Views from the Abyss #62: Man-Steak Monday

There is a relatively unknown bar and grill in a highly populated part of town near some very long term building works. The owner, lamenting the lack of customers, observes that every Monday evening, lots of men walk past the bar looking miserable and depressed, no doubt tired and aware they have a long week of work yet to go. 

Sensing a business opportunity, he works out a profitable but high value deal, which he calls “Man-Steak Monday”. The offer comprises a heavily discounted 800g steak, garlic and onion gravy, roast potatoes, and one beer included. The beer comes out straight away upon ordering, while the steak takes a little time to prepare and cook, so the idea is that many customers will order a second drink when their steak arrives. A variety of well advertised sides are available, including instant snacks that can be enjoyed while waiting for the steak, which it’s anticipated will also be popular.  

Right from the get-go, the response is phenomenal, and puts the bar on the map. Men and women are literally queuing down the road for their Man-Steak Monday treat, and there’s an overall increase in business on other nights too. Profits have never been higher, and after a decade and a half the owner finally decides to retire and sell the business.

An umbrella company that owns a well known chain of restaurants sees the thriving business up for sale and grabs it up quickly. A new manager who has a degree in Gendered Business Studies is assigned to take over, and the first thing he notices is that while Man-Steak Monday is their most popular offer, women only make up 30% of the customers. 

He performs some market research, and concludes that there are a number of details putting women off from taking advantage of it. First of all, the steaks are too big. The women interviewed said they’d prefer a steak to be around 300g. The garlic and onion gravy isn’t really to their liking as it might make their breath smell, and a wine based sauce would be preferred. Instead of roast potatoes, corn and broccoli seem popular, and that should be topped off with a side of salad and soup. Beer is less popular with women, so a cocktail would be preferred. Women feel more pampered when they spend more money, so there’s no quibble about the price, even if the steak is smaller. Also, women tend to prefer Wednesdays as treat night.

The answer, it seems, is simple. Devise a complementary new offer provisionally called Women-Steak Wednesday based on the above research, to run in conjunction with the existing Man-Steak Monday.

But our new manager doesn’t want to do this, as Man-Steak Monday would still be catering to around 70% men, and he wants a one-size-fits-all solution for the sake of inclusiveness. So with that in mind, he takes the Man-Steak Monday offer and changes the steak size, the sauce, the included vegetables, adds the sides, changes the drink to a cocktail, and moves it to Wednesday. He decides that as people are already familiar with the Man-Steak Monday naming, this should stay, despite it not technically being on a Monday anymore (any customer who feels the need to niggle over this is probably not welcome anyway).

The response to this is perhaps as one might expect. Most of the men who used to eat there on Mondays have seen the new offering and decided it’s not for them. Most of the women that used to eat there Mondays have also turned their noses up at it—they liked the original offer because enormous steaks and beer is something they enjoy. It’s mostly new customers coming in, and in much smaller numbers. Their dining habits are a little different too—the cocktail is normally sufficient for the duration, so they don’t order a second drink, and as soup and salad is included they don’t order any sides either. The soup, salad and cocktail actually cost the bar more than they’re saving by the reduced size of the steak, so profit margins are much thinner than they were before. Additionally, many of the new customers are quick to voice their disappointment on social media, giving it a 1 star rating because the steak was too small, or too big, or it wasn’t stated clearly enough that the steak contained meat, which prompted a lot of angry replies from the manager suggesting they take their business elsewhere. 

However, around 80% of the customers taking advantage of the offer are now women, just 20% shy of true equality, so the manager considers these changes to be an undeniable success. The Man-Steak Monday offer is now more accessible to a much wider and diverse segment of the population. 

When he reports the bar’s finances though, the stockholders instead see a business that has been absolutely run into the ground, with profits in the red for the first time since the business was established.

The manager, feeling that finances were not the best way to judge the success of a business, blamed the losses on misogyny and intolerance.

And this is why a lot of people don’t like the new Star Wars movies. 

Views from the Abyss #61: Free Will

Q. Do humans have free will, or is everything we do biologically determined?

A. Both, kinda.

It's often been suggested that free will is an illusion, but that's very unhelpfully misleading.

Free will at its core is an analogical conceptualisation of a specific perceived phenomena. It is a cognitive shortcut that allows us to describe a subjective experience in a meaningful way. And as with all analogies, it is only useful for superficial description as it crumbles under the slightest scrutiny. Discussing it as though it were the phenomena itself would be pointless, as there is simply no deeper meaning to be found there.

There is good reason that we use an analogical conceptualisation in this instance though: the reality we experience is simply not consistent with objective reality or established fact at any level. Humans instinctively perceive their mind, their sense of self, the thing that makes them special and unique, as being something separate from the flesh and bone vessel they occupy. Even when we know rationally that this is not the case, the perception persists in religion, in fiction, in metaphor* etc. to an extent that suggests it really is an integral part of how we function. From an evolutionary vantage point, it has obviously served us well so far, but don't expect to find any good reason for it beyond that.

* For related examples, even astrophysicists describe morning and evening in terms of sunrise and sunset, in spite of knowing full well that the sun does no such thing.

