Psilocybin, or hallucinogenic mushroom, can give a genuine and life changing religious experience. This article is not all about drug based spirituality, but its thinking develops from the implications of psychedelics.
That psychedelic spirituality is genuine is a startling statement coming from a professional Christian authority. Mark Galli deserves all credit for his integrity in publicising the new interest emerging by science in hallucinogenics.
From there he examines three functions of religion. or as I put it, three useful questions we can ask about any religion, cult or tradition. This powerful triad gives us a definition or profile of the faith under scrutiny, in a nutshell.
Galli summarises the findings of a Johns Hopkins study in which a chronic depressive, at low ebb due to cancer, chemotherapy and other external factors that made life worthless to him, rediscovered a profound sense of meaning after taking a psilocybin mushroom.
Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of psychedelics for treating depression in cancer patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.
The results so far are encouraging. However the scientists participating make cautious comments, clearly wishing to distance themselves from the uncontrolled personal experimentation of the 60s and 70s. Participants are not only monitored carefully by human observation while placed in peaceful, gentle surroundings, but their brains are also scanned to study effects and alert to warning signs of distress.
Most of the participants report the experience as one of the top most meaningful personal events in their lives. Their reports mirrored closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences: a deep oneness, a lack of ego, a lack of the need to control others, instead an attunement with them. Researchers are reporting some success in using psilocybin to ease the anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses.
This strongly resembles the early work of Dr. Timothy Leary of 60s and 70s fame. It also resembles the teachings of many shamanic traditions, so much so that it is even irritating to see persons in white coats doing a gosh wow! type of research as if they are actually discovering something. But it is nonetheless a sign of progress. As one of the researchers says “Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”
So good, great, let’s hope that a saner approach to spirituality and drugs develops, especially as all those working in the field of illegal drugs are virtually unanimous that the so-called “war on drugs” is not only useless but actively damaging to our society. We use drugs to heal our illnesses of body and mind, so why do we divide off some of them and make them illegal? It only creates funding for crime, and contributes mightily to a huge industry of destructive porn and prostitution.
Returning to Galli his courage does not falter in exploring the implications of drug based mysticism for an established religion. As he does so he uses a powerful analysis of what religion is about.
As he says, if mystical experience of the Divine can be gifted by a mushroom, then Christianity, and by implication, no religion, can claim it’s “the one” which can bring us to the Divine. Ecstasy, or the quiet oneness of prayer or meditation, are experiences on offer with or without religious structures like church, temple or ritual. Or as Pagans would put it, the sacred is anywhere and everywhere.
Galli continues by observing that another great teaching of Christianity, to find the Divine in “deeds not creeds” is not unique to his faith. With honourable generosity he recognises that Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and “others” live moral lives. As he puts it “You don't need revelation to figure out that adultery, stealing, and murder are really bad ideas, and that there is something noble about caring for other human beings.” We might add perhaps you don’t need a vision of unity but it certainly helps.
Pagans are not mentioned even though in Britain we number as many as the Hindus he places first on his list. Presumably we come under that blurred “others.” But we shall not pout at being slighted. He is after all an establishment Christian writing within the churches hierarchies. He would have difficulty getting published if he included trance drugs AND Pagans in one article!
What I like very much and find most useful is Galli’s three categories of what religion is about. Firstly the mystical experience of the Divine. Secondly a personal morality which emerges from the mystical experience of unity with others. Pagans would enlarge this to include “all our relations” the tree. stone, star and animal cousins in the great Family of Life, the Web.
Thirdly a mythos, a story, a Way to go into a relationship with the Divine that partners the formless profundity of the direct mystical experience. Once we leave that state we cannot retain its immensity so we need our Stories to companion and support our journeys.
For Galli this is the Story of the Divine Son who came to visit humanity and awaits a visit from us. Pagans would point to other faiths which have given us similar Stories: Inanna, Isis, Cybele, Astarte, Mithras, Odin, Esus, Brighde, Aradia. We also gladly honour other kinds of Stories like Lucifer Lord of Light; Rhiannon Lady of the Sun; Sulis the Healer, all the Ancestors, or the Guardians of Place, and so on.
I might quibble with a detail of Galli’s article here and there. His concept of religious experience is startlingly limited to Sunday worship. He says “If religious experience is something that a drug can induce even more easily than spiritual ritual and disciplines, it may be time, for example, to rethink what many churches are trying to do on Sunday morning: create a memorable "worship experience." “ Again we need to remember that he is speaking from within church hierarchy which needs to assert a need for churches and priests: a lot of salaries depend on it.
It would be well if the emerging Pagan temple building projects were to stay aware of this issue. We must never, never lose the radical understanding that experience of the Divine lies all around us in toilets, rubbish heaps, washing up bowls, babies’ tummy rumbles, tree roots, sunsets and sex. It’s not to be found in any better way through those who hold certificates or in buildings used as ritual spaces over time.
Though that’s a very important quibble I am happy to return to Galli’s three way examination of religion, so Celtic in its triad. In asking what is THIS religion, THIS faith about? we have three useful questions.
How does it help us encounter the Divine as a real Other, a living relationship with the unity of life?
How does it help us grasp a morality to guide us to make that unity more of an everyday reality, living in awareness of others’ needs in relation to ours?
What Stories does it offer us that help us stay in touch with the first two?
………………………………………………………………
“The End of Christianity as We Know It”
Mark Galli | posted 4/15/2010 09:10AM
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/aprilweb-only/25-41.0.html
Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of “A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God” (Baker).
Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century. April 15-18, 2010 • San Jose, California
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Goddess, feminist, women-only
A post about the Goddess movement. About manhating. About what others think about women-only Goddessing (or feminism) and the particular case of transgender women.
Quotes are from this page by a Goddess priestess, except where I show I'm quoting Robin Morgan.
"The Goddess movement, as I would define it, focuses on an awareness of the primordial creation force which is found within ourselves and in the world around us. We call this force the Goddess, …”
Mostly YES but why limit the Goddess to the Creation theolgy? That leads to dualism. Goddess as immanent is so much greater, more whole, radically different from the supernatural boss figure (in drag).
“… I believe is inherent in the Goddess movement is the idea that most modern religions are primarily intended to bring power and profit to some corrupt ruling elite. At best they are misguided, and at worst, they are nothing more than patriarchal systems of domination and control. “
If that is true it is remarkably ignorant and limited. While much of Christianity is bound up with corruption, terrorisation and control, there is much that is not: house church for example or some Celtic church traditions. Buddhism is sexist in the final analysis but not cruelly so, and much of it affords a substantial degree of female freedom. Liberal Islam is almost as as aghast by what we hate about women’s suppression as we are.
“.. there was a much more natural and genuine form of spirituality which existed long before people began to seek power and profit through religion. … offer great hope”
OH YES.
“"women only" … discrimination … a serious problem”
OH DEAR.
“Unfortunately, Goddess groups which are not open to men have already made a very bad impression on the general public.”
Yes but why? Why are a minority of women who get together to do their own thing seen as such a threat? Why is “women together” seen as dangerous? Why is this immediately described by outsiders as manhating – on very little evidence?
The majority of women-only work is peaceful and frankly not interested in men as part of the group. Members may or may not have much to do with men. that’s not the point.
But for men, who typically find it very tough to be treated as irrelevant! not their usual experience, this IS the point. Understandable they find it uncomfortable and in the case of weak stunted men, enraging.
I am one of the lucky few who shares my life with a strong, caring man who wouldn’t dream of criticising me when I want to be women-only. I know he’d be very shocked to read that a Goddess woman criticised women-only work and assumed it was about manhating. (I include his reaction not as central to a debate between women, but as an interesting additional point.)
So let’s now look at manhating. Perfectly sensible. A natural response to a world where far too many men hate women. Why shouldn’t we hate them in return? If you’ve suffered at their hands right on. If you care deeply about those who have suffered at men’s hands, right on.
Why do we have to be NICE? That’s part of the whole oppression feminine insy pinsy sweetie pie footbinding put on women for centuries. Strong women don’t need to be NICE - unless we genuinely feel it.
Yes liberation will in the end include us all. Yes there are men who care, who help, who have reworked themselves into maturity. Goddess bless them I say.
But I will not accept any feminist or Goddess thought police telling me or other women we have no right to hate, nor that it has no place among us. Hate is strong. Hate is healing. Hate rebalances.
I would not support the torture or murder of men to punish them, for two reasons.
They are children of the Goddess too. Whatever a man has done to outrage a woman or women he was once an innocent baby. Somewhere deep buried that original Child is still there. It may tragically be too far buried beneath his damaged distorted adult self so that all we can do is quarantine him. But for the sake of what he once was I do not support torture or killing him.
Secondly being civilised means not killing the killers, not torturing the torturers, unless we're in the heat of immediate reaction.. We don’t build peace by using (extreme) violence. A measured dose of discipline to curb a dangerous person, yes, or to protect others. But in a civilised society we examine even that to see if restraint or discipline is tipping over into unnecessary violence.
I think women do need to think seriously about how we are going to wield authority over dangerous men. The world cannot be safe and sane until we do.
But hate? yes at times I do and I strongly support others who feel it too.
Robin Morgan my beloved mentor elder sister helps out here.
“I hate not men but what they do.”
To my memory there was a great deal achieved by strong separatist women holding apart, being angry, hating.
I actually SAW men working it out. Oooh er ... If I don’t treat my lady better – she might go and join THEM.
Fear in moderate doses is educational.
“Many feminist groups have made it clear that they don't regard transgender women as genuine women,”
Good. I’m glad this is clear that “some” feminist groups take this position.
So it is clear that some don’t. Which means there are places for transgender women to go. So, no problem.
