Slicer's Slivers of Being

A Good Kicking

"Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight."

A quote from a Bruce Cockburn song I referenced in one of my earliest posts. After an evening of mocking ghosts, ghouls, opened graves, beasts from hell, and creepy things (plus associated, in pagan Samhain, with the swallowing up of light by the darkness of winter) comes All Saints Day. Lest Halloween overshadow the day which follows it, here are a few music vids suitable for the occasion. Last year's post referenced a few saints (and unfortunately Youtube has pulled one of the videos since); this year I thought I'd dig into the subject a bit more - using music, natch. Since I'm not long back from a trip to N'awlins, you might notice a wee Big Easy influence here or there...

But we often gotta start with the dark to notice the light, so here's a saintly song which starts right there, with the grim reaper hovering:
 

"Get six gamblers to carry my coffin
Six chorus girls to sing me a song
Put a twenty-piece jazz band on my tail  gate 
To raise Hell as we go along."

OK so maybe the time for hell-raising's gone, but the jazz idea... let's run with it. There are so many great versions of this song to choose from that I just had to include 2 other variations. Here's sultry chanteuse Cassandra Wilson:

 

and a more upbeat version from the Preservation Hall crew:

 
So... this idea of saints, and All Saints Day, stems from the Christian notion of the bond between those who have died in the faith and those who are currently trying to walk the walk here - what the 4th Century Apostles Creed* refers to as the "communion of saints." Different denominations may take slightly different angles on this notion but the idea of unity between those alive and those gone before is a central theme. 

Isn't it pretty arrogant for a community to self-describe its members as saints? Well yes.... if it's a claim of personal achievement and the title is only supposed to be reserved for those with particularly noble characters. But there's the problem - it lies with a dodgy definition. Most of the Biblical characters deemed saints had their faults well recorded in the text, the same text which refers to those who believe as saints. So it's a statement of hope and expectation of those who see that a change is required, not a claim of achievement by the individuals of personal purity.

Don't believe me? Take it from guys who resist the title, and have professed sympathy for the devil:

 

"Saint Paul the persecutor
Was a cruel and sinful man
Jesus hit him with a blinding light
And then his life began
I said yeah
I said yeah

Augustin knew temptation
He loved women, wine and song
And all the special pleasures
Of doing something wrong
I said yeah
I said yeah

I said yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah
You'll never make a saint of me
Oh yeah, oh yeah
You'll never make a saint of me"

In St John's Book of Revelation (a pastoral book for people suffering under persecution rather than a book to be mined for explicit detail of a sequence of events in the future), the suffering saints cry out "How Long?"
So do Bono and Billie Joe Armstrong:
 

 
The wait may seem long, but the saints look forward with hope and trust of future fix. So someone should really write a tune to celebrate that. Oh wait...
 

That's quite a communion up there on stage. A lot of my faves as well as BBK - Slash, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi... heck there's even room in the communion for a ginger (Mick Hucknall)....

But, tho' I'm not among the most faithful of followers at the temple of Bruce,  for me this is the most worshipful version....

Happy All Saints Day!

 

*present form of words dates from as late as 8th Century but main components go back at least to 4th, if not to 1st Century.

Would you go all the way?

One of the characteristics of punk rock was rebellion against authority - whether that was the then mainstream music style, or mocking of the British monarchy. Surely this has also been the appeal of a few Monty Python films we could name. Sometimes rebellion shocks our sensitivities; sometimes we're completely unaware of the need to have our sensitivities shocked.


It must be both right and healthy to question authority, or perceived authority, and also peer pressure. Many of us are taught as young kids to question peer pressure. "Would you put your head in the oven just because Pete told you to?" However at that time most parents are delivering this line or one of its variants, I'm pretty confident that they're not intending to teach their kids to question their parental authority (otherwise it would be self-refuting teaching). 

Today there is a substantial amount of challenging of old authorities, and often this has got to be a good thing - provided that we're not unthinkingly substituting one unchallenged authority for another. How much is our morality really ours, rather than the product of external influences? How much of what we think is 'thinking for ourselves' is actually not that at all? Whatever the source of our moral code, even if we do manage to think for ourselves, how often do we abdicate our responsibility when it comes to action?