As an aside, this perceived awareness that the real you exists as a separate incorporeal entity results in everybody at some point seeking answers to the ultimate question: what happens to the real you after the body dies. This may be why humans are hardwired to seek out religion, but that would be a discussion for another day.

Q. OK, so in the absence of an incorporeal 'real you', all actions must therefore be biological determined. How then is free will 'kinda' true?

A. Because what we think of as 'free will' describes acts of agency, with a special focus on instances where the choices and the potential ramifications are understood at an intellectual level.

A newborn baby expresses agency right from the get go. Feels hungry, wants to not feel hungry, cries for attention, made to not feel hungry anymore, sorted.

It cannot conceptualise intellectually what the issue producing the stimulus is, what it's doing to remedy the issue or why, but it still knows exactly what it's doing, and it's learning this whole time.

As the brain develops a little, it starts to comprehend these things intellectually. It starts to make connections with predictive capability. It becomes able to anticipate an issue before it becomes an issue and counter it in advance. It can envision a desired outcome, and determine the necessary steps required to make that outcome a reality. It can, in these and many other ways, enjoy the experience of exercising choice.

But at a biological level, it is merely a more sophisticated expression of the agency it was already demonstrating more than adequately on day one.

One could argue that 'free will' requires that one be capable of understanding rudimentary cause and effect in terms of choices being made.

But it would be a waste of everybody's time.

Views from the Abyss #60: Order of Operations

In a recent bulletin, there was an hilarious joke about a programmer, and his wife's inability to communicate simple instructions. It served as an introduction to how our ability to think evolved in service of our ability to communicate, or how both were byproducts of a more useful ability to conceptualise, whatever it was we finally concluded. Ian Dury is still out on that one.

It occurs to me in hindsight that it also serves to illustrate the importance of mathematical orders of operations.

Consider the following simple maths puzzle:

2 + 3 x 5 = ?

If you answered '25', then congratulations, you are the programmer in the joke. You can follow simple instructions pedantically, even if they make no sense (you see, in this scenario, the programmer is the one who is foolish).

If you answered '17' (as my six year old niece correctly did), then congratulations, you can pedantically follow slightly more complex instructions, even without understanding their reason for existing.

But there is a reason for this order of operations to exist—real world application. How so? Because in any real world situation, there would be no left to right calculations of abstract numbers—each of those numbers would represent something real, and the order they appear would not be important.

As such, the order of operations makes the actual order irrelevant.

Think of it this way:

2 + 3 + 5 = 10
3 + 2 + 5 = 10
5 + 2 + 3 = 10
etc.

With addition, the order is irrelevant. Now let's try another:

2 x 3 x 5 = 30
5 x 3 x 2 = 30
3 x 5 x 2 = 30
etc.

With multiplication, the order is irrelevant. Let's try mixing them the wrong way:

2 + 3 x 5 = 25
2 + 5 x 3 = 30
5 x 2 + 3 = 23
etc.

Bollocks. The order totally changes things. That's no good, but how did it happen? Well, it wouldn't happen in the real world.

Let's pretend the numbers are bananas. Actually, no. Let's pretend they're strawberries.

You have a small tub with 2 strawberries in it, another with 3, and another with 5. If you pour all of them out on the table, it doesn't matter which order you do so because it will all amount to the same number of strawberries—10.

2 + 3 + 5 = 10
[**] [***] [*****] = **********

Now, imagine a small tub containing 2 strawberries. You have 3 such tubs—each with the same content—sitting inside a large tub. And you have five of the larger tubs which also all have the same content. So each of the five large tubs contains 3 small tubs, and each of the small tubs contains 2 strawberries. If you pour them all out, you will find there are 30 strawberries, but you would have the same result if it was 2 large tubs containing 5 small tubs containing 3 strawberries each, or 3 large tubs containing 2 small tubs containing 5 strawberries each.

2 x 3 x 5 = 30
( [**] [**] [**] ) ( [**] [**] [**] ) ( [**] [**] [**] ) ( [**] [**] [**] ) ( [**] [**] [**] )  =
******************************

So when you see the original maths question, what you actually have is a small tub with two strawberries, and a large tub containing either 3 tubs with 5 strawberries each, or 5 tubs with 3 strawberries each.

2 + 3 x 5 = 17
[**] ( [*****] [*****] [*****] ) = *****************
[**] ( [***] [***] [***] [***] [***] ) = *****************

I don't remember ever studying them this way in maths class, because I was 4 years old at the time.

Views from the Abyss #59: In Defence of Ghostbusters (2016)

Q. What I find remarkable about the shoopdoggydogg-fest that was the "Female Ghostbusters" is its complete lack of any redeeming features. How on earth did they expect to make any money from it?

A. 'Shoopdoggydogg-fest'? I trust that was an autocorrect error?

Q. It's not outside the realms of possibility.

A. It wasn't a criticism.

Many people find autocorrect errors to be hilarious.

I promise this is going somewhere...

With regards to Ghostbusters (2016), something that a lot of people who have not seen it fail to understand is that it is a low brow, low credibility, low production value, lazy, by the numbers improvised comedy.

This should not be considered a criticism.

