't bother him? Well, obviously because such things bothered the Phelp's and there they were, affording themselves the luxury of God's forgiveness, but no one else (interesting, Mrs Phelps had an almost Universal Salvationistic view of repentance. She was arguing that she was not forgiven because she had repented and became a Christian, but because of Jesus' death on the cross. In which case, I would have argued, why does that not apply to the 'fags' who you so vehemently despise? How come they have to get down and repent until they are forgiven and 'saved' from Hell, according to you and your husband? If repenting does not make a difference, why are you even here? Alas, Mr Allen did not take advantage of her theological lapse and ended up looking a little silly).
Most usefully, though, and this is nothing to do with Mr Allen's technique as a journalist, the programme allowed us to actually learn something about their beliefs. You see, their hatred of homosexuality, for example, stems not so much from the fact that it is a 'sin', but because - they think - it actually masks a sort of hateful vengeance of one human against the other: why indulge in an act that will infect you, mentally disturb you, shorten your life-span, etc with another human being? Well, clearly you must have a sort of loathing for them that allows you to do so! It's no wonder they rank it with paedophilia and bestiality.
Now, that was really interesting. Unlike people like my father or Bishop Chukwuma who just find homosexuality distasteful and mask it with religious reasoning, the Phelp's seem to have gone a step further and see it as a truly horrible and evil (not just immoral) act that one human can perpetrate against the other.
Their reasoning is completely ridiculous. Yes, as far as the statistics show, the, er, 'gay community' do certainly seem to have a higher proportion of suicidals and depressives, but oeverall - so long as we're not affected by AIDS - we do not have a vastly differing lifespan than the average uninfected straight person. In fact, as far as the facts go, we're a-okay (I feel I ought to make a badge of that with two thumbs up...).
So, after all, it turned out to be the same old story. The religious aspect simply masks a deeper more important and actually more ordinary problem which is that of ignorance, and also, arrogance: "I find this distasteful, therefore I have a right to inflict my sensibilities on others," which isn't really effective reasoning at all.
There was, of course, that most annoying of catchphrases at the end which went 'Thank God I'm an atheist'. I know it's meant to be funny, but at the end of a really interesting programme about a disturbing aspect of religion, it just seemed to make the whole thing rather irreverent and silly. I mean, what does that actually mean? Thanks be to a God that doesn't exist... that I don't believe in... It.... I mean, come on! it's not as if being an atheist suddenly makes you immune from religious bigots or having to confront the really stupid and unpleasant aspects of it (far from it!). What does that actually mean?
Grr!
I swear, catchphrases whould be outlawed.
And talking about religion... please tell me I am not the only humanist freethinker who wants to slap Christopher Hitchens? In a recent interview, he actually compared himself to Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. LOL - I was like, "know your place man! Being an anti-theist does not suddenly make you an intellectual hero!" Mind you, he seemed a lot like a tosser on that Daily Show interview he did. Not to mention the G2 piece on the new anti-smoking regulations. What a twazzock.
Maybe it's just me being prejudiced. I mean, he reminds far too much of that blasted right-wing pundit, Peter Hitchens (would you believe... or is it Hitchins?) who has a rather annoying wannabe monobrow (no, rest assured, I do not hold one's appearance as equal judgement of one's personality as I do one's intellect).
So. I now have more free time on my hands than I have ever needed. Threw away all my old notes etc. as... I no longer need them! I have finished school!
Feels rather surreal.
Somehow have to get myself back in the swing of writing and drawing. Comics waiting to be inked, illustrations waiting to be coloured... *sighs*
Read 'The Ballad of Halo Jones' and once again began griping that the nine books weren't completed. It's an amazing comic by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson. Read it!
I watched 'Keith Allen is going to Hell' on... Channel 4, I think a few days ago in which the 'journalist' Keith Allen (yes, father of Lily Allen with a new shtick) travelled to America to meet the Phelps.
In itself, it was rather enjoyable. I had several of my illusions shattered (I always thought that having a University degree in philosophy made you impervious to such nonsense, but I turned out to be completely mistaken as one of their most vigorous members turned out to be a philisophy grad who had originally come to the compound in order to make an expose on them. Then, somehow, he ended up converted. I have been living a lie - it took me a few hours to get over this shock to my belief-system...) and in fact ended up wishing I hadn't watched the programme. The unfortunate tendency of getting to know people who have an ideology you find utterly disgusting, it that you learn to separate them from it and find that they actually aren't all that bad in themselves. They just have a really bad shtick (unlike Keith Allen's, which, in case you don't know, is his whole 'amusingly-disgruntled-father-because-my-daughter-who-doesn't-like-me-is-more-famous-than-I-am' act. It isn't actually that amusing).
My main problem, though, was in Mr Allen's approach. Oh, his shouting about was fun, but, well, maybe it's just that I'm a veteran of such debates (it feels strange that I'm not even twenty, but I have actually spent most of life debating on theology and logic and such with ignorant nuts. No wonder I'm so weird...) but I felt he missed out on some pretty good opportunities to at least get the more intelligent of them to think (Mrs Phelps, if not for her beliefs, is actually quite a dear).