Or yes there is. Two problems.
Before looking at these two problems I feel I should “come out” as one of those who does not accept a transgender woman as a full woman. Yells of horror from the gallery? no I will not be silenced. I don’t.
I would go out of my way to support their rights to fair and decent treatment. I would defend a transgender woman being bullied – if she needed me to. But that doesn’t mean I HAVE TO accept her as a woman.
I will also call her a woman, as a courtesy, as ‘she’ or ‘her.’ etc. Politeness is a civilised grease that eases our connections and as such I value it highly.
But just like a transvestite, or an effeminate gay man, this is not being a woman. Being a woman is about being a PERSON shaped by FEMALE experience.
Female experience means being a little girl, relating to others as a little girl with all the power and vulnerability that involves. It means approaching puberty via menstruation, early, late, or painfully finding it doesn’t happen as expected. The growth of breasts, early, late, or adapting to something not working right in a female body. All the complex weaving of female hormones as we grow up mixed with deeply conditioned stereotyped feminine trappings going baxck to being a tiny baby. The massive issue of mothering, of living in fear of pregnancy or yearning for it. The pain if it is found to be not possible, or for a few the relief.
None of this happens for transgenders as it does for "born women." They are not women but men who have adopted some of the physical characteristics of women. That is different.
I could not possibly share women’s space and open out my inner feelings as a woman in that space if it included a transgender. It wouldn’t be women’s space – to me.
I am glad there are women’s spaces that are not so restrictive. I'm glad transgenders have women's space to go. But I do not see why I or other women MUST accept a restriction on how WE can be fully women, in order to include someone on a profound level with us. That is forced spirituality and a horror.
Taking this to an extreme what if all women-only groups refused access to transgenders? Or all women-only groups a particular transgender can get to? Well then there would have to be special groups for transgender women. There's always online options too.
But this extreme argument is pretty artificial. Goddessry and feminism - contrary to the critics view of them - are robustly independent so groups are not uniform, following party lines. Well some are but there are plenty of others. So the variety is likely to provide an accepting group.
Last resort for the lonely transgender is - start one! It's no more than many born-women have to do if what they want is not available to them. Nowadays there are plenty of books with loads of ideas on what to do to get going.
Back to the two problems I mentioned of women-only space that excludes transgenders.
One is that it is hurtful for transgender women to feel excluded. That’s especially hard in a society that already hurts them so much.
So OK we accept that, face it, work with it.
It doesn’t have to mean we hurriedly tidy it out the way. Forcing women to accept a transgender among them in their most sensitive personal sharing times, hurts THEM. So why select who is best to hurt? Why is the outsider, the newcomer, more important than the womwen who have created the group for what they want of it?
I do think keeping the dialogue going is important and shows respect for transgenders. So we can better understand each other, too. But understanding doesn't mean feeling that we are born-women have to fall over backwards to be a service system for what transgenders need. We MUST break out of always putting others first if we are to be fully human and not female slaves. (See Valerie Saiving's excellent analysis.)
Second problem is excluding transgenders plays into the hands of those only too eager to put us down. You see they’ll say, these radical sisters are harsh, narrowminded, cruel and nasty. Not POLITICALLY CORRECT. Oops oh dear bring on a trolley full of wittery feminine apologies and we’ll buckle down to being good ittle girlies and toe the line. I DON'T think.
We’re the women that men warned us about! (Robin Morgan again).
Nowadays it’s not just men of course who warn us about becoming one of “those women.”
Bitch they say. Slut they say. Hag they say. Monster Fat Old Worthless Dangerous Evil Witch BadMother DumbBlonde Manhater … all this hurls at us to push us back in line. To make us be the good girls who beg for approval. Who act NICE.
So play together NICELY girlies and share the sandpit with the nice transgenders who are so cute and sweet how can you resist them poor things?
No thanks. A woman’s right to choose includes who I choose to accept as a woman.
Not on the big things like jobs, medical treatment, freedom from harassment and violence. But in the personal area of who I choose to share MYSELF with.
Which to me means I will defend transgenders politically and socially against injustice that bars them from getting what they need. But getting needs met doesn’t involve the right to join any private group you want. It has to balance against the members of that private group and what THEY want.
Otherwise the next thing is we have to include is transvestites, or effeminate men. Which might be fine with some but not with others. I don’t expect to be included in a group that only wants black women, or only wants seriously disabled women, or only wants young women, or only bisexuals. I accept their right to exclude me so why is it so awful to exclude transgenders?
We have to be free to create our safe spiritual PRIVATE spaces around OUR needs. That must not be dictated by anything except OUR needs.
Quotes are from this page by a Goddess priestess, except where I show I'm quoting Robin Morgan.
"The Goddess movement, as I would define it, focuses on an awareness of the primordial creation force which is found within ourselves and in the world around us. We call this force the Goddess, …”
Mostly YES but why limit the Goddess to the Creation theolgy? That leads to dualism. Goddess as immanent is so much greater, more whole, radically different from the supernatural boss figure (in drag).
“… I believe is inherent in the Goddess movement is the idea that most modern religions are primarily intended to bring power and profit to some corrupt ruling elite. At best they are misguided, and at worst, they are nothing more than patriarchal systems of domination and control. “
If that is true it is remarkably ignorant and limited. While much of Christianity is bound up with corruption, terrorisation and control, there is much that is not: house church for example or some Celtic church traditions. Buddhism is sexist in the final analysis but not cruelly so, and much of it affords a substantial degree of female freedom. Liberal Islam is almost as as aghast by what we hate about women’s suppression as we are.
“.. there was a much more natural and genuine form of spirituality which existed long before people began to seek power and profit through religion. … offer great hope”
OH YES.
“"women only" … discrimination … a serious problem”
OH DEAR.
“Unfortunately, Goddess groups which are not open to men have already made a very bad impression on the general public.”
Yes but why? Why are a minority of women who get together to do their own thing seen as such a threat? Why is “women together” seen as dangerous? Why is this immediately described by outsiders as manhating – on very little evidence?
The majority of women-only work is peaceful and frankly not interested in men as part of the group. Members may or may not have much to do with men. that’s not the point.
But for men, who typically find it very tough to be treated as irrelevant! not their usual experience, this IS the point. Understandable they find it uncomfortable and in the case of weak stunted men, enraging.
I am one of the lucky few who shares my life with a strong, caring man who wouldn’t dream of criticising me when I want to be women-only. I know he’d be very shocked to read that a Goddess woman criticised women-only work and assumed it was about manhating. (I include his reaction not as central to a debate between women, but as an interesting additional point.)
So let’s now look at manhating. Perfectly sensible. A natural response to a world where far too many men hate women. Why shouldn’t we hate them in return? If you’ve suffered at their hands right on. If you care deeply about those who have suffered at men’s hands, right on.
Why do we have to be NICE? That’s part of the whole oppression feminine insy pinsy sweetie pie footbinding put on women for centuries. Strong women don’t need to be NICE - unless we genuinely feel it.
Yes liberation will in the end include us all. Yes there are men who care, who help, who have reworked themselves into maturity. Goddess bless them I say.
But I will not accept any feminist or Goddess thought police telling me or other women we have no right to hate, nor that it has no place among us. Hate is strong. Hate is healing. Hate rebalances.
I would not support the torture or murder of men to punish them, for two reasons.
They are children of the Goddess too. Whatever a man has done to outrage a woman or women he was once an innocent baby. Somewhere deep buried that original Child is still there. It may tragically be too far buried beneath his damaged distorted adult self so that all we can do is quarantine him. But for the sake of what he once was I do not support torture or killing him.
Secondly being civilised means not killing the killers, not torturing the torturers, unless we're in the heat of immediate reaction.. We don’t build peace by using (extreme) violence. A measured dose of discipline to curb a dangerous person, yes, or to protect others. But in a civilised society we examine even that to see if restraint or discipline is tipping over into unnecessary violence.
I think women do need to think seriously about how we are going to wield authority over dangerous men. The world cannot be safe and sane until we do.
But hate? yes at times I do and I strongly support others who feel it too.
Robin Morgan my beloved mentor elder sister helps out here.
“I hate not men but what they do.”
To my memory there was a great deal achieved by strong separatist women holding apart, being angry, hating.
I actually SAW men working it out. Oooh er ... If I don’t treat my lady better – she might go and join THEM.
Fear in moderate doses is educational.
“Many feminist groups have made it clear that they don't regard transgender women as genuine women,”
Good. I’m glad this is clear that “some” feminist groups take this position.
So it is clear that some don’t. Which means there are places for transgender women to go. So, no problem.
Or yes there is. Two problems.
Before looking at these two problems I feel I should “come out” as one of those who does not accept a transgender woman as a full woman. Yells of horror from the gallery? no I will not be silenced. I don’t.
I would go out of my way to support their rights to fair and decent treatment. I would defend a transgender woman being bullied – if she needed me to. But that doesn’t mean I HAVE TO accept her as a woman.
I will also call her a woman, as a courtesy, as ‘she’ or ‘her.’ etc. Politeness is a civilised grease that eases our connections and as such I value it highly.
But just like a transvestite, or an effeminate gay man, this is not being a woman. Being a woman is about being a PERSON shaped by FEMALE experience.
Female experience means being a little girl, relating to others as a little girl with all the power and vulnerability that involves. It means approaching puberty via menstruation, early, late, or painfully finding it doesn’t happen as expected. The growth of breasts, early, late, or adapting to something not working right in a female body. All the complex weaving of female hormones as we grow up mixed with deeply conditioned stereotyped feminine trappings going baxck to being a tiny baby. The massive issue of mothering, of living in fear of pregnancy or yearning for it. The pain if it is found to be not possible, or for a few the relief.