The story is little more than a vaguely fertile soil from which (hopefully) many seeds of mirth may flower and fruit. As such, the franchise is irrelevant. It's Star Wars porn, which is a thing, because porn. And Star Wars.

None of this is a criticism either.

The production process (whittled down) amounted to giving the characters a start point for a scene, a place they need to arrive at, and free reign to make that journey as meandering, drawn out and humorous as they possibly can. As a result, scenes go on for much longer than they need to to drive the plot, but as the plot is merely a vehicle and not a goal, the point is moot.

Then it's in the hands of the editors. The side-splitting two hour version of the scene in which the characters are sitting around, the phone rings, and they go out on their first mission is edited down to six or seven minutes by trimming the fat and leaving just the funniest moments in a way that hopefully isn't too poorly timed or haphazard.

This is still not a criticism.

This was exactly the sort of movie it was trying to be.

Q. Put like that, it actually sounds like a typical Adam Sandler movie. 

A. A prize to the pretty lady. Or gentleman. It's 2015...

Although he's not the best example, he's certainly an example. Him and other big name improvisation artists know that there are people on this planet who just find him so damned funny. And if a movie essentially boils down to him and some other big names like him being funny together, then that's something these people would happily pay to see, and they're rarely disappointed with what they get. Studios take a gamble on this each time—do enough people with disposable cash find the artist sufficiently funny that one can expect a reasonable return on an investment? With Sandler, it's a great big yes every time.

With Ghostbusters (2016) it was more of a risk. The improvisation artists were less well known, but the known franchise could help make up the balance by bringing in additional customers who enjoyed the original work. The artists would gain additional fans amongst the franchise nostalgia audience, who could then be lured back in to watch potential sequels. With clever marketing, they couldn't lose.

Q. But didn't the marketing consist of alienating the franchise fans and an entire half of the global population by insulting them and calling them terrible awful people? Wasn't it a box office flop?

A. In fairness to marketing, the preview trailers did a very good job of telling the potential audience exactly what kind of movie they were going to be watching. Nobody paid to see that movie expecting a faithful remake/reboot/homage to the classic. They paid to see the movie I've spent this review describing, and that's exactly what they got.

The director on the other hand... He set out to antagonise the audience from the get go. He didn't choose four women to play the titular characters because he felt they would bring something new to the role, he did it to flip the bird at kids who used to bully him at school.

Perhaps he missed the memo about the need for clever marketing to attract franchise fans, and to give it as wide appeal as possible. Or perhaps the memo itself was the problem; most of the intent was likely inferred rather than stated outright, making it far too subtexty for self-professed male director Paul Feig to fully appreciate.

They probably should have gotten a man to write it.

NOTE: The author of this review has not actually seen the movie in question. In fact, if it appears on Hulu the author may be tempted to cancel his or her subscription, as he or she would hate to think they were in any way funding the movie by proxy. 


Update
I asserted above that the director had deliberately antagonised fans of the original franchise. This was based on comments he'd made in an unrelated interview that would reasonably lead to this conclusion. However, while searching for this interview, I found myself reviewing numerous other interviews and commentaries from both before the film's production and after its release. In them I noticed certain incongruous consistencies with his attitude, that have led me re-evaluate his intent.

What many of us living on earth understand full well is that we find ourselves in a volatile time of gender, race and sexuality politics. Gender swapping the leads of a beloved major franchise as recently as a decade ago would have been considered a bold and adventurous move. Now, it can only be interpreted as political: antagonistic and pandering to one kind of person, a victory against the system to another.

The change however is with us, the beholders, and it would make no sense to assume that a director of his stature (heard of in mainstream circles) would have his ear this close to the ground.

To date, he has been entirely consistent in his assertions that:

1) He has more experience directing female leads; that
2) There was no way he could improve on the classic within the existing paradigm, so
3) An all female cast meant he could approach it from an untried angle producing something new that wasn't in competition with the beloved classic, while also working with what he knows.

That he foolishly accepted the job at such a volatile period is unfortunate, but I cannot in good conscience say that he approached this low brow, low credibility, low production value, lazy, by the numbers improvised comedy with anything but the best intentions.

We did the rest.

Something else that can be understood about Paul Feig is that perhaps he shares something in common with Kwon Soon Kuen, the notorious Korean drummer. He has stated before (paraphrased) that he spent decades playing the drums in public performances genuinely believing that his performance style was normal—if it wasn't, then why would he keep getting high profile gigs? Feig no doubt similarly believes that his way of making films is a good way to make films, because the studios keep asking him to come and make more. He genuinely believes he is creating a quality product.

I still have absolutely no intention of ever watching it though.

Views from the Abyss #58: More Chickens and Eggs

From the comments:

Q. I am an avid reader of your bulletins, and in no way a rhetorical device crafted for the convenience of your narrative approach. I see where you're coming from in the whole "thinking for the purpose of communication" is concerned, but wouldn't observed and organised processes such as farming basics be more about learning for the sake of knowledge, communication largely put on back burner?

A. Yes. This is a valid point.

Learning and communicating are both byproducts of conceptualisation. As such, neither spawned the other, so it really doesn't matter which came first. Both would have offered an evolutionary advantage.