He of course brought up the fact that one of the children was illegitimate which did nothing to release their persecution complex and actully made him look as silly as they were. After all, why mention it if he was saying it didn't bother him? Well, obviously because such things bothered the Phelp's and there they were, affording themselves the luxury of God's forgiveness, but no one else (interesting, Mrs Phelps had an almost Universal Salvationistic view of repentance. She was arguing that she was not forgiven because she had repented and became a Christian, but because of Jesus' death on the cross. In which case, I would have argued, why does that not apply to the 'fags' who you so vehemently despise? How come they have to get down and repent until they are forgiven and 'saved' from Hell, according to you and your husband? If repenting does not make a difference, why are you even here? Alas, Mr Allen did not take advantage of her theological lapse and ended up looking a little silly).
Most usefully, though, and this is nothing to do with Mr Allen's technique as a journalist, the programme allowed us to actually learn something about their beliefs. You see, their hatred of homosexuality, for example, stems not so much from the fact that it is a 'sin', but because - they think - it actually masks a sort of hateful vengeance of one human against the other: why indulge in an act that will infect you, mentally disturb you, shorten your life-span, etc with another human being? Well, clearly you must have a sort of loathing for them that allows you to do so! It's no wonder they rank it with paedophilia and bestiality.
Now, that was really interesting. Unlike people like my father or Bishop Chukwuma who just find homosexuality distasteful and mask it with religious reasoning, the Phelp's seem to have gone a step further and see it as a truly horrible and evil (not just immoral) act that one human can perpetrate against the other.
Their reasoning is completely ridiculous. Yes, as far as the statistics show, the, er, 'gay community' do certainly seem to have a higher proportion of suicidals and depressives, but oeverall - so long as we're not affected by AIDS - we do not have a vastly differing lifespan than the average uninfected straight person. In fact, as far as the facts go, we're a-okay (I feel I ought to make a badge of that with two thumbs up...).
So, after all, it turned out to be the same old story. The religious aspect simply masks a deeper more important and actually more ordinary problem which is that of ignorance, and also, arrogance: "I find this distasteful, therefore I have a right to inflict my sensibilities on others," which isn't really effective reasoning at all.
There was, of course, that most annoying of catchphrases at the end which went 'Thank God I'm an atheist'. I know it's meant to be funny, but at the end of a really interesting programme about a disturbing aspect of religion, it just seemed to make the whole thing rather irreverent and silly. I mean, what does that actually mean? Thanks be to a God that doesn't exist... that I don't believe in... It.... I mean, come on! it's not as if being an atheist suddenly makes you immune from religious bigots or having to confront the really stupid and unpleasant aspects of it (far from it!). What does that actually mean?
Grr!
I swear, catchphrases whould be outlawed.
And talking about religion... please tell me I am not the only humanist freethinker who wants to slap Christopher Hitchens? In a recent interview, he actually compared himself to Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. LOL - I was like, "know your place man! Being an anti-theist does not suddenly make you an intellectual hero!" Mind you, he seemed a lot like a tosser on that Daily Show interview he did. Not to mention the G2 piece on the new anti-smoking regulations. What a twazzock.
Maybe it's just me being prejudiced. I mean, he reminds far too much of that blasted right-wing pundit, Peter Hitchens (would you believe... or is it Hitchins?) who has a rather annoying wannabe monobrow (no, rest assured, I do not hold one's appearance as equal judgement of one's personality as I do one's intellect).
So. I now have more free time on my hands than I have ever needed. Threw away all my old notes etc. as... I no longer need them! I have finished school!
Feels rather surreal.
Somehow have to get myself back in the swing of writing and drawing. Comics waiting to be inked, illustrations waiting to be coloured... *sighs*
Read 'The Ballad of Halo Jones' and once again began griping that the nine books weren't completed. It's an amazing comic by Alan Moore and Ian Gibson. Read it!
(no subject)
The program sounds interesting. I don't know how much of it I would have been able to stomach. Thanks for the commentary.
(no subject)
I know that the same can be said towards people's attitudes towards mental illness within ethnic miniorities, but these days most people are enlightened enough to realise that it's more a result of bias within the medical and 'mainstream' community than one's 'race'. I just can't wait until the same goes for homosexuality.
And it was pretty horrible to watch, just reading some of their placards, listening to them rant. But then, they were generally pleasant, with a decent sense of humour (mostly) and that just seemed to be out of place and strange when you realised what they actually believed. Incredibly discomfitting.
(no subject)
Socrates, in Plato's Apology (and in the Crito, I believe), says that the proper course of action for dealing with people who are ignorant isn't punishment but education. Nice in principle, but practically speaking, ugh . . .
My next (and second-to-last!!!) philosophy post will be on John Rawls and his political conception of justice, which basically says that we should avoid basing our political, social, and economic structures on controversial philosophical, moral, and religious doctrines, but seek an "overlapping consensus" on basic principles that we can all agree on, which for him are liberty and equality. Again, nice on paper, and I think it's close to the best that we can do in our society (the other option is some degree of authoritarianism), but in practice, people like the Phelps make it difficult, if not downright impossible. The problem with political liberalism is that there's no good way to deal with people who don't share those basic political ideals, or who seek to undermine the structures that work to provide us with the liberty we need, without contradicting the very principles we seek to protect. And I don't know how to deal with that problem.
(no subject)
Ultimately, Education really is the answer, but, considering how long it takes for it to have any effect...