I am not schooled in psychology but I found Milgram's Obedience Experiment intriguing. Having been actively involved in Research Ethics, I think it should be required study material for all those conducting scientific experiments on live subjects, and all those in the agencies which regulate such studies. This might seem ironic as it has been suggested that the original experiment was unethical, and would not be approved in more recent times.

Watch coverage of the 1963 experiment (provided of course that you don't find that too authoritarian a suggestion!):

As with most scientific experiments, some potential methodological flaws have been proposed - such as, in this case, uncertainty whether or not some participants continued because they suspected that the experiment was a hoax. Even if this were the case for some who continued, in my own view, I think it is significant that they continued without knowing this for certain. For some or many subjects, perhaps being designated 'teacher' was a positive reinforcement. Maybe those of us who have received knowledge in a variety of settings can be lured to behave in a particular way by this temptation too - a false hierarchy on the basis of 'owning' information which we are not in a position to verify for ourselves.

Once in that position, it seems a trait widespread in humanity to adopt the mantle of authority - whether that's as a preacher promoting the 20th Century heresy of creationism, or an advocate of scientism (rather than science), or judgmentalism regarding religious dogma, or using military force to advance political models which we think work in our setting but may not elsewhere. We can feel that we're in a privileged group, with a duty to convince others of the authority we (think we) possess. We would do better, I believe, to adopt the mantle of humility - of one beggar pointing another beggar to where he/she found bread; and having found the bread, to choose to serve rather than self-elevate. 

I try to avoid using the same music in different posts, but some of the pride theme songs are relevant, and one from my last post is equally pertinent in this:

"Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers..."

...Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame
Preacherman seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain 
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas..."

In Northern Ireland, we are historically familiar with riots, tear gas and water cannons. With the recent failure of the Haass talks to deliver agreement on controversial political issues, where are the authorities? Are our political "leaders" looking over their shoulders regarding what a (small) proportion of their constituency thinks and having their behaviour constrained by it? You may say that this is the nature of politics - to be aware of and represent such a constituency - but as has been said "you can't please all the people all the time" (otherwise there would be no viable political opposition party) so perhaps more political courage and moral fibre is required to lead and 'do the right thing.' Of course Milgram's experiment doesn't allow us to blame our political leaders - we mustn't offload responsibility - we put them there, even if we say we're "a bit uncomfortable" with some of the stuff they say/do.

We also have ongoing individual and collective responsibility for the other authorities we sign off responsibility to. The reason we need some kind of independent Research Ethics process is because of the recognition that scientists, eager to advance knowledge, will sometimes not be in the best place to assess whether the price that research participants are being expected to pay is justified to deliver the answer it is hoped that the research will deliver.  

One interesting finding of related work by Milgram was when he looked at changes to the physical proximity of the teacher and learner: the more remote the person being 'punished,' the less reluctance there was to delivering the electric shocks. Could this not have something to say in the context of use of drone weapons?  

"They said what’s up is down, they said what isn’t is
They put ideas in his head he thought were his

 

He was a clean-cut kid
But they made a killer out of him
That’s what they did...

Well, everybody’s asking why he couldn’t adjust
All he ever wanted was somebody to trust

They took his head and turned it inside out
He never did know what it was all about."

 

Well of course we're so much more enlightened now than in the 1960's, aren't we? We're much more informed about holocaust, so perhaps more of us would have bailed out if we were the teachers in Milgram's experiment - and of course it can't be repeated because of our presumptions around research ethics. Except that it was. Several times, albeit with some modifications. The ethical concerns tend to centre around the "inflicted insight" in the experiment - that participants (teachers) were given insight into their potential to cause extreme suffering, and that this can be highly distressing to them subsequently. This is compounded by the fact that their "consent" to participate was compromised by deception as to the purpose of the study in which they were to participate. However, today Ethics Committees may still deem it appropriate in some circumstances for potential participants to be unaware of the detail and/or nature of a study when they consent, even regarding the main purposes - it would be a matter of weighing the perceived benefits against perceived risk/harm to participants. Some research questions are bigger than others...