None of this happens for transgenders as it does for "born women." They are not women but men who have adopted some of the physical characteristics of women. That is different.
I could not possibly share women’s space and open out my inner feelings as a woman in that space if it included a transgender. It wouldn’t be women’s space – to me.
I am glad there are women’s spaces that are not so restrictive. I'm glad transgenders have women's space to go. But I do not see why I or other women MUST accept a restriction on how WE can be fully women, in order to include someone on a profound level with us. That is forced spirituality and a horror.
Taking this to an extreme what if all women-only groups refused access to transgenders? Or all women-only groups a particular transgender can get to? Well then there would have to be special groups for transgender women. There's always online options too.
But this extreme argument is pretty artificial. Goddessry and feminism - contrary to the critics view of them - are robustly independent so groups are not uniform, following party lines. Well some are but there are plenty of others. So the variety is likely to provide an accepting group.
Last resort for the lonely transgender is - start one! It's no more than many born-women have to do if what they want is not available to them. Nowadays there are plenty of books with loads of ideas on what to do to get going.
Back to the two problems I mentioned of women-only space that excludes transgenders.
One is that it is hurtful for transgender women to feel excluded. That’s especially hard in a society that already hurts them so much.
So OK we accept that, face it, work with it.
It doesn’t have to mean we hurriedly tidy it out the way. Forcing women to accept a transgender among them in their most sensitive personal sharing times, hurts THEM. So why select who is best to hurt? Why is the outsider, the newcomer, more important than the womwen who have created the group for what they want of it?
I do think keeping the dialogue going is important and shows respect for transgenders. So we can better understand each other, too. But understanding doesn't mean feeling that we are born-women have to fall over backwards to be a service system for what transgenders need. We MUST break out of always putting others first if we are to be fully human and not female slaves. (See Valerie Saiving's excellent analysis.)
Second problem is excluding transgenders plays into the hands of those only too eager to put us down. You see they’ll say, these radical sisters are harsh, narrowminded, cruel and nasty. Not POLITICALLY CORRECT. Oops oh dear bring on a trolley full of wittery feminine apologies and we’ll buckle down to being good ittle girlies and toe the line. I DON'T think.
We’re the women that men warned us about! (Robin Morgan again).
Nowadays it’s not just men of course who warn us about becoming one of “those women.”
Bitch they say. Slut they say. Hag they say. Monster Fat Old Worthless Dangerous Evil Witch BadMother DumbBlonde Manhater … all this hurls at us to push us back in line. To make us be the good girls who beg for approval. Who act NICE.
So play together NICELY girlies and share the sandpit with the nice transgenders who are so cute and sweet how can you resist them poor things?
No thanks. A woman’s right to choose includes who I choose to accept as a woman.
Not on the big things like jobs, medical treatment, freedom from harassment and violence. But in the personal area of who I choose to share MYSELF with.
Which to me means I will defend transgenders politically and socially against injustice that bars them from getting what they need. But getting needs met doesn’t involve the right to join any private group you want. It has to balance against the members of that private group and what THEY want.
Otherwise the next thing is we have to include is transvestites, or effeminate men. Which might be fine with some but not with others. I don’t expect to be included in a group that only wants black women, or only wants seriously disabled women, or only wants young women, or only bisexuals. I accept their right to exclude me so why is it so awful to exclude transgenders?
We have to be free to create our safe spiritual PRIVATE spaces around OUR needs. That must not be dictated by anything except OUR needs.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Romeo and Juliet: Zeffirelli's passion
I adored Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli 1968) when I saw it all those years ago.
In fact when I watched it last night (2010) on DVD I realised I must have seen it several times as many of the scenes were so familiar. But I hadn't seen it again for at least 30 years so I came to it with fresh eyes.
When I first saw it I was young and passionately swept up in the two lovers, so beautiful, so sexual, so irresistible.
This time I still reverberated to their love, but the most powerful impact was the gangs of idle, dangerous young noblemen. They spread across the screen. They appeared very soon as the film opened, and recurred with mounting violence.
Discussing it afterwards with my husband this problem of young male violence was, we agreed, central to the purpose of the play. It was also clear to a critical eye, that the Prince was weak. For all his pomp, his curvetting about on his lordly horse, his blaring voice making threats, he does nothing effective to control the violence.
This we thought was partly because the English view of Renaissance Italy at the time was just that: violent, colourful and treacherous.
But Shakespeare was also a Tudor writer and the Tudor dynasty derived their stability from the people's deep aversion to any return to civil war, feuding or internal violence. Shakespeare was at the time of writing Romeo and Juliet, the Queen's loyal man. So his play supported the conservative view that a strong "prince" (monarch) was better than the dangers of violent division. Better Elizabeth's strength, even though it meant a near-dictatorship – secret police, torture and disappearances. The alternative was riot in the streets, and widespread bloodshed as in the Wars of the Roses.
So I do not agree with this reviewer Dennis Grunes that the theme of anti-violence is not sustained by Zeffirelli. It was to me overwhelmingly clear.
http://grunes.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/romeo-and-juliet-franco-zeffirelli-1968/#comment-5385
The review has more justice in accusing Zeffirelli of sugarcoating Romeo. Yes he is a flowerchild but I see this as the natural view in 1968, not necessarily a crass exploitation of youth culture by Zeffirelli. That WAS the icon of our times back then.
I was interested that Romeo's killing of Juliet's other suitor was excised. But the adjustment to Romeo's conflict with Thibault more than balances this out, as Romeo's savagery is quite obvious.
Like this reviewer Dennis Grunes I do not share the dominant view that Zeffirelli portrayed his youngsters as in rebellion against "the establisment" or "the system." Certainly they were horrified at the arranged marriage proposal, but Juliet before falling in love with Romeo is not averse to it in her family’s plans for her future. It is not the adults' arrangement as a custom the lovers’ reject, but simply Juliet's marriage to anyone else but Romeo.
In this they stand centrally in the tradition of Romance which opposes arranged marriage in the individual case of a heroine and hero, but not necessarily as an institution. (If an arrangement is carefully made and allows the pair to meet and be attracted, Romance would not object.)
But there is nonetheless some exploitation in the film. Lawrence Whiting has spoken on record as objecting to the dawn bed scene. I recall Olivia Hussay at the time speaking unhappily about it too which sounded to me as if Zeffirelli pushed them into it. Certainly the quick flash of Olivia's nipples seems crude and unnecessary, actually startling and distracting; as does the camera focus on Leonard's bottom. But if these items had been left out I think a scene of sexuality and nakedness, enfolded in a soft linen draped sanctuary bed, fits very well with the passionate innocence of the lovers.
As a detail I liked the Capulet parental marriage strain. It was a deft use of cinema imagery to amplify the text. It enriched the drama without overloading it with subplot.
Another detail I liked was the excellent costumes together with the actors' seeming habitual comfort in them. That is quite rare in a historical film where actors often look most uncomfortable! Olivia Hussay has mentioned that she was tightly laced and very hot in the Italian summer.
Yet another praiseworthy item was a graceful and believable interpretation of mediaeval dances. Thee whole atmosphere of the ball was well realised with very human anxiety by Lady Capulet as organiser, the excitement of the marraccas handed out etc.
The reviewer says things "just happen" such as the Friar's message arriving too slowly to tell Romeo what is going on so he will know Juliet is not really dead. But the written play, preferred by the reviewer, has a plague intervene to prevent the message arriving. I do not see how a plague is less random than a slow donkey. Both act as the accidental but natural agencies of a merciless Fate.
Mercutio curses "both your houses" - with plague and the link to what pivots the tragedy is therefore lost. It was Zeffirelli's choice to leave out any supernatural consequences but I think this works well. Mercutio's curse is a distraction and a muddling of the doom that develops from the violence of those dangerously feuding, idle young men. This is the dire warning of the play which a curse would obscure, as if the ultimate tragedy of the lovers’ death happened only because Mercutio drew down magic on them. Instead Zeffirelly leaves the purity of violence as the cause of doom.
Over all I found the key theme to be a beautification AND a strong warning against passionate impulse. Again and again the young people react without thoughtfulness, with abandon and passion.
Boys set up a fight for the hell of it then feel, significantly, horrified to see that they have caused a death. They play, and playtime turns lethal, still a theme today.
The lovers yearn together, embracing as they explicitly throw aside the danger they run if found together.
Romeo bounds off to hunt Thibault down in an excess of fury, never thinking what this might do to his chances with Juliet.
Juliet, though slightly more controlled than Romeo as she holds out for marriage, pushes him to arrange a secret marriage with no thought for how this could work out.
Later when the Friar offers her a dangerous drug she instantly reaches for it in urgent passion for an impulsive solution.
I did like the reviewer’s point very much that the Friar too is impulsively childlike. He takes almost no time to reflect: he glances at his herbs and in seconds plunges the child Juliet into a harebrained scheme. Later when it has gione wrong he runs away like a small child, wailing.
Shakespeare was perhaps plugging into the Elizabethan ideology of Catholics as no fit priestly guides.
In sum Zeffirelli offers us both the beauty of passion and its ugliness.
The film is lush, vivid with throbbing reds and golds within and luxuriant gardens without. Olivia's sweeping hair and rich curves beside Leonard's winsome body evoke the beauty of passionate sexuality. The young men fight in the streets with faces alight with excited playfulness, alive in the moment, and nothing else.
But young men die of their delight. Sso do the lovers. Agony as the price of passion is shown as a warning. The Prince, symbolic as the head/ Head of State, is weak, unable to control the passions at war in the body politic.