Views from the Abyss #57: On Chickens and Eggs

There is an old joke, that goes a little too much like this:

A programmer is asked by his wife to go to the local store. "Buy a frozen chicken, and if they have eggs, get six," she instructs him. The man duly complies, and returns twenty minutes later with six frozen chickens. "Why did you buy six frozen chickens?" asked his wife. "They had eggs."

Why, that foolish programmer husband! If only he could relate to real people and the way that real people speak; if only he could get his head out of the mountains of code that regularly put food on the table for them both, then such mistakes would not happen so readily. I'm sure this was exactly what you were all thinking.

But why? Is the true fault not with his wife for not having communicated her intent less unclearly? There are too many negatives in that question for a simple yes or no answer to make any sense, but rest assured, she is the one at fault.

Perhaps if she had learned to code at a young age, such problems would not arise. Coding is not just for coders, people—start 'em young!

However, it leads us naturally to another quandary of a chicken and egg variety. In terms of human evolution, was our ability to communicate complex ideas a natural byproduct of our emerging advanced cognitive functions, or did our advanced cognitive functions develop in order to facilitative more meaningful communication of what would otherwise be entirely chemically based emotional reactions to stimuli that would mean no more to anybody else than listening to a lion fart?

It is the latter. Google it if you don't believe me, and if you find any meaningful results supporting either conclusion, do let me know in the comments.

The ability to conceptualise is what allows us to articulate feelings in a way that can be understood by others, and if that feeling happened to be "danger evident!!!!", being able to abstract the nature of the danger into something more meaningful such as "superior size sand coloured quadruped, sharp in tooth and claw, two instances thereof" would be next to worthless by itself, but communication to the tribe of this abstract could well be the difference between winning at evolution and being eaten alive by one of two instances of a superior size quadruped.

It also means our thoughts are largely useless in and of themselves.

A wall one often runs into is that the act of thinking is necessarily an abstraction of what one really understands, a representation stripped of nuance, little more than an analogy. Invariably, if you stretch the metaphor too far, you end up chasing your own tail, and to what end?

Some things are better understood in their native format, and do not need to be conceptualised.

Q. By 'native format', are you referring to the 'fantasy bubble' comfort zone you described previously.

A. Yes.

Q. So you're saying that we should just stop thinking about politics and instead focus on things that are real?

A. That would certainly be a most beneficial byproduct; and another chicken and egg scenario to ponder!

Views from the Abyss #56: 2001—A Space Bible

The Bible, or the Word of God as it’s also known, is (should its PR be believed) the whole truth as written by the great I Am. But given how what we understand as 'truth' is crippled by our own limited human ability to conceptualise, and that the presentation of the almighty is anthropomorphised to an absurd degree throughout, it would make sense that 'truth' as we understand it probably differs from the somewhat broader meaning of truth as defined by an omnipotent deity who, in all fairness, is probably a better judge of such things.

Instead, the Bible represents truth in terms of what we need to hear to reach the next stage of our development as a civilisation. It serves a similar purpose, one could say, to the obelisk in the novel and movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

In more savage times, the early covenants of the Old Testament made perfect sense, much as Sharia Law still does in some societies today. "You stupid; God scary; follow simple rules or lose testicles/life". It was a 'truth' people needed to hear to tame their wilder instincts. Instil the fear of god into a society of savages and give them simple rules to live by, and you have yourself a primitive but effective social contract.

This pattern repeats itself numerous times throughout the Old Testament, the rules becoming increasingly sophisticated with each iteration, and each assisting civilisation in reaching its next step of development.

Until finally (so far), along comes Jesus and the New Testament. Gone are the rules, and in place we have virtues. Adherence to the virtues is godly and pleasing, ignoring them less so, but there are sufficient consequences either way (both personally and socially) right here on earth that God need not get involved. He is no longer in the driving seat—we are. In fact, he's not even in the car. He's up there, in outer space, waiting for us to call to let him know we arrived at our destination safely. He still worries, and so does your mum—call her sometimes!

Jesus not only preached these virtues, but he lived them also, by all accounts. To say he was centuries ahead of his time is an understatement—he was around 18 centuries ahead; he was a crude template for the enlightenment. The people were not ready for it, but that was exactly the point. The New Testament was the 'truth' we needed to hear to advance to that next level.

Anybody that claims religion is irrelevant in the modern world is like the people who use their smartphones to post to social media about the evils of capitalism, or the women who stand up in front of millions of people and proclaim without irony—and to thunderous applause—that women are oppressed. Religion wasn’t the cause of problems, it was the solution, and it’s little surprise that everything has gone to shit since it’s been thrown to the sidelines. 

Views from the Abyss #55: The Ship of Theseus

Q. I was watching some classic British comedy, and it got me thinking. If I had a broom, and I replaced the head 17 times and the shaft 14 times, would it still be the same broom?

A. Yes.

Q. Really? It's that simple?

A. Yes, it really is that simple.

Q. But... None of the constituent parts of the original broom are part of it anymore. How can it still be the same broom?

A. When you attempt to apply objective standards to conceptual reality, you will often come across these pseudo-paradoxes. Put simply, a 'broom' is a conceptual identity, and is considerably more than the sum of its physical parts.

