Semi-Serious Agenda

I believe we are living in an era of sham enquiry and pseudo-truths which are regarded as fashionable.

Politics – i.e. argument – has undue influence on intellectual process. When Police Chief Sir Paul Condon stated that some forms of crime are committed by a substantially disproportionate number of black people, he was savagely attacked (in 2001 I think it was). A fact is a fact. How you interpret that fact and what implications it has is another matter entirely, and sometimes you have to credit people with just stating the facts. Stating facts is good. Hiding them and refusing to acknowledge them is not.

Some countries are relatively primitive compared to others. Islamic countries seem to be a particular example where genital mutilation, barbarous legal retribution, thought-police, oppression, brutality towards women etc. are inherent. When the Italian Prime Minister made a remark about primitive countries, he was savagely attacked (2003). Savagely attacking someone for saying something most people privately accept (I suspect) is not good.

Cultural relativism is good. Different societies, different people can have substantially different lifestyles with their own cultural 'logic'. Humanistic abuses are not good. Where there is oppression, injustice, suffering or cruelty, dismissing this as an example of cultural relativity is not acceptable and most of the time it should be obvious when this is legitimate humanistic concern as opposed to nationalistic or imperialist aggression. The fashionable notion of cultural relativity needs examining.

All religions are belief systems which require ritualised conformity as opposed to intelligent spiritual enquiry. A belief is not a fact: all religions can be subjected to philosophical scrutiny. Scrutiny is good. Threatening to kill people if they do this is not good.

The current tensions regarding Islam require Muslims to question and re-consider some of their beliefs, practises and intolerance towards the West. The more Islam resists this – and fails to condemn the extremist psychopaths in their midst – the more the free-thinking Western world will regard them with suspicion. Generally speaking, in 2003 the West is a democratic and tolerant place, accommodating different races and religions. This is good. What is not good is the practice of human rights abuse, hysterical and barbarous rule by theocratic law, and the systematic and entrenched oppression of women.

Science has re-established its empirical, point and poke methodology. Psychology and consciousness is popularly reduced to bio-electrical articulations in the brain. Some of this material is currently published in best selling books. Mistaking correspondence with causality is not good. Philosophy is not and never will be expressed in those terms. Re-establishing philosophical parameters is good. Philosophy is the discipline to which it falls to inquire into inquiry itself, its proper conduct and necessary presuppositions. Science is good, being the basis for the basis for benefits like the computer and the Internet. Failing to appreciate the limitations i.e. operative boundaries of science is not good.

Intellectual convergence is a widespread phenomenon. Suddenly, scientists and computer programmers have become cultural theorists, and academics have become spiritual theorists. Sometimes this is good – i.e. interesting – and sometimes it isn’t. Fame, popularity and success are attached to both relevant work and irrelevant i.e. stupid work. This is not good.

‘Celebrities’ have a similar psychological function to religion. ‘Following them’ appears to elevate the average, possibly down-trodden human being into a bigger and greater world with vague feelings of semi-immortality and imaginary happiness. This is not good.

There are substantial, serious, capitalist inequalities which are rarely questioned, based on greed and established power. The music industry is a good example, where profit is hugely disproportionate to material production costs. This is not good.

Who gives a fuck what some dusty old Christian geezer says about the Iraq war? (in 2003). More disturbing, however, is the answer to the question ‘who gives a fuck about what strange, dodgy-looking Mullahs and Imams say about it’. Because large numbers of people do indeed give a fuck about the latter – in very serious terms, in closed religious societies where the prayer leader is a demagogic authority. This is not good.

Politics sucks. If two people or a group of people love each other, for most of the time their relationship is not ‘political’. You might call it ‘psychological’, based on a different kind of interaction. We can’t expect this to happen on a global scale. But politics is thus an effect rather than a cause, the outcome of currently irresolvable misunderstanding rather than a framework by which to interpret life.

Communication is good. Entrenched hostilities are not good – including those that occur within religion.

There is more to life than money, power, sex, fame, religion, Coronation Street, getting old, dying…and, yes, philosophy.