Nonetheless although this is all there, where Romeo and Juliet is flawed is in the absence of a rational voice to contrast a cooler point of view. The portrait of passion is too finely balanced in its light and dark, so much so that it is easy to be swept up, as I once was, in the glory of it, and even include the death scenes in that glory. They died young but lived fully is a poisonous creed. Why not live longer and live even more fully?
Shakespeare might have written within the Greek tradition that honoured restraint and self control. The Symposium, examining Love, held romantic love up to ridicule.
But if so, if passion is to be seen as the exquisitely bottled poison it can be, the play, and the much later film, needed a commentary or cautionary character to put the other point of view: that caution, sober judgement, is as necessary to the good life as waves of passion.
Living without either reduces us to being less than human.
In fact when I watched it last night (2010) on DVD I realised I must have seen it several times as many of the scenes were so familiar. But I hadn't seen it again for at least 30 years so I came to it with fresh eyes.
When I first saw it I was young and passionately swept up in the two lovers, so beautiful, so sexual, so irresistible.
This time I still reverberated to their love, but the most powerful impact was the gangs of idle, dangerous young noblemen. They spread across the screen. They appeared very soon as the film opened, and recurred with mounting violence.
Discussing it afterwards with my husband this problem of young male violence was, we agreed, central to the purpose of the play. It was also clear to a critical eye, that the Prince was weak. For all his pomp, his curvetting about on his lordly horse, his blaring voice making threats, he does nothing effective to control the violence.
This we thought was partly because the English view of Renaissance Italy at the time was just that: violent, colourful and treacherous.
But Shakespeare was also a Tudor writer and the Tudor dynasty derived their stability from the people's deep aversion to any return to civil war, feuding or internal violence. Shakespeare was at the time of writing Romeo and Juliet, the Queen's loyal man. So his play supported the conservative view that a strong "prince" (monarch) was better than the dangers of violent division. Better Elizabeth's strength, even though it meant a near-dictatorship – secret police, torture and disappearances. The alternative was riot in the streets, and widespread bloodshed as in the Wars of the Roses.
So I do not agree with this reviewer Dennis Grunes that the theme of anti-violence is not sustained by Zeffirelli. It was to me overwhelmingly clear.
http://grunes.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/romeo-and-juliet-franco-zeffirelli-1968/#comment-5385
The review has more justice in accusing Zeffirelli of sugarcoating Romeo. Yes he is a flowerchild but I see this as the natural view in 1968, not necessarily a crass exploitation of youth culture by Zeffirelli. That WAS the icon of our times back then.
I was interested that Romeo's killing of Juliet's other suitor was excised. But the adjustment to Romeo's conflict with Thibault more than balances this out, as Romeo's savagery is quite obvious.
Like this reviewer Dennis Grunes I do not share the dominant view that Zeffirelli portrayed his youngsters as in rebellion against "the establisment" or "the system." Certainly they were horrified at the arranged marriage proposal, but Juliet before falling in love with Romeo is not averse to it in her family’s plans for her future. It is not the adults' arrangement as a custom the lovers’ reject, but simply Juliet's marriage to anyone else but Romeo.
In this they stand centrally in the tradition of Romance which opposes arranged marriage in the individual case of a heroine and hero, but not necessarily as an institution. (If an arrangement is carefully made and allows the pair to meet and be attracted, Romance would not object.)
But there is nonetheless some exploitation in the film. Lawrence Whiting has spoken on record as objecting to the dawn bed scene. I recall Olivia Hussay at the time speaking unhappily about it too which sounded to me as if Zeffirelli pushed them into it. Certainly the quick flash of Olivia's nipples seems crude and unnecessary, actually startling and distracting; as does the camera focus on Leonard's bottom. But if these items had been left out I think a scene of sexuality and nakedness, enfolded in a soft linen draped sanctuary bed, fits very well with the passionate innocence of the lovers.
As a detail I liked the Capulet parental marriage strain. It was a deft use of cinema imagery to amplify the text. It enriched the drama without overloading it with subplot.
Another detail I liked was the excellent costumes together with the actors' seeming habitual comfort in them. That is quite rare in a historical film where actors often look most uncomfortable! Olivia Hussay has mentioned that she was tightly laced and very hot in the Italian summer.
Yet another praiseworthy item was a graceful and believable interpretation of mediaeval dances. Thee whole atmosphere of the ball was well realised with very human anxiety by Lady Capulet as organiser, the excitement of the marraccas handed out etc.
The reviewer says things "just happen" such as the Friar's message arriving too slowly to tell Romeo what is going on so he will know Juliet is not really dead. But the written play, preferred by the reviewer, has a plague intervene to prevent the message arriving. I do not see how a plague is less random than a slow donkey. Both act as the accidental but natural agencies of a merciless Fate.
Mercutio curses "both your houses" - with plague and the link to what pivots the tragedy is therefore lost. It was Zeffirelli's choice to leave out any supernatural consequences but I think this works well. Mercutio's curse is a distraction and a muddling of the doom that develops from the violence of those dangerously feuding, idle young men. This is the dire warning of the play which a curse would obscure, as if the ultimate tragedy of the lovers’ death happened only because Mercutio drew down magic on them. Instead Zeffirelly leaves the purity of violence as the cause of doom.
Over all I found the key theme to be a beautification AND a strong warning against passionate impulse. Again and again the young people react without thoughtfulness, with abandon and passion.
Boys set up a fight for the hell of it then feel, significantly, horrified to see that they have caused a death. They play, and playtime turns lethal, still a theme today.
The lovers yearn together, embracing as they explicitly throw aside the danger they run if found together.
Romeo bounds off to hunt Thibault down in an excess of fury, never thinking what this might do to his chances with Juliet.
Juliet, though slightly more controlled than Romeo as she holds out for marriage, pushes him to arrange a secret marriage with no thought for how this could work out.
Later when the Friar offers her a dangerous drug she instantly reaches for it in urgent passion for an impulsive solution.
I did like the reviewer’s point very much that the Friar too is impulsively childlike. He takes almost no time to reflect: he glances at his herbs and in seconds plunges the child Juliet into a harebrained scheme. Later when it has gione wrong he runs away like a small child, wailing.
Shakespeare was perhaps plugging into the Elizabethan ideology of Catholics as no fit priestly guides.
In sum Zeffirelli offers us both the beauty of passion and its ugliness.
The film is lush, vivid with throbbing reds and golds within and luxuriant gardens without. Olivia's sweeping hair and rich curves beside Leonard's winsome body evoke the beauty of passionate sexuality. The young men fight in the streets with faces alight with excited playfulness, alive in the moment, and nothing else.
But young men die of their delight. Sso do the lovers. Agony as the price of passion is shown as a warning. The Prince, symbolic as the head/ Head of State, is weak, unable to control the passions at war in the body politic.
Nonetheless although this is all there, where Romeo and Juliet is flawed is in the absence of a rational voice to contrast a cooler point of view. The portrait of passion is too finely balanced in its light and dark, so much so that it is easy to be swept up, as I once was, in the glory of it, and even include the death scenes in that glory. They died young but lived fully is a poisonous creed. Why not live longer and live even more fully?
Shakespeare might have written within the Greek tradition that honoured restraint and self control. The Symposium, examining Love, held romantic love up to ridicule.
But if so, if passion is to be seen as the exquisitely bottled poison it can be, the play, and the much later film, needed a commentary or cautionary character to put the other point of view: that caution, sober judgement, is as necessary to the good life as waves of passion.
Living without either reduces us to being less than human.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Bronze Age shipwreck (Salcombe Devon)
A Bronze Age shipwreck has been discovered near Salcombe, Devon. It appears to have been carrying tin and copper as part of an international trading network. Dated to 900BCE this is a key archaeological discovery by the SW Maritime Archaeological Group, now being assessed at Oxford.
Fascinating - but yet again the dominant influence of sea and rivers in the shaping of early cultures is distorted. In this case we have experts saying wow! we need to recognise that people were boating around really quite early.
Doh!
From what I've read the structure of the ship is based on generalised guesswork as nothing has yet been brought up of the actual ship.
The guesswork suggests a prehistoric canoe or curragh, of lightweight wooden construction. Paddles are mentioned but not sails. But even quite a narrow boat (estimated at 40ft long and 6ft wide) would have had at least small sails. There's no way it could have crossed from France purely on musclepower: well it could have but it would have needed a lot more than 15 sailors to provide power. Why do it with wind to help?
The issue that really annoys me is how experts speak of a maritime or water based trade network as if this is such a weird idea.
Land based travel networks are an anachronism when looking at ancient or indeed early history. Until the invention of railways only properly in use about 160 yrs ago, land travel was slow, expensive and risky. Narrow lumpy tracks, with trees on each side to conceal robbers were extremely inefficient. A few empires with great effort kept roads open cutting back on undergrowth to each side. But this was in recorded history, and even then exceptional.
The travel of choice would have been water, which was fast (under sail) and in skilled hands relatively risk free.
Our whole idea of geography is skewed by modern land travel. Cultures spread along coasts and river banks, with other cultures of a very different type clustered inland. A powerful example of water based culture is the Celtic Crescent which stretches from the Hebrides across Ireland and Wales, Cornwall, north west France, around the coast of Spain and into north Africa and southern France.
In these regions we find common language roots, common legends, similar music/ instruments, and shared philosophy e.g. not representing the gods in art.
Curraghs/ coracles were tough boats and coastal peoples would have early got skilled at navigation. Start thinking of the sea and large rivers as like modern motorways and cultural boundaries start to look very different.
Fascinating - but yet again the dominant influence of sea and rivers in the shaping of early cultures is distorted. In this case we have experts saying wow! we need to recognise that people were boating around really quite early.
Doh!
From what I've read the structure of the ship is based on generalised guesswork as nothing has yet been brought up of the actual ship.