If we were to approach the question objectively, we could say that if so much as a single atom had changed, it would no longer be the same. However, it would also not be a 'broom'. It would be a bunch of atoms floating about in the ether, together with all the other atoms in the entirety of the universe. In fact, even that description is partially conceptual—the reality is much more depressing.

Objective reality is not meaningful to us, and that is why we apply our own meanings. A 'broom' cannot exist objectively—it can only exist as an application of conceptual identity, and that means it comes as part of a package: it has a name, a form, a history, a function, an assignment of ownership, and sometimes even sentimental value.

Changing any individual facet does not affect its conceptual whole, providing too many changes are not made simultaneously. So for example:

• Calling it a '箒' instead of a broom
• Never using it for its intended purpose
• Giving the broom to somebody else (changing its ownership)
• Swapping out a physical constituent part with another part that is conceptually equivalent

Every time an individual facet is changed, the identity of the broom adapts to accommodate the change. It does not become a different broom, because the bulk of its identity remains unchanged from the previous instance. As such, it can claim to maintain continuity over time.

* Now, if you were to take the original discarded shaft and the original discarded head and reassembled them, then that would be a new broom (of presumably limited value). I don't make the rules...

This is of course a rationalisation of an emotionally based claim. It doesn't matter though: objective criteria do not apply, because conceptual reality is whatever we collectively agree that it is.

Views from the Abyss #54: The Comfort Zone

Q. You’ve talked a lot about fantasy bubbles, and how people filter the information they receive to maintain the integrity of the bubble. How is it that a bubble gets formed in the first place, and how does it become so sturdy?

A. All fantasy bubbles, whether they’re political, ideological, religious, or just plain old insane in nature, have the following in common:

1. They are each formed around an emotional core.
2. Facts, truth and knowledge are irrelevant, once the emotional core is established.

The process will vary from person to person, but generally follows a similar pattern:

Establish a Receptive State
Children up to their late teens and even their early twenties frequently have not yet established a robust fantasy bubble. As such, they remain in a receptive state—they are still able to consume new information raw, unfiltered.

A receptive state can also be induced in numerous ways, such as enrolment in a college course that requires one to accept new information unfiltered in order to pass an exam. Personal tragedies or general malaise often end up pushing people towards religious institutions in a similarly receptive state.

Introduce New Information in Bulk
These can be ideological or politically based college course teachings, religious learnings, paranoid whackjobbery, or simply one’s own parents discussing current affairs over breakfast. It doesn’t matter. When the subject is in a receptive state, it will all be taken in unfiltered and unchallenged.

Make it All Make Sense
A bulk of new information swimming around in your head can be daunting. Don’t worry though—if there is any degree of consistency to any of it, any hint of a common thread at all, your brain will find it and internalise it, often without your help or knowledge.

This is how the emotional core is formed. You develop a comfort zone—an intrinsic feeling which makes all the new information seemingly fall into its “rightful” place. In fact, you’ll find yourself surprised that it didn’t make sense in the first place.

Filter Filter Filter
Once a fantasy bubble has been established, new information can no longer be treated equally. New information that supports the fantasy will instinctively feel true, and can be freely added to what is already there. New information that contradicts it will instinctively feel false, and it isn’t hard to find rational sounding reasons to reject it, even if they do sound utterly ludicrous to everybody else.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a hardcore ideologue, or a self-professed “neutral", your fantasy bubble defines your comfort zone, and it will reject on your behalf any new information deemed likely to cause discomfort.

Facts and reason are no longer welcome in your head.

Views from the Abyss #53: The Lie that Wasn't

Q. With regards to the recent terrorist attack in Manchester, a journalist knowingly took a story about a Sikh taxi driver giving free rides and presented him as a Muslim. Is this a smoking gun of journalistic dishonesty?

A. That is certainly one interpretation.

However, I would propose an alternative scenario, that is equally consistent with the known facts, and expands on our recent discussion of fantasy bubbles. In addition, it offers the possibility of actually engaging in discussion, rather than firing condemnation snipe shots across the Twazzer.

In this proposed scenario, the journalist did not lie. To call it a liar over such a minor detail would be hand waved as derailment.

What the journalist is, however, is a racist. But you won’t get very far with that approach either.

So let us transport ourselves into the fantasy bubble of our hypothetical modern ‘progressive’, and see what we find lurking in the cobwebs.

The race problem

The West has a major problem with racism. It is a definitive property of the Western mindset, always has been, and is no better now than it ever has been in the past. And when we say 'Western mindset', we’re obviously talking about white people.

Racism is a problem caused and perpetuated uniquely by white people, and only white people are capable of fighting it. In any other circumstance, this very mindset would be called ‘racism’, as it not only condones the condemnation of one race, but combines it with low expectation bigotry towards all the others. However, the intent is benevolent towards the ‘right’ races, which makes this the ‘right’ kind of racism. Which isn’t really racism at all at the end of the day. My conscience is clear. 

So how do we know that there is a problem with racism? Because we have perceived evidence that supports this conclusion, and ignored all evidence that doesn’t. 