So, what of Milgram revisited? In fairness #2 wasn't really a repeat of the original experiment. It replaced the human 'learner' with a computer avatar. This wasn't to deal with concerns about applying shocks, because of course none was delivered in the original experiment. It looked at whether the 'teachers' responded in a similar fashion to those in the original experiment, despite the fact that in this one the 'teachers' knew that neither the shocks nor the recipient were real. This 2006 version of the experiment found that teachers who saw & heard the avatar behaved and responded physiologically in the same way as if they were real ie like those in the original experiment. The authors claimed that this provides an alternative, ethically more acceptable, method for further studies in this territory of obedience. Also in 2006, TV illusionist Derren Brown did a partial repeat/re-enactment. Using subject selection, he felt that a gradual change in participants perceptions was more effective at getting them to do things which they previously would have resisted, than 'jarring' their initial values. In 2009, using a modified protocol which satisfied ethical review requirements, Jerry Burger (real name!) published a paper reporting that he found the same obedience rates as in the original experiment, despite adding a neat twist (see 'Contrary to expectation...' in the abstract).

[c/o American Psychologist, Jan 2009]

 

In 2009 BBC popular science programme Horizon also repeated the experiment, with consistent findings. She seems such a nice girl...
 
 
A variety of other TV shows (although some are likely to have been done in less robust experimental settings) have made the same observations too. One example is the Discovery Channel's apply the shock. In the Horizon documentary, psychologist Clifford Stott noted that idealism regarding scientific enquiry had a significant effect on the teachers. "The influence is ideological. It's about what they believe science to be, that science is a positive product, it produces beneficial findings and knowledge to society that are helpful for society. So there's that sense of science is providing some kind of system for good." Science has provided and continues to provide huge potential for good, but we have heard that language before in other contexts as a 'justification' for immoral action, on a huge scale. Science, when functioning properly, provides answers to mechanisms and equips us to improve things technologically, but its researchers and participants (just like those who fail to give it due credit) are not immune to the problems of "power, greed and corruptible seed."

 

Tongue-in-cheek kitsch, like most things Ramones. Still, let's keep questioning who we're investing authority in - politically, morally, in terms of the sources of our information, what we might be blind to, and what road it's taking us down. We really should work that out "in fear and trembling."

 

 

Pride: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Surely pride isn't such a bad thing? It must've been a mistake when it got listed as one of the "seven deadly sins." It's even been held to be the original one, and the source of others. Isn't it good to say we're proud of our kids - whether for their achievements, or for the people that they are? I certainly think both of mine are wonderful individuals. We may even refer to them, or our girlfriend/
boyfriend/spouse, as our "pride and joy," although admittedly sometimes blokes might refer to their car (or guitar) in the same way. Stevie Ray Vaughan even wrote a song on subject - tho' personally I prefer Bonnie's guitar tone to SRV's shrill rough Texas twang. And she delivers liquid medicine outa that pill bottle on her finger...

 

 "Well you've heard about love givin' sight to the blind..." Preach it Stevie/Bonnie!

Or if blues isn't your thing (I pity you), how about some Marvin?

 

Any other things which it might be good/acceptable to be proud of? Our own achievements? Military success abroad? Sport, individually or nationally?

 

What else might we feel it's right to be proud of? Our sexuality? On a quick video or picture search on Google for pride, the first few pages of returns (at least) are dominated by what used to be called Gay Pride marches/emblems, until they were rebranded simply Pride, claiming to be more inclusive than merely being proud of being LGBT. Sometimes those who have been or felt oppressed, or discriminated against, need a period of 'compensatory' recognition but, whether we're talking about the societal status of women or ethnic groupings, or sexual orientation, I expect that most groups seek equality and parity of esteem in the medium to long term, rather than special recognition.

The old adage warns "Pride comes before a fall." Is that adage redundant in an age where we are told we can't esteem others if we don't hold ourselves in esteem? If we all want parity of esteem, how can we be individually proud? Is there a difference between pride and self-esteem? Are they separated by clear blue water, or are they just part of a continuous spectrum of feeling and attitude? Interestingly this particular 'deadly sin' was categorised early on in Greek as Ὑπερηφανία, which is often translated "hubris", but Eastern Orthodox traditions have rendered it "esteem." Is all this just semantics?