The guesswork suggests a prehistoric canoe or curragh, of lightweight wooden construction. Paddles are mentioned but not sails. But even quite a narrow boat (estimated at 40ft long and 6ft wide) would have had at least small sails. There's no way it could have crossed from France purely on musclepower: well it could have but it would have needed a lot more than 15 sailors to provide power. Why do it with wind to help?
The issue that really annoys me is how experts speak of a maritime or water based trade network as if this is such a weird idea.
Land based travel networks are an anachronism when looking at ancient or indeed early history. Until the invention of railways only properly in use about 160 yrs ago, land travel was slow, expensive and risky. Narrow lumpy tracks, with trees on each side to conceal robbers were extremely inefficient. A few empires with great effort kept roads open cutting back on undergrowth to each side. But this was in recorded history, and even then exceptional.
The travel of choice would have been water, which was fast (under sail) and in skilled hands relatively risk free.
Our whole idea of geography is skewed by modern land travel. Cultures spread along coasts and river banks, with other cultures of a very different type clustered inland. A powerful example of water based culture is the Celtic Crescent which stretches from the Hebrides across Ireland and Wales, Cornwall, north west France, around the coast of Spain and into north Africa and southern France.
In these regions we find common language roots, common legends, similar music/ instruments, and shared philosophy e.g. not representing the gods in art.
Curraghs/ coracles were tough boats and coastal peoples would have early got skilled at navigation. Start thinking of the sea and large rivers as like modern motorways and cultural boundaries start to look very different.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Tough love?
Peter Mandelson has decreed that parents should be tough, and deny their grown children comforts and care in order to force them out of the home. He suggests not doing their laundry for example.
He's half right - and half badly, cruelly wrong.
Yes a child needs to learn that sharing a home involves duties of care and responsibility. That usually has to involve some tough struggles on the way. But it isn't in order to force them out. It's the parent's job to train a child to carry (practical) responsibility.
Do it and that child becomes a welcome companion to share the home. So there is no need to kick them out.
I suspect this is more of the Government agenda to war on families. We are not supposed to hold together, care for one another. Because separate lonely taxpayers will buy more to console their empty lives so that fuels this dirty economy.
The joke is the dirty economy is broke. There aren't the jobs for young people and if there were, housing is way too expensive.
I should be horrified and devastated if my son decided to move out.
I'd cope, of course I would. But welcome it as some parents say? I can't imagine that. I'd lose a strong, caring house companion.
I should be horrified and devastated if my son decided to move out.
I'd cope, of course I would. But welcome it as some parents say? I can't imagine that.
I'd have to struggle with huge loads of heavy shopping - miss his great cooking - do the washing up ... cleaning up ... cat care ... heavy rubbish bins ... local errands he now does .... one of the sweetest companions for shopping trips, cinema etc would be gone.
I'd be exhausted and lonely.
In other words he knows he's a respected adult. That carries with it duties of care and responsibility.
He learned from a tiny child to do his bit. Yes there was the struggle 12-16 when we had to be tough and insist. At one point we said no duties from you, no good food for you. Dinner would mean bread n butter for you, steak for us right in front of you!
We never had to do it but he got the point because he knew from other similar dialogues - we'd do it.
A child has to learn to be an adult. Sometimes that is brutal in its war. But do it and the result is a companion of joy.
I am reminded of when he was little and I faced the great bogey of the mother of a son. Should I keep pushing him away from me to "be a man"?
This was a really hard decision. As a strong woman I risked bringing up a mother-hag-ridden man. On the other hand, pushing him away, amputating his sweetness, risked him becoming a robot lout.
I went to look at other societies inanthropology. What I found was very interesting. Sons pushed away belong to societies when men HAVE to go away. Hunting. War. Long distance lorry drivers. Long faraway stints in the city while family live in the country. In these situations men are bred to be detached, and boys are pushed away from mothers.
Grown men too are taught not to touch small children. It is said that if a man cares for a plays with his small child he will not be strong enough to go away to work, to hunt, or to war.
Well I knew I didn't want that kind of son so my path was clear. I let myself hug away and the ectasy of the close bond flowed free.
But also I fiercely guarded his freedom and independence. In a hug I was alert to the slightest quiver of his body to move away. At that point I let me arms loosen and he had free choice and often did move away. Other similar situations followed that pattern.
There was the predictable message coming from other boys but we weathered that. My son felt sorry for them in what they were missing. (Being home educated was crucial here to building his independent point of view.)
All along I have never seen trouble signs of him being weak, wimpish, unable to stand on his own two feet.
"A lazy little git" as he himself puts it - yes.
During the years from 10 onwards we intensified the efforts to teach him to contribute to the house. There was never any problem with heaving heavy shopping or other heavy work. He likes displaying his wonderful strength.
But other jobs meant endless reminding, nagging, and sometimnes furious threats. (Very similar to getting homework done.)
During those years I always very much sympathised with his point of view even when it was infuriating as well. After all for him, the world consisted of a comfortable home where food, warmth, hot water, clothes, rubbish clearance, money all happened as if by magic. Legends like Beauty and the Beast, or Psyche, reflect our lost childhood world of pampering by invisible servants.
How unwelcome, how infuriating, that this pleasant way of life was being interrupted by nagging parents ... do this, do that ... Why should things change?
The child wants to be a pampered "lazy little git" forever. Naturally.
It is perhaps actually harder for a child like mine who has had freedom of choice handed to him early. By the teens there are few rewards to hand out in return for greater duties. We just had to insist.
It can be brutal as a war of wills. In that Mandelson is right. Tough love is vitally necessary.
But the aim is not to push them away, to drive them out by making the home uncomfortable. What a bleak, limited idea of a home or family that is.
However it does fit the Government agenda of families as no more than dormitories for workers. If both parents are out working full time (long hours working) then there is only the brief weekend together. Much of that is cut out by cfhores. So not much family time together. Just an efficient unit in the tax, debt servicing, consumer buying economy. Cash cow people in herds. MOO!
Teaching our children to be responsible, sharing, caring people is not about forcing them out. It's about helping them become someone lovable, someone who shares the load.
Once you get there they are a joy so why should you want them to go?
Of course if they want to - to travel, to do interesting work elsewhere, or in order to make a new home with a partner, that is their freedom.
But actively want them to go? Madness. Reminds me of that time at 5yrs when just as the child becomes a lot less work, but still lots of fun, I was expected to hand them over to a school. No fear. We went on enjoying each other.
The idea that helps as a guide is "flatmate." At 13 or even 10, start thinking "flatmate." By 18 he should be one.
What I mean is, when I feel he should be doing more, getting out of my way, that this is "my house" etc I check. Would I expect this of a flatmate?
The answer is always vitally educational.
Money is obviously not like being a flatmate. But flatmates do live on unequal finances. If it's not too unequal, one splits 50/50. If that is obviously unfair, then the contributions are adjusted in proportion to ability to pay.
In our case I have far more ability to make money. So I do little housework and he does more. I think we are both content with that.
One day perhaps I will have to grin and bear it if my son's life changes and he wants to go. I shall think of Spartan mothers and need my friends' help. I'm sure he will be kind to me about it.
But oh! how I joy in every day he stays.
He's half right - and half badly, cruelly wrong.
Yes a child needs to learn that sharing a home involves duties of care and responsibility. That usually has to involve some tough struggles on the way. But it isn't in order to force them out. It's the parent's job to train a child to carry (practical) responsibility.
Do it and that child becomes a welcome companion to share the home. So there is no need to kick them out.
I suspect this is more of the Government agenda to war on families. We are not supposed to hold together, care for one another. Because separate lonely taxpayers will buy more to console their empty lives so that fuels this dirty economy.
The joke is the dirty economy is broke. There aren't the jobs for young people and if there were, housing is way too expensive.
I should be horrified and devastated if my son decided to move out.
I'd cope, of course I would. But welcome it as some parents say? I can't imagine that. I'd lose a strong, caring house companion.
I should be horrified and devastated if my son decided to move out.
I'd cope, of course I would. But welcome it as some parents say? I can't imagine that.
I'd have to struggle with huge loads of heavy shopping - miss his great cooking - do the washing up ... cleaning up ... cat care ... heavy rubbish bins ... local errands he now does .... one of the sweetest companions for shopping trips, cinema etc would be gone.
I'd be exhausted and lonely.
In other words he knows he's a respected adult. That carries with it duties of care and responsibility.
He learned from a tiny child to do his bit. Yes there was the struggle 12-16 when we had to be tough and insist. At one point we said no duties from you, no good food for you. Dinner would mean bread n butter for you, steak for us right in front of you!
We never had to do it but he got the point because he knew from other similar dialogues - we'd do it.
A child has to learn to be an adult. Sometimes that is brutal in its war. But do it and the result is a companion of joy.
I am reminded of when he was little and I faced the great bogey of the mother of a son. Should I keep pushing him away from me to "be a man"?
This was a really hard decision. As a strong woman I risked bringing up a mother-hag-ridden man. On the other hand, pushing him away, amputating his sweetness, risked him becoming a robot lout.
I went to look at other societies inanthropology. What I found was very interesting. Sons pushed away belong to societies when men HAVE to go away. Hunting. War. Long distance lorry drivers. Long faraway stints in the city while family live in the country. In these situations men are bred to be detached, and boys are pushed away from mothers.
Grown men too are taught not to touch small children. It is said that if a man cares for a plays with his small child he will not be strong enough to go away to work, to hunt, or to war.
Well I knew I didn't want that kind of son so my path was clear. I let myself hug away and the ectasy of the close bond flowed free.