In recent times, brown skinned people, especially those from Middle Eastern countries, have been under repeated and constant attack by hateful bigots. We know this also, because we have perceived evidence that supports this conclusion, and ignored all evidence that doesn’t. 

What makes this particularly hard to stomach is the constant need to rationalise their bigotry on cultural and ideological grounds. A reprehensible individual who happens to be of the Islamic faith causes an atrocity, and so they claim the whole religion is bad. A tiny minority of migrants/refugees fail to observe social niceties in a host country they’ve only recently entered (sometimes more seriously than others, admittedly), and so they claim that all immigration is bad. 

A handful of incidents couldn’t possibly represent the peaceful majority. It’s all just a weak excuse to justify their personal hatred of an entire population of people based solely on their skin colour. 

‘Islamaphobia’, as they call it, is just targeted racism under an intellectual sounding name. 

This week, a Middle Eastern man caused an atrocity in Manchester, and the bigots were quick to condemn his entire race over it. We’re trying to show these bigots that the majority of Middle Eastern men are as helpful and generous as you would expect any well adjusted British person to be. 

In some of the examples, sure—they weren’t technically Muslims, but sometimes you have to speak the bigots’ language in order to get through to them. So what do they focus on? Of course, they focus on that one word, as if it invalidates the entire rest of the message, the message being that these people they hate so much are demonstrably doing a lot more good in the community than they are.

Meanwhile...
Well that was unpleasant—the progressive fantasy bubble reeks of stale patchouli and avocado toast.

One might observe at this juncture a number of issues with the logic. For example, taking an absolute minority as representative of the norm, while condemning others for doing the same; cherry picking evidence that supports a conclusion while ignoring that which doesn’t. You may have even spotted the assertion of concealed motives into entire populations of people you’ve never met, and we all know how harmful that can be.

Do not make the mistake though of thinking that these people are merely deluded—these are things that we all do, and the ‘progressive’ view is remarkably consistent with known facts when compared to other common world views.

What is important to understand though, is that while the apparent lie about somebody’s religion appears to be some sort of Gotcha, you will never convince anybody on the other side of this, because you’ll just end up having two completely unrelated conversations with neither of you any the wiser by the end.

Views from the Abyss #52: Cognitive Blind Spots, Psychosis, Indoctrination, Emotional Investment and Islam

Q. You have frequently made reference to people having cognitive blind spots in previous bulletins. Can you expand on what these are exactly?

A. Truth be told, the expression itself is something of a misnomer, and not as technically accurate as I would normally demand, but people are already familiar with the concept of a conventional blind spot, so the naming stuck. 

The reality is much more awful.

Why call it a 'blind spot'?

We all tried the tests to find our own blind spots when we were children, the one where we draw a circle and an X on a sheet of paper and move it around in front of our faces with one eye closed. When it's at just the right distance, the circle disappears behind a blind spot. Magic!

The blind spot was always there, it's just that it took the test to reveal it.

And that's what I always found fascinating about the test—that without it, there was simply no way to know that the blind spot even existed. Our brains do such a good job of filling in the missing information that we would never even imagine something was missing in the first place. 

The concept of a cognitive blind spot applies the same pattern to our understanding of the world at large. Imagine, if you will, that you are given one of two boxes. In it is a 10,000,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture for reference, and it’s your job to put the puzzle together. When it approaches completion, you find to your horror that there are about 10 pieces missing, but when you look at the puzzle as it stands, you can infer from the context what the content of the missing pieces are. Or to put it another way, you don't need to see those pieces to understand the overall picture.

But you could still be wrong. Who knows what could be hiding in those missing pieces?

In this way, it makes perfect sense to call those missing pieces 'cognitive blind spots'. 

Why not call it a 'blind spot'?

I mentioned a moment ago that there were two boxes. Bad news—you got the other box, which contains nothing but the missing 10 pieces. With no picture to refer to, it’s up to you to figure out roughly where those pieces sit in relation to each other, and then to try to figure out the overall picture based on that. Good luck!

Q. That’s impossible, even for a computer!

A. Of course it is. But it doesn’t mean your brain isn’t going to try anyway. In fact, it’ll try so hard that unless you are very very careful, you won’t even be able to tell which pieces of the puzzle are real, and which pieces you imagined. They'll all look the same when it's put together in your mind.

And needless to say, anybody else looking at those same 10 pieces is going to see a completely different picture, because we have absolutely no idea what the picture is supposed to look like, and insufficient information to even hazard a legitimate guess.

Remembering that we're not in fact talking about a jigsaw puzzle, and are in fact talking about our understanding of the world as a whole, it's fairly accurate to conclude that we're all happily living in our own fantasy bubbles, oblivious to all but the very tiny number of details that we actually know for sure (if even those), but at the same time believing we see and understand everything. 

And when your entire cognitive field is one giant blind spot with tiny patches of reality hidden within, it's not hard for false, and even harmful ideas to take root unchallenged. 

Indeed, if one were predisposed to doing so, taking advantage of this weakness in others could prove both easy and remarkably lucrative.