 

Even those who don't accept a concept of 'sin' may feel that, at least at times, pride/hubris can be an unattractive or unpleasant characteristic. So is it situation or context rather than the focus of our pride that determines when it's undesirable? Or is it more agreeable as a characteristic if the focus is someone other than ourselves? Is it a matter of whether pride is misplaced? But then who is to judge what is misplaced and what is "valid?" Many of us feel it's appropriate to tell folk they should be proud when they have succeeded in overcoming some obstacle or handicap or adverse circumstances. We may feel that they should "hold their head up high." That seems to be the notion behind John Fogerty's Proud Mary - tho' interpretations vary widely as to what or who Proud Mary was - from marijuana, or a Lard Company (!) to a washerwoman, or a paddle steamer. The last two seem the more likely, and Fogerty is reported to have said that bits of the song came from various different song drafts, one of which was about a washerwoman. It's in the tradition of river songs, celebrating hardworking locals. The original's great, but Tina Turner gave it new legs!

 
Mind you, John came back with a pretty fine version in 2010 (be sure to click the hi-def option):
 

How are pride and confidence related? Do we need a certain amount of pride before we can act effectively? When does too much become ugly? Is just the right amount required for mental health? Or is just the right amount a consequence of mental health? (Mental illness is often considered to be associated with low self-esteem, yet megalomania/delusions of grandeur can be a characteristic of the manic phase of bipolar disease, or of schizophrenia).

Is pride something those not burdened with mental illness have control over? Is it a matter of choice whether we indulge it or not? Joey and the boys seemed to think so.

 

 I have long wondered what the intended meaning is of the title of U2's song. I have featured a more vintage version of it before - here's a more recent blast.  

Is the bit in brackets just a longer version of the title (ie the pride mentioned is in the name of love), or is 'In the Name of Love' an alternative title, or a subtitle, to Pride - cos it's the recurring hook in the chorus? Is there such a thing as pride in the name of love? Pride only gets a single mention in the song, and seems to refer to Martin Luther King's pride. Was MLK proud? Did Bono & Co. really mean dignity, rather than pride? (Of course dignity doesn't rhyme with sky, and might have been harder to metre...!) The song parallels MLK's vision, impact and martyrdom with those of Jesus the Christ, suggesting that He too came in the name of love. Views vary on whether He had delusions of grandeur (ie misplaced hubris in claiming to be God), whether He never claimed to be God, or whether He was who he implied He was through use of specific terminology, and pronouncing forgiveness of sins - presumably including pride, ironically - and announcing his inauguration of the Kingdom of God. Yet, as presented in the books of the New Testament, proud seems a wholly inappropriate term for him, and at odds with the nature of love. 

Maybe the problem with pride is self-importance, reaching too high for things we shouldn't, overconfidence in our own abilities. Or, as I've put it before, 'arrogance in the face of Googol.' Pride can also be self-centred.

Are these not recurring themes in the biography of mankind? From the multi-disc album, Biograph:

 

(You may need to adjust your browser filter)

"He reached too high, was thrown back to the ground
You know what they say about bein’ nice to the right people on the way up
Sooner or later you gonna meet them comin’ down

Well, there ain’t no goin’ back
When your foot of pride come down
Ain’t no goin’ back"

Dylan doesn't leave you in any doubt that he's not talking about Icarus.

"There’s a retired businessman named Red
Cast down from heaven and he’s out of his head
He feeds off of everyone that he can touch
He said he only deals in cash or sells tickets to a plane crash
He’s not somebody that you play around with much."

As Dylan points out, Pride affects preachers as well as sceptics. Both can be so sure their interpretation of things is the only valid one, and both can profit from their positions of influence.

"Yeah, from the stage they’ll be tryin’ to get water outa rocks
A whore will pass the hat, collect a hundred grand and say thanks
They like to take all this money from sin, build big universities to study in
Sing “Amazing Grace” all the way to the Swiss banks..."