But also I fiercely guarded his freedom and independence. In a hug I was alert to the slightest quiver of his body to move away. At that point I let me arms loosen and he had free choice and often did move away. Other similar situations followed that pattern.
There was the predictable message coming from other boys but we weathered that. My son felt sorry for them in what they were missing. (Being home educated was crucial here to building his independent point of view.)
All along I have never seen trouble signs of him being weak, wimpish, unable to stand on his own two feet.
"A lazy little git" as he himself puts it - yes.
During the years from 10 onwards we intensified the efforts to teach him to contribute to the house. There was never any problem with heaving heavy shopping or other heavy work. He likes displaying his wonderful strength.
But other jobs meant endless reminding, nagging, and sometimnes furious threats. (Very similar to getting homework done.)
During those years I always very much sympathised with his point of view even when it was infuriating as well. After all for him, the world consisted of a comfortable home where food, warmth, hot water, clothes, rubbish clearance, money all happened as if by magic. Legends like Beauty and the Beast, or Psyche, reflect our lost childhood world of pampering by invisible servants.
How unwelcome, how infuriating, that this pleasant way of life was being interrupted by nagging parents ... do this, do that ... Why should things change?
The child wants to be a pampered "lazy little git" forever. Naturally.
It is perhaps actually harder for a child like mine who has had freedom of choice handed to him early. By the teens there are few rewards to hand out in return for greater duties. We just had to insist.
It can be brutal as a war of wills. In that Mandelson is right. Tough love is vitally necessary.
But the aim is not to push them away, to drive them out by making the home uncomfortable. What a bleak, limited idea of a home or family that is.
However it does fit the Government agenda of families as no more than dormitories for workers. If both parents are out working full time (long hours working) then there is only the brief weekend together. Much of that is cut out by cfhores. So not much family time together. Just an efficient unit in the tax, debt servicing, consumer buying economy. Cash cow people in herds. MOO!
Teaching our children to be responsible, sharing, caring people is not about forcing them out. It's about helping them become someone lovable, someone who shares the load.
Once you get there they are a joy so why should you want them to go?
Of course if they want to - to travel, to do interesting work elsewhere, or in order to make a new home with a partner, that is their freedom.
But actively want them to go? Madness. Reminds me of that time at 5yrs when just as the child becomes a lot less work, but still lots of fun, I was expected to hand them over to a school. No fear. We went on enjoying each other.
The idea that helps as a guide is "flatmate." At 13 or even 10, start thinking "flatmate." By 18 he should be one.
What I mean is, when I feel he should be doing more, getting out of my way, that this is "my house" etc I check. Would I expect this of a flatmate?
The answer is always vitally educational.
Money is obviously not like being a flatmate. But flatmates do live on unequal finances. If it's not too unequal, one splits 50/50. If that is obviously unfair, then the contributions are adjusted in proportion to ability to pay.
In our case I have far more ability to make money. So I do little housework and he does more. I think we are both content with that.
One day perhaps I will have to grin and bear it if my son's life changes and he wants to go. I shall think of Spartan mothers and need my friends' help. I'm sure he will be kind to me about it.
But oh! how I joy in every day he stays.
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Avatar
I was reluctant to go, not being a lover of splashy special effects and not much else. Also violence nowadays goes way past my tolerance so I was all ready to leave and go home if necessary.
I liked it. A lot. There was a great deal more than special effects. The violence was there but it illustrated genuine conflict rather than the usual gory porn - of which there was none.
It has its flaws. I'll leave the in-depth discussion to after the READ MORE link so if you haven't seen it stop here.
But I'd recommend it.
Special effects A
Violence control B
Gender balance A
Characters B
Dialogue C (but with some good moments)
Politics B
Beauty A
The Na'vi are Noble Savages of classic kind: physically stronger and more agile than civilised humans; morally aware, deeply interconnected; religious without being cowed; linked to ancestors, passionate, loyal, aggressive and generous.
Cameron uses a blend of various tribal cultures to bring them alive for us. They have dreadlocked hair, painted skin, plaited and crafted decorative jewellery, belts etc.
This can easily be seen as stereotyping even racist. But how else do we create poetic images of an ancestral culture? The Na'vi are as much drawn from white Celtic ancestry as from colonial peoples on other continents. (The Celts were the early colonised too of course but they were white subordinates, mainly of the English.)
The military-industrial complex as the Enemy is vividly presented in ways that Left or radical rhetoric find it hard to do. The massive machines crunch and threaten what is human, supposedly to serve humans by extracting vital resources. The soldiers are manipulated with pep talks about 'survival' against 'hostiles' in a realistic way.
The human world is "dead" and all human scenes are shown in metallic colours that emphasise their techno, alienated state. The contrast with the quiveringly alive colours of the Na'vi world is obvious.
Ultimately although Avatar makes a brave picture of persons standing up to a machinelike civilisation, the ending is naive. The desperation for minerals (or fuels) would bring back a great force of conquest. But that is to disregard the nature of the film which is heroic saga, fantasy epic, rather than sustained political realism.
Cameron points his doom warning like an ancient prophet, rather than a political economist. But the warning is there loud and clear.
In religious terms Avatar is very good, a Pagan world realised. We have the Earth Mother who is immanent spirit in all things. We only borrow our lives and must give them back. The Na'avi thank the beasts they kill to eat as their relatives - trees, plants, animals are "all our relations."
But the Goddess is said not to interfere in the struggles on the planet, yet then she does - which disappointed me. I liked the first point better. However the animals drawn into the final battle could well have responded to the Na'avi under threat as their "cousins" so it becomes a moot point whether this is the deity or not. Such is the difficulty with an immanent "everywhere" divinity.
Though beasts are nominally respected in the most intense scenes with them, they are not. They are dominated. A young warrior is expected to duel with a flying dragon beast and subdue it much like "breaking" a horse. Why was there no "dragon whispering"? Why no partnership with the beast?
Nonetheless although the Paganism is flawed it is thrillingly there in a better realised screen presentation than I have ever seen before.
Politically Avatar is weak. The military and scientific groups among humanity are conventional and realistic enough. But the tribal politics are crude, a king and priestess and a bunch of warrior hunters. What did they use to navigate conflict in decisions? Was there a Council?
It appears that our hero can send out orders and get them obeyed by other tribes. How? Why? Because he had taken on the powers of legend. But how otherwise did the Na'vi mediate conflict and determine their laws?
Tal tells me that there is much more detail in the Pandorapedia that was not evident in the film.
Avatar is excellent on gender. We have a heroine who is strong, skilful, active and innovative - she does not just reflect the feelings or follow but initiates. Several times, including the crucial last event, she rescues our hero. Where else on the big screen does the final duel have heroine rescue hero? - except in comedy perhaps. Yet it is more interesting than that for that last duel has hero rescue heroine, who then repays the favour. Neat.
Nor is the heroine an isolated example of strong women. There's a scientist who has the breadth of mind to understand much of the Na'vi meaning. She attempts to block the military agenda but unsurprisingly fails.
There's also a great pilot who flies into battle with heroic wisecracking courage.
Among the Na'vi there's a queenly priestess plus a glimpse of another female leader.
I'm perhaps asking too much of the big screen in feeling even so there was a lack of gender depth. Unlike the Serenity/ Firefly opus which I recently much enjoyed discovering, the females in Avatar only connect to males and service their needs. Principally the hero's. But Serenity/ Avatar shows that gender balance can be imagined in-depth. Avatar had to please its backers no doubt so we couldn't go too far on gender. So B rather than A.
Oh but did I mention the sex scene was a bore? I liked the restraint, as heaving blue giant bodies would have made me heave. But why didn't they join their telepathic plaits - or do something other than a boring American kiss n cuddle?
Where Avatar gets murky, inspite of its many remarkably good points, is the white American rescuer hero. As Will Heaven at the Telegraph points out in no uncertain terms, the theme of the white rescuer is dubious. Tribal people, this theme tells us, cannot lead themselves out of trouble: they need the superior white guy to do that for them.
The point is hard to tease out. Yes Jake is a white American male, and a soldier at that. A conqueror. He bags the native princess and by her Pocahontas sponsorship wins acceptance in the tribe so he can later be its saviour.
But in Avatar he does it by becoming a Na'vi far more intimately than living among the tribe, adopting their dress and learning their language. He lives in a Na'vi body. So as he becomes the incarnation of an ancient Na'vi folk hero, he does it as a Na'vi. He looks to us like a Na'vi and his retuirn visits to his human body almost become an irritating diversion. As he says his human life has become the dream, his Na'vi life has become his reality.
There is also the pragmatic point that he can become the saviour of the Na'vi specifically because he has inside knowledge of the human military machine. This neatly reverses his original mission to spy on the Na'vi from the inside!
He can therefore exploit a blend of Na'vi ancestral knowledge of the territory, with his own trained knowledge of his own (?) people's weapons and tactics.
Tal comments: Knowing, for example, that while the Na'vi bows cannot harm military gunships when shooting from the ground upwards, when shooting from Ikran-back (Na'vi flying beasts), with the added speed of the beasts flight behind the arrow, they can pierce a gunships canopy.
Yet even allowing that Jake becomes a Na'vi as much as an outsider possibly could, even living in a Na'vi body, and that his leadership twins Na'vi folk legend, intimacy with territory and human knowledge of human military resources, even so. He is still white American male rescuing the native tribe. He's not a Na'vi person emerging from Na'vi life to save the day.
This is perhaps too much for America to stomach. After all they only just permitted themselves a black president. Autonomous heroes of colour will have to wait a bit.
Nor do we see much of other Na'vi wisdom; command politics again. A council of war would have been interesting with different ideas hashed out. Perhaps we can forgive that one in the cause of heroic legend.