Q. I'm not sure I like the idea of this 'fantasy bubble' you describe. Wouldn't that mean we're all mad?

A. In a manner of speaking, yes. 

In psychological terms, the idea of living in an imaginary world would be referred to as a 'psychosis'. Normally, the term would be reserved for the 'mad', but truth be known, that's all of us. Madness isn't a zero-sum game, and the only thing that makes the 'mad' different, is that their fantasies are sufficiently compelling that when visible pieces of puzzle contradict it, they tuck them back into a blindspot area. This makes them a potential danger—if not to others, to themselves.

So how can society function when we can't even agree on what is real?

Indoctrination

It gets a bad rap, but it is a valuable tool in providing impressionable children a consistent framework with which to prop up their fantasy bubbles. Ideally, a healthy indoctrination should be consistent enough that people can share a compatible set of values, flexible enough to accommodate new facts without rejecting them, but also firm enough that it doesn't crumble under scrutiny. Living in a crumbling fantasy is not a nice place to be.

Religion tends to work well in many—but not all—cases, especially those that preach and practice tolerance of the inconsequential as a virtue. An all seeing all knowing god adds an element of absolute moral authority, so what is right and wrong for one person is universally right and wrong for everyone. The framework of the religion is reinforced among communities by outward expressions of faith, such as going to church, giving disapproving looks at youngsters (with their 'rock music'), and saying "amen" whenever anything cool happens. It's also (in most cases) flexible enough to allow you to rationalise around inconsistencies in favour of emerging facts: "that explanation was obviously symbolic; it's not meant to be taken literally." Consequently it doesn't have to crumble under scrutiny, but also doesn't need to deny facts that contradict it.

Academic ideologies on the other hand—especially those of the social theory kind—work very badly. They do have the community reinforcement elements in the form of excessive "virtue signalling" and moral outrage over perceived shared slights. However, because they lack the benefit of generations of real world wisdom shaping them, inconsistencies are more likely to be rationalised in favour of the ideology, and at the expense of facts. Where did we hear about that before? And the more facts you ignore, the more out of touch you become with reality, and the more dogmatically you cling to the last crumbling shreds of the cult-like fantasy you call reality for dear life. 

Furthermore, when you remove the moral absolutism of a consistent omnipotent authority, the glass house isn’t so much built on sand, but on a makeshift raft drifting aimlessly in stormy waters. Nowhere is this more visible than in their moral relativist take on tolerance, which could best be described as tolerance of whatever is deemed tolerable at any given moment—which is about as far from the intended meaning of the concept as you can reasonably get without literally rotating your brain 180° in your own head.

Still, in the absence of god, it becomes necessary to create one, and there are always unscrupulous individuals who will take on that role for their own benefit. But that's a discussion for another day.

It raises an important question though. If academic ideologies are supposedly based on rationality (as in, a bunch of stuff that seems to make sense on paper), then why do so many end up going 'mad'?

Emotional Investment
People are biological entities, and the ways that emotional engagement shape our thinking can never be overstated.

This is why the religions that form the basis of the most successful societies promote positive emotional connections with the deity, and likeminded family and community. They are helping to fulfil an important human need, and this keeps people committed to their reality framework.

Of course, many people in such communities are sufficiently fulfilled by their connections to their families and communities that they only need to pay mere lip service to the deity, if they pay any service at all. The positive outcome remains regardless.

On the other hand though, one cannot make an emotional commitment to a sterile academic ideology. There is no joy, love or devotion to be found there, so the basic human needs have to be fulfilled in other ways. 

Camaraderie with those who live in a similar fantasy bubble is one thing, but an emotional commitment would require a degree of raw honesty that their dedication to a flawed ideology has rendered them incapable of allowing. Instead, they take the easier option of embracing the negative: anger, outrage, disgust... When they perceive a slight and call for somebody's head on a platter, that is the closest they can get to any kind of emotional fulfilment, and it only increases their insatiable hunger for more and bigger crimes and disproportional punishments.

It's little wonder therefore that fundamentalist Islam is so revered, and the misdeeds of anybody connected to it are routinely ignored, despite it standing so jarringly in the face of everything the social justice ideologues are supposed to advocate for. We've already established that they're not committed to their cause, but the cause is still their reality—it's all they have. Islam is promising them the emotional fulfilment they're not getting, and also a very firm hand so they cannot mess up their lives any further. They know, even if they can't quite bring themselves to admit it, that they would much rather spend their lives in bondage under an extremist religion straight out of the dark ages than spend another second in the swirling maelstrom of ideological madness. They would rather endure a regime of strict punishment for consistent and properly defined minor transgressions, than endure the arbitrary and chaotic wrath of their comrades because they didn't sufficiently follow the random winds of constant change. They would rather have their hindquarters fried to a crisp on an iron skillet, than be tossed around in a frying pan with the chef occasionally igniting high proof rum in their general vicinity.

That fundamentalist Islam is seen as an upgrade shows just what a dangerous cult social justice is.

Q. Wow! Is that really what's going on in their heads?

A. I don't know. The best I can do is try to piece things together in a way that's consistent with the known facts. If you have a better explanation, please let me know in the comments below...

Views from the Abyss #51: FIRST Assertion of Absurdity

Q. Since popular British science fiction franchise 'Doctor Who' announced their FIRST openly homosexual educated female mixed-race permanent companion, I see all the homophobes have started to emerge from the woodwork. Was this an intentional strategy to smoke them out?