In the liner notes of the album, John Bauldie gave the following analysis of the song:

"Foot of Pride," crammed as it is with Biblical allusions, seems to be offering one primary warning - about the perils of vanity. Having presented an extraordinary series of images in its opening section, only in verses four and five does "Foot of Pride" become direct rather than allusive in its condemnation of those false prophets who misuse religion and faith, abuse trust, hoodwink the gullible, all in the pursuit of earthly riches. But although they'll seem to prosper in the world, making "all this money from sin," and, apparently, never have to face any kind of comeuppance, as the song's chorus insists, there is a price to be paid, eventually and irrevocably, when "the hot iron blows" and when "the foot of pride comes down," as it will - "ain't no going back."

Dylan's never painted as convincing a picture of the fallen world, of a 20th century Babylon, as he does in this song...

Or, as Dylan noted in another song:
"Power and greed, and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is."
Dylan has a habit of firing an arrow into the doorpost, highlighting where his land stands condemned.

 

In 'Song and Dance Man (Vol 3),' one of his massive tomes on Dylan, Michael Gray asserts that Foot of Pride is inspired by the O.T. Book of Daniel in which  "God's punitive foot comes down and splats Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian King." Man can abuse authority and privilege, but there will be consequences. 

Michael may be right about the spirit of the account in Daniel (with respect to the pride of both Nebuchadnezzar and his successor, Belshazzar). However, the phrase "foot of pride" can't be found in the book of Daniel, whereas it is found in Psalm 36 (in the old King James Version).

The following is another excerpt from the Biograph liner notes:

...That lie about everybody having their own truth inside of them has done a lot of damage and made people crazy. Did you ever hear that to conquer your enemy, you must first repent, fall down on your knees and beg for mercy? Does West Point teach that? I don't know. I do know that God hates a proud look.

So once more Dylan's turned the spotlight on his own nation, its attitudes and its military hubris.

MLK also turned a spotlight on his own nation, and he had a vision for a better one. He had his own failings, and it turns out that he was proud of one thing at least - tho' it's kinda paradoxical - sort of proud not to be proud, proud not to think better of himself than others.

  

I reckon that kind of pride is just fine. 

How Big

Consider this as a sequel to the last post, which was on boys getting bigger.

The universe is big. Seriously big. Bigger than we can observe, regardless of how powerful our telescopes get. And its scale in the dimension of time is also enormous.  Our forebears had no idea...

Psalm 8 takes on even greater significance than its writer could have appreciated:

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, 

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 

what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?"

There's a kid's song sung in Church, called My God is a Great Big God. What follows is the adult version. It was derived from a Swedish poem. The English may be dated, and you'll likely know the tune, but you've never heard it done like this before.

Stunning. 

  

 

Taking Control: calling time on what's mis-sold as Culture and Faith

I don't know about you, but I'm really fed up getting unsolicited calls from people trying to convince me to use their services to claim against mis-sold loan payment insurance. (Not sure if this exclusively a UK phenomenon, or Europe-wide, or beyond). I expect there's a time limit on making this kind of claim, and so there should be - hopefully the unsolicited phone calls will disappear then. There should also be a time limit on some other kinds of claims of 'rights.'

"Paddy Englishman, Paddy Scotchman and Paddy Irishman walked..." How many old jokes start this way? The outcome is usually predictable and makes gentle fun of one nationality over another (usually the Irishman suffers the butt of the humour, but occasionally there's a surprise). The events of the last 24 hours have also been predictable, but there were no surprises and the closest they got to humour was repeating an old farce ad nauseum. The price for the ticket to this "cultural" show is ridiculously high. For those readers unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the Northern Ireland "marching season," yesterday was the annual public holiday ("The Twelfth") here, commemorating the victory of the Protestant King William of Orange over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. They had been competing claimants for the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, at a time of schism within the Church, when the religious affiliation of the King was seen as a way to secure the rights and interests of your own religious group. Now, it's understandable how this is perceived as another example of religious faith being the cause of war. In a superficial sense that's true, but it's not the fault of the faith; it's the fault of a grave mistake by those who claim allegiance to it but fail to follow it.