He does, Tal reminds me, claim a "right to speak" among the senior Na'vi before everyone gathered. Implicit is the idea that all Na'vi have this right. But we don't see how conflict is discussed and mediated. Since Cameron is criticising the dominance type of system exemplified by the military industrial complex, I feel he should have shown more of its alternative option.
Over all as I said I liked it very much criticisms notwithstanding. I do not bother to critique what I do not respect. I came away strengthened, inspired, confirmed in so much that means so much to me.
The interconnectedness of life. Ecology. Strong women partnering men who can be vulnerable as well as strong for themselves. Sheer beauty. Violence portrayed as a conflict rather than mere gore. Dreamlike other reality.
Avatar for all its faults has a real grandeur. It's glorious especially to a Pagan. So go see it and get the DVD.
I liked it. A lot. There was a great deal more than special effects. The violence was there but it illustrated genuine conflict rather than the usual gory porn - of which there was none.
It has its flaws. I'll leave the in-depth discussion to after the READ MORE link so if you haven't seen it stop here.
But I'd recommend it.
Special effects A
Violence control B
Gender balance A
Characters B
Dialogue C (but with some good moments)
Politics B
Beauty A
The Na'vi are Noble Savages of classic kind: physically stronger and more agile than civilised humans; morally aware, deeply interconnected; religious without being cowed; linked to ancestors, passionate, loyal, aggressive and generous.
Cameron uses a blend of various tribal cultures to bring them alive for us. They have dreadlocked hair, painted skin, plaited and crafted decorative jewellery, belts etc.
This can easily be seen as stereotyping even racist. But how else do we create poetic images of an ancestral culture? The Na'vi are as much drawn from white Celtic ancestry as from colonial peoples on other continents. (The Celts were the early colonised too of course but they were white subordinates, mainly of the English.)
The military-industrial complex as the Enemy is vividly presented in ways that Left or radical rhetoric find it hard to do. The massive machines crunch and threaten what is human, supposedly to serve humans by extracting vital resources. The soldiers are manipulated with pep talks about 'survival' against 'hostiles' in a realistic way.
The human world is "dead" and all human scenes are shown in metallic colours that emphasise their techno, alienated state. The contrast with the quiveringly alive colours of the Na'vi world is obvious.
Ultimately although Avatar makes a brave picture of persons standing up to a machinelike civilisation, the ending is naive. The desperation for minerals (or fuels) would bring back a great force of conquest. But that is to disregard the nature of the film which is heroic saga, fantasy epic, rather than sustained political realism.
Cameron points his doom warning like an ancient prophet, rather than a political economist. But the warning is there loud and clear.
In religious terms Avatar is very good, a Pagan world realised. We have the Earth Mother who is immanent spirit in all things. We only borrow our lives and must give them back. The Na'avi thank the beasts they kill to eat as their relatives - trees, plants, animals are "all our relations."
But the Goddess is said not to interfere in the struggles on the planet, yet then she does - which disappointed me. I liked the first point better. However the animals drawn into the final battle could well have responded to the Na'avi under threat as their "cousins" so it becomes a moot point whether this is the deity or not. Such is the difficulty with an immanent "everywhere" divinity.
Though beasts are nominally respected in the most intense scenes with them, they are not. They are dominated. A young warrior is expected to duel with a flying dragon beast and subdue it much like "breaking" a horse. Why was there no "dragon whispering"? Why no partnership with the beast?
Nonetheless although the Paganism is flawed it is thrillingly there in a better realised screen presentation than I have ever seen before.
Politically Avatar is weak. The military and scientific groups among humanity are conventional and realistic enough. But the tribal politics are crude, a king and priestess and a bunch of warrior hunters. What did they use to navigate conflict in decisions? Was there a Council?
It appears that our hero can send out orders and get them obeyed by other tribes. How? Why? Because he had taken on the powers of legend. But how otherwise did the Na'vi mediate conflict and determine their laws?
Tal tells me that there is much more detail in the Pandorapedia that was not evident in the film.
Avatar is excellent on gender. We have a heroine who is strong, skilful, active and innovative - she does not just reflect the feelings or follow but initiates. Several times, including the crucial last event, she rescues our hero. Where else on the big screen does the final duel have heroine rescue hero? - except in comedy perhaps. Yet it is more interesting than that for that last duel has hero rescue heroine, who then repays the favour. Neat.
Nor is the heroine an isolated example of strong women. There's a scientist who has the breadth of mind to understand much of the Na'vi meaning. She attempts to block the military agenda but unsurprisingly fails.
There's also a great pilot who flies into battle with heroic wisecracking courage.
Among the Na'vi there's a queenly priestess plus a glimpse of another female leader.
I'm perhaps asking too much of the big screen in feeling even so there was a lack of gender depth. Unlike the Serenity/ Firefly opus which I recently much enjoyed discovering, the females in Avatar only connect to males and service their needs. Principally the hero's. But Serenity/ Avatar shows that gender balance can be imagined in-depth. Avatar had to please its backers no doubt so we couldn't go too far on gender. So B rather than A.
Oh but did I mention the sex scene was a bore? I liked the restraint, as heaving blue giant bodies would have made me heave. But why didn't they join their telepathic plaits - or do something other than a boring American kiss n cuddle?
Where Avatar gets murky, inspite of its many remarkably good points, is the white American rescuer hero. As Will Heaven at the Telegraph points out in no uncertain terms, the theme of the white rescuer is dubious. Tribal people, this theme tells us, cannot lead themselves out of trouble: they need the superior white guy to do that for them.
The point is hard to tease out. Yes Jake is a white American male, and a soldier at that. A conqueror. He bags the native princess and by her Pocahontas sponsorship wins acceptance in the tribe so he can later be its saviour.
But in Avatar he does it by becoming a Na'vi far more intimately than living among the tribe, adopting their dress and learning their language. He lives in a Na'vi body. So as he becomes the incarnation of an ancient Na'vi folk hero, he does it as a Na'vi. He looks to us like a Na'vi and his retuirn visits to his human body almost become an irritating diversion. As he says his human life has become the dream, his Na'vi life has become his reality.
There is also the pragmatic point that he can become the saviour of the Na'vi specifically because he has inside knowledge of the human military machine. This neatly reverses his original mission to spy on the Na'vi from the inside!
He can therefore exploit a blend of Na'vi ancestral knowledge of the territory, with his own trained knowledge of his own (?) people's weapons and tactics.
Tal comments: Knowing, for example, that while the Na'vi bows cannot harm military gunships when shooting from the ground upwards, when shooting from Ikran-back (Na'vi flying beasts), with the added speed of the beasts flight behind the arrow, they can pierce a gunships canopy.
Yet even allowing that Jake becomes a Na'vi as much as an outsider possibly could, even living in a Na'vi body, and that his leadership twins Na'vi folk legend, intimacy with territory and human knowledge of human military resources, even so. He is still white American male rescuing the native tribe. He's not a Na'vi person emerging from Na'vi life to save the day.
This is perhaps too much for America to stomach. After all they only just permitted themselves a black president. Autonomous heroes of colour will have to wait a bit.
Nor do we see much of other Na'vi wisdom; command politics again. A council of war would have been interesting with different ideas hashed out. Perhaps we can forgive that one in the cause of heroic legend.
He does, Tal reminds me, claim a "right to speak" among the senior Na'vi before everyone gathered. Implicit is the idea that all Na'vi have this right. But we don't see how conflict is discussed and mediated. Since Cameron is criticising the dominance type of system exemplified by the military industrial complex, I feel he should have shown more of its alternative option.
Over all as I said I liked it very much criticisms notwithstanding. I do not bother to critique what I do not respect. I came away strengthened, inspired, confirmed in so much that means so much to me.
The interconnectedness of life. Ecology. Strong women partnering men who can be vulnerable as well as strong for themselves. Sheer beauty. Violence portrayed as a conflict rather than mere gore. Dreamlike other reality.
Avatar for all its faults has a real grandeur. It's glorious especially to a Pagan. So go see it and get the DVD.
Sunday, 20 December 2009
Vengeance is mine, says the judge
It's now a week since I collapsed weeping in the supermarket. I hasten to add nothing bad has happened to me and mine, or not directly. No I wept for a stranger, aman named Munir Hussein.
Catherine Bennett's blog today in the Guardian, is a useful model article of all the bad arguments in the Munir Hussain case.
Munir Hussein, a pillar of respectability, a businessman known as The Peacemaker, is at the heart of a legal uproar about burglary and violence.
He came home with his wife and children to find burglars. They tied him up, and his family, beat him up, stated they would be killed, and held them at knifepoint. But his son got away and got help, his uncle who lived nearby.
Once the thugs saw their game was up they fled with a freed Munir, his brother and two neighbours in hot pursuit, bearing a cricket bat and a metal pole as makeshift weapons.
Two got away but Samir was broght down and battered, causing some brain damage.
Munir Hussain and his brother have been jailed for years. The judge explained that if he did not jail them it would undermine our "civilised society."
Munir's mother had just died. His wife was recovering from a stroke, and under the strain of the case, she has had a second one. Munir's successful business may have to close, putting 100 households into unemployment. These are not legalities but the whole mess made me weep for Munir and his family.
The ensuing debate has touched on the rawest nerve in Britain today. Public discussion has been fast and furious, the enormous majority on one side of the drawn lines.
Mr. Mercer MP when he asked for the most important change in the law that British people wanted, got the overwhelming response that people wanted the right to defend their homes - with violence, and without fear of going to jail for it.
Mercer's proposed law was then suppressed by the Government.
Catherine Bennett (Guardian) opens her comment today by mourning the damaged cricket bat. That immediately sets her tone as trivial and abusive of the serious issues involved.
