What planet?
Levinas on ontology
To understand a tool is not to see it, but to know how to use it; to understand our situation in reality is not to define it, but to be in an affective state.
—"Is Ontology Fundamental?" in Entre Nous
Tags: levinas, ontology, entrenous.
Labels: levinas, metathought
No more fucking rainbows
And there you were thinking that Green Wing was made up.
"Barbarism"
As much as it might, in the words of Sir Humphrey, "set a dangerous precedent", I can't help feeling that this case betrays an uneasy lack of compassion at the heart of nationalisms which use their visa regulations to trump basic principles of humanity.
Kottke is 10
Grr. I have a paper to write and. Can. Not. Think. Had a can of Coke but to no avail. Maybe I'll do the washing up.
In more exciting news, kottke.org was ten years old a few days ago. Reading Jason Kottke's sites (kottke.org and 0sil8) back in 1999/2000 is what made me first start blogging. He's done a much better job than me, so this is just a shoutout for a blogging legend. Prepare to let the dogs out.
Labels: blogging
Privacy
Generally speaking, I find Clive James more than a little irritating. But his cynical brand of rant had some substance to it on Radio 4 this morning, when he complained about the lack of general appreciation for privacy.
Tags: clivejames, privacy, rant.
Labels: politics
Bad sign
This is the scariest story I have ever read in this country.
Tags: children, dna, database.
Labels: politics
I look down on him because he is morally accountable
Several interviewees have remarked that Eliot Spitzer should resign because his public office obliges him to higher moral standards. This view seems to me understandable, but mistaken. I do not disagree that he should resign; rather, I say that he should resign because through his alleged actions there arises a particular conflict between his job as a governor and the lack of good judgement he has exhibited. The moral content of his actions is, however, no different from anyone else's.
To support this view, take a different example. Some would say that a schoolteacher found guilty of child abuse should lose their job. And rightly so. However, it is less obvious that an office worker should lose their job for the same offence. Is this because the schoolteacher is accountable to higher moral standards? Far from it. It is a moral duty, incumbent upon each of us equally, not to abuse children. But what decides whether we resign concerns the character of the job, not the differential character of moral standards.
This might seem a moot point, but it is not without importance. Consider how many times the tabloids have bayed for blood over some allegedly scandalous sex story involving a politician. Always the "higher standard" rhetoric is produced. But expecting politicians to be whiter than white is unrealistic and unfair; what is important is if their actions, whether or not morally questionable, are in conflict with their duties as public servants. Often this will be the case, but not always.
Tags: politics, morality, spitzer.
Labels: politics
Darling Brown
What a crap budget, with fudges on all the big issues, and the only strong gestures being in a paternalistic direction (alcohol duty). In the same week that ID cards returned to Labour's agenda, and that Brown praised "conviction politicians", his own convictions are looking increasingly dubious to me.
Labels: politics
Nice NZ
You see, NZ is such a nice country that even the dolphins are friendly.
Levinas on hunger
"To leave men without food is a fault that no circumstance attenuates; the distinction between the voluntary and the involuntary does not apply here," says Rabbi Yochanan. Before the hunger of men responsibility is measured only "objectively"; it is irrecusable.
— Levinas, Totality and Infinity, 201
More J.D.
In the midst of all this press about Wetherspoon's, I thought you might like to know that George Orwell's essay "The Moon Under Water" was allegedly the inspiration for Tim Martin's pubs. Of particular note:
And though, strictly speaking, they are only allowed in the garden, the children tend to seep into the pub and even to fetch drinks for their parents. This, I believe, is against the law, but it is a law that deserves to be broken, for it is the puritanical nonsense of excluding children —and therefore, to some extent, women—from pubs that has turned these places into mere boozing-shops instead of the family gathering-places that they ought to be.
Tags: wetherspoon, vincecable, drinking.
Labels: politics
Tim Martin on drinking
Wetherspoon's chairman Tim Martin in The Guardian on underage drinking. I saw him on Newsnight last week too; he certainly speaks a lot of sense. In that Newsnight interview he levelled the accusation at the other rather self-righteous guests that they certainly drank in pubs when they were 16/17 and that more rigorous enforcement of the ban on serving under-18s would have no effect whatsoever on "anti-social behaviour".
I am mystified how successive governments can think the key to solving childish behaviour is to treat everyone ever more like children, and to lock them up for the privilege. For instance, I witnessed some 15/16 year olds getting chucked out of Riley's a few weeks ago for having bought alcohol there. Yet there was nothing wrong with their behaviour and they were drinking slowly. If I were them, I'd be thinking: "damned if we do, damned if we don't; what's the point in being responsible?"
The alcohol laws in this country need seriously overhauling, but none of the mainstream parties currently have the bollocks to adopt a liberal position.
Tags: drinking, underage, wetherspoons.
Labels: politics
Shocker
For perhaps the first time ever, I am in agreement with David Cameron. That is, in his assertion that Margaret Hodge, in criticising the Proms' non-inclusivity, just doesn't "get it". Ensuring "inclusivity" does not mean making sure that everything is designed to appeal to everyone. You'd think this would be obvious, given the number of non-inclusive things around. For instance, I'd say Radio 1 isn't particularly geared towards the elderly. This doesn't mean Radio 1 is in dereliction of some assumed cultural duty of inclusivity.
I suppose it's a classic example of a legitimate, limited issue such as "shared identity" being seized upon by the more soulless New Labourites and thrashed to death until all life and political profit has been extracted from it.
Freedom and murder
The son of murdered Ethel Hall, a victim of Colin Norris, comments:
I just hope that he isn't let out so he can do it again.
I would like an inquiry to find out what mistakes were made, what the trust could have done to the better and what they have done to rectify it so it can't happen again.
Such a sentiment may be superficially comforting, but it mistakes the meaning of human freedom, which is: the permanent possibility of murder.
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