Tragically, the mistake is still being repeated more than 3 centuries later, and not just in Northern Ireland.  That faith is supposed to seek the good of others over ourselves, and its originator taught love of enemies and justice for all, achieved through self-sacrifice. Is it any wonder that many in my generation have long since ditched any allegiance to a faith when they see the hatred and self-seeking nature of those complaining that their "culture/faith is being eroded," (whether that's republican or loyalist "culture," or catholic/protestant faith) and the violence which has been condoned or celebrated to advance interests of one over another?

True, most countries have their 'national day.' It tends to be a day which unites its inhabitants. It's argued that Northern Ireland should be able to have its too. The English have St George's Day, the Welsh St David's, the Scottish St Andrew's Day, Ireland has St Patrick's Day, and the US has Independence Day. But let's be honest here - St George was likely a military man (tho his details are probably a composite character of which some composition is clearly fictional), but he's best known for having slayed a dragon. (C'mon people, hardly equates to King Billy). He's also celebrated by both Catholic and Protestant churches in England and in a mult-ethnic context, despite being associated with crusaders, I gather he is also a respected figure in the Muslim world.

The other national days listed above are also not divisive to the inhabitants of the country. Whereas, however much we relabel with words like "orangefest" or "cross-community" or "day-out for all the family," singing songs of triumph over your neighbour, and walking uninvited into a neighbourhood that's not yours to do so, work completely contrary to those new labels. Attacking and injuring the police because they are appropriately preventing you imposing your "culture" on others and risking re-enacting of centuries old battles hardly fits either. Like the old jokes at the top of this post, the outcome is predictable every year, and the cost is ridiculous. There is even a build-up to it with bonfires displaying the hatred in the effigies burnt on them - reportedly ranging from those who support a football team with the wrong coloured jersey (because of political and religious association), to Roman Catholic Priests, to statues of Mary (displaying a shocking ignorance of the source of their own professed religious affiliation). There have also been shocking displays of hatred in the other direction, with social media carrying inflammatory republican language (much of it explicit) such as "up the RA."

Let me be clear. My own starting point is that I am of British nationality. I am at heart a Royalist, in the sense of cherishing a monarchy by consent, though not as Defender of the Faith. I also feel a strong love and affinity for the whole of the island of Ireland and its inhabitants whatever their political or religious views and allegiances, but I am most at home in my own country of Northern Ireland. I am grateful for the privilege of living here, and for the many hard-fought freedoms I have, and I respect those who fought for them in centuries gone by. However, I also have a duty, and arguably an even greater one, toward those who share the present with me.

Believe it or not, Northern Ireland is a transformed place for the better. The last 2 decades have seen enormous strides taken and it is a fantastic place to live.

Fantastic scenery; great arts, especially music and literature; world class scientific and sporting achievement. A people credited with being extremely hospitable to visitors. It now just needs to dispense with the last remnants of tribalism and selfishness in order to make it the idyll and good example that it can be. Finding an alternative to the 12th of July has got to be a top priority. Politicians, ministers and leaders with vision and courage, please stand up - but not in the way some of you did yesterday. The great, warm, and generous vast majority of people of Northern Ireland, please stand up. Time we slayed our own dragon. Time to celebrate sharing this great place rather than celebrating 16th and 17th century military conquests over one another. Time to stop wasting tax-payers money and health service resource on destruction of property and people. Time Paddy Irishman, Paddy Scotchman and Paddy Englishman walked forward together and stopping slinging stuff.

 "Two gunslingers walked out in the street and one said
'I don't wanna fight no more.'
And the other gunslinger thought about it and said,
'Yeh, what are we fighting for?'

I'm takin' control of my life, I'm takin' control of my life
I'm takin' control of my life right now, oh yeah

Well the crowd that assembled for the gun fight
Were let down, everyone hissed and booed
And a stranger told his Mrs., "That's the last one of those gunfights
You're ever gonna drag me to."

Well the two gunslingers went ridin' out of town and
Were never heard from no more
And there ain't been a gunfight for a long time
Maybe never, but nobody knows for sure."

Bring it on.