Read on for a methodical analysis of the issues.
Catherine Bennett (Guardian) opens comment today by mourning the damaged cricket bat Munir used to batter Samir with, which sets her tone as trivial and abusive of the serious issues involved. A lot more irrelevant chaff follows.
Mind you there has been some excellent humour in the debate. Try this one.
"The poor lambs who argue that Mr. Hussain should have made a citizens arrest and held the knifeman until the police arrived haven't a clue. They have no conception at all of what a knife carrying street fighter is like. The starry eyed darlings would have their blood and guts all over the pavement before they had finished saying "Stop and give yourself up or I shall be forced to give you a reasonably hard but not life threatening or otherwise seriously damaging blow about your person with my cricket bat."
[Klough commenting on Catherine Bennett, Guardian today]
Picking out the actual points scattered in Catherine's article we find reference to “a carful of supporters” – untrue. No car brought help, his help was Munir’s brother and two neighbours.
Four respectable men with makeshift weapons up against three violent thugs with knives seems entirely proportional, even heroic.
Catherine then rightly says this is “a land where faith in law enforcement has all but broken down” and there is “a general rage against police uselessness, against lenient sentencing.”
Less than 10% of burglars suffer any negative result so “those of us who … are forced to rely on conventional justice” are left radically unprotected.
Catherine then insults the mass of men for their protective anger for their families’ safety. I would rather honour it, and the men who feel it. Nor do I appreciate Catherine insulting women as well as men; if alone without my bloke, I’d not use a “rolled yoga mat”– I have a trusty and very heavy iron frying pan.
But she is right that Munir’s violence was not strictly self defence.
As she says the jury HAD to convict. Currently, that's the law.
BUT the judge did not HAVE to jail Munir.
Catherine supports the judge’s view that without jailing Munir we’d have a Hobbesian brutality where “the rule of law counts for nothing.” But this is nonsense. "Civilised society" already counts for very little – 10% clearup rates, police no go areas, violent criminals like the one who attacked Munir's family, with 50 convictions yet roaming free.
Jailing Munir is no remedy at all. That's like elastoplast on gangene. Instead, supporting Munir’s justified rage that his life and his family’s lives were threatened, would provide a hefty deterrent to thugs. People, police and even criminals agree. So what doesn't this judge and his good little girl admirer Catherine Bennett, not understand?
I would MUCH prefer to see police supported properly to do their job effectively. Once they were, up to about 1980. But for a generation the police have been more and more obstructed.
It is also questionable if they could cope even if properly supported. A 20% underclass and rising is flooded with alcohol as cheap as water, available almost 24 hours a day. They have no hope since the education system has been wrecked, and are continually and insistently told everywhere they look, that they are worthless scum unless they have all the latest material goods.
The result is predictable. Theft and violence in epidemic propertions. It is also going to get much worse.
So as this goes far beyond the bounds of police resources next best is to allow us to both defend ourselves, AND deter violence, as Munir did. Police and law cannot do it for us any more.
Much is made of the fact that Samir was running away afterwards. But Munir was still in the immediate aftermath of a death threat. He'd been tied up, threatened for his life, seen his beloved wife and chil;dfren in danger of their lives as well.
The law then asked Munir, in the immediate reaction to such ultimate fear, within minutes, to weigh up his response. He was required to measure out his own violence in a "reasonable" and "appropriate" way.
This is completely unrealistic. Highly trained police can't always do this - and they are not coping with their beloved wife and children in mortal danger. So why do we ask ordinary people to handle more than the professionals?
Peak adrenalin needs up to 15 mins to subside. Until it does no “reasonable” or “appropriate” reaction can be expected. A law that recognised that could give Munir a suspended sentence.
But wait – this judge could have done just this! A suspended sentence is available if Munir is otherwise peaceful and no threat to general society. Many witnesses including police say he is. Very much so. He has been known for years as the Peacemaker.
We must ask why the judge is so far cut off from the reality of ordinary people's lives who are living in a society ruled by fear. Is he blinded by his money? Privilege? Stupidity? I don't know.
Seriously this must be checked because judges should comprehend real life, and protect us, saying in effect BURGLARS BEWARE!
Catherine Bennett's blog today in the Guardian, is a useful model article of all the bad arguments in the Munir Hussain case.
Munir Hussein, a pillar of respectability, a businessman known as The Peacemaker, is at the heart of a legal uproar about burglary and violence.
He came home with his wife and children to find burglars. They tied him up, and his family, beat him up, stated they would be killed, and held them at knifepoint. But his son got away and got help, his uncle who lived nearby.
Once the thugs saw their game was up they fled with a freed Munir, his brother and two neighbours in hot pursuit, bearing a cricket bat and a metal pole as makeshift weapons.
Two got away but Samir was broght down and battered, causing some brain damage.
Munir Hussain and his brother have been jailed for years. The judge explained that if he did not jail them it would undermine our "civilised society."
Munir's mother had just died. His wife was recovering from a stroke, and under the strain of the case, she has had a second one. Munir's successful business may have to close, putting 100 households into unemployment. These are not legalities but the whole mess made me weep for Munir and his family.
The ensuing debate has touched on the rawest nerve in Britain today. Public discussion has been fast and furious, the enormous majority on one side of the drawn lines.
Mr. Mercer MP when he asked for the most important change in the law that British people wanted, got the overwhelming response that people wanted the right to defend their homes - with violence, and without fear of going to jail for it.
Mercer's proposed law was then suppressed by the Government.
Catherine Bennett (Guardian) opens her comment today by mourning the damaged cricket bat. That immediately sets her tone as trivial and abusive of the serious issues involved.
Read on for a methodical analysis of the issues.
Catherine Bennett (Guardian) opens comment today by mourning the damaged cricket bat Munir used to batter Samir with, which sets her tone as trivial and abusive of the serious issues involved. A lot more irrelevant chaff follows.
Mind you there has been some excellent humour in the debate. Try this one.
"The poor lambs who argue that Mr. Hussain should have made a citizens arrest and held the knifeman until the police arrived haven't a clue. They have no conception at all of what a knife carrying street fighter is like. The starry eyed darlings would have their blood and guts all over the pavement before they had finished saying "Stop and give yourself up or I shall be forced to give you a reasonably hard but not life threatening or otherwise seriously damaging blow about your person with my cricket bat."
[Klough commenting on Catherine Bennett, Guardian today]
Picking out the actual points scattered in Catherine's article we find reference to “a carful of supporters” – untrue. No car brought help, his help was Munir’s brother and two neighbours.
Four respectable men with makeshift weapons up against three violent thugs with knives seems entirely proportional, even heroic.
Catherine then rightly says this is “a land where faith in law enforcement has all but broken down” and there is “a general rage against police uselessness, against lenient sentencing.”
Less than 10% of burglars suffer any negative result so “those of us who … are forced to rely on conventional justice” are left radically unprotected.
Catherine then insults the mass of men for their protective anger for their families’ safety. I would rather honour it, and the men who feel it. Nor do I appreciate Catherine insulting women as well as men; if alone without my bloke, I’d not use a “rolled yoga mat”– I have a trusty and very heavy iron frying pan.
But she is right that Munir’s violence was not strictly self defence.
As she says the jury HAD to convict. Currently, that's the law.
BUT the judge did not HAVE to jail Munir.
Catherine supports the judge’s view that without jailing Munir we’d have a Hobbesian brutality where “the rule of law counts for nothing.” But this is nonsense. "Civilised society" already counts for very little – 10% clearup rates, police no go areas, violent criminals like the one who attacked Munir's family, with 50 convictions yet roaming free.
Jailing Munir is no remedy at all. That's like elastoplast on gangene. Instead, supporting Munir’s justified rage that his life and his family’s lives were threatened, would provide a hefty deterrent to thugs. People, police and even criminals agree. So what doesn't this judge and his good little girl admirer Catherine Bennett, not understand?
I would MUCH prefer to see police supported properly to do their job effectively. Once they were, up to about 1980. But for a generation the police have been more and more obstructed.
It is also questionable if they could cope even if properly supported. A 20% underclass and rising is flooded with alcohol as cheap as water, available almost 24 hours a day. They have no hope since the education system has been wrecked, and are continually and insistently told everywhere they look, that they are worthless scum unless they have all the latest material goods.
The result is predictable. Theft and violence in epidemic propertions. It is also going to get much worse.
So as this goes far beyond the bounds of police resources next best is to allow us to both defend ourselves, AND deter violence, as Munir did. Police and law cannot do it for us any more.
Much is made of the fact that Samir was running away afterwards. But Munir was still in the immediate aftermath of a death threat. He'd been tied up, threatened for his life, seen his beloved wife and chil;dfren in danger of their lives as well.
The law then asked Munir, in the immediate reaction to such ultimate fear, within minutes, to weigh up his response. He was required to measure out his own violence in a "reasonable" and "appropriate" way.
This is completely unrealistic. Highly trained police can't always do this - and they are not coping with their beloved wife and children in mortal danger. So why do we ask ordinary people to handle more than the professionals?
Peak adrenalin needs up to 15 mins to subside. Until it does no “reasonable” or “appropriate” reaction can be expected. A law that recognised that could give Munir a suspended sentence.
But wait – this judge could have done just this! A suspended sentence is available if Munir is otherwise peaceful and no threat to general society. Many witnesses including police say he is. Very much so. He has been known for years as the Peacemaker.
We must ask why the judge is so far cut off from the reality of ordinary people's lives who are living in a society ruled by fear. Is he blinded by his money? Privilege? Stupidity? I don't know.
Seriously this must be checked because judges should comprehend real life, and protect us, saying in effect BURGLARS BEWARE!
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