A. In a manner of speaking, no.

Nor was it intended to silence them, because for the most part they're perfectly happy to exercise their right not to express an opinion, nor have an implied opinion imposed upon them.

This was far worse.

Some background first. We're all familiar with the Assertion of Absurdity as something of a dick (dictator) move—a political power play, a form of brainwashing, thought policing, and general social control. The Emperor's New Clothes is a perfect example of this in action: The Emperor, wishing to test the loyalty of his officials, strolls in naked one day and tells them all about the fine new suit he is wearing. His officials, understanding the way the wind is blowing, all agree that it is the finest suit they have ever seen and that he must introduce them to his tailor. He next approaches his lower ranking officials in a similar manner, to a similar end. Finally, he takes to the streets in a marvellous parade to show off his "suit", and everybody applauds and remarks on his excellent taste and style. All except one little boy, who foolishly shouts, "Why does the Emperor have no clothes on?" Everybody looks awkwardly at one another for a moment, taking involuntary steps backwards to distance themselves from the boy. The boy and his family are soon whisked away by the Emperor's guards and summarily executed for insubordination, while everyone else learns (or has reinforced) a most valuable lesson—you can either enthusiastically concur with that which you know to be horse shit, or you can be branded a traitor.

This telling of the story is of course based off of a much earlier Chinese historical event—Hans Christian Andersen clearly missed the point when he penned his own version, as the caution expressed therein is much less pragmatic in contemporary western society.

We did also run into this very same phenomena more recently when we tackled transgender advocacy, and how those who do not wish to be forced into such a dilema feel the war has been brought to them.

Q. So how does this relate to Doctor Who?

A. Thank you; I was just coming to that.

It is very unlikely that any fans of the franchise would have any problem whatsoever with the presence of such a homosexual character. We know this, because they have previously had such characters fill other major roles, and nobody particularly cared one way or the other. In fact there were enough established homosexual characters in the show that they had to specifically add unnecessary qualifiers for the sole purpose of making this one into some kind of groundbreaking milestone.

But it isn't groundbreaking in the least; no glass ceiling has been shattered, and to suggest otherwise is to imply that the last 50 years simply didn't happen, and that homosexuals continue to be deliberately excluded from having any representation at all in the film and TV industry. Furthermore, it strongly advocates for the continual singling out of homosexuals for special treatment in every aspect of their lives—whether they want it or not.

The absurdity element is that to be in disagreement with this, is the non-bigoted stance, yet is also the stance that will have you branded a bigot. You can either enthusiastically concur with that which you know to be horse shit, or you can be branded a traitor.

It is thought policing, pure and simple. The Doctor Who team are not acting in the best interests of the LGBTP community here—they are using them as pawns in a much more nefarious political move, one that endorses and asserts the most twisted anti-human 'virtues' of the political left. Fans of the show would be right to reject this.

It's becoming a remarkably frequent pattern though. Hillary Clinton was laughably set to be the "FIRST female president of the United States," (each of those words being necessary qualifiers) and those that claimed they didn't want a female president, but would have no problem if the president was female, were branded misogynists. In fact, any time anybody that isn't a straight white male achieves anything, it's branded a groundbreaking first, unless that person holds right leaning political opinions, in which case they can go to hell.

Q. Did it occur to you that perhaps the announcement was made in a wholly innocent fashion?

A. Yes. And that would be worse. That would be the Mad Emperor's New Clothes.

Unlike the regular Emperor, the Mad Emperor genuinely believes that he is wearing a fine suit. And when it comes to facing summary execution for being perceived to have the wrong opinion, life is much much easier when you have the luxury of knowing each day what the right and wrong opinions are.

All such bets are off when it comes to the Mad Emperor.

Views from the Abyss #50: Factoring Out and Suppressing Humanity

Q. First Brexit, then Trump, now Le Pen... 'Progressives' can't seem to catch a break these days. Why is it that they're having so much difficulty reading the underlying mood of their contemporaries?

A. Their greatest failing in this regard is in their constant factoring out of humanity.

Now this is by no means unique to political progressives, but it's an integral part of the many abstract 'nebulous idea space' ideologies they advocate for. In fact, it's an integral part of most liberal arts degrees as well. Little wonder people are graduating university understanding the world less well than when they entered.

Factoring out humanity in essence is a less politically loaded description of the 'Appeal to Hubris' alluded to in a previous bulletin. The idea is that by focussing on social patterns and influences, one make the rookie mistake of interpreting the patterns as being entirely predictive in nature, thus eliminating the individual agency of a sizeable chunk of the population. Naturally, this typically only applies to those whose views are not in line with those of the speaker—him and his ilk are well informed and free of bias, hence their views are the correct ones; those who disagree are merely... you get the picture.

Sometimes, the patterns themselves are insufficient to explain a given phenomena, so rather than assume that people are somewhat chaotic, what with their independent thoughts and actions and that, it's easier to just assign a blanket motive that robs them of agency entirely. 

How often did you hear that Trump supporters were simply lured in by appeals to their own hatred of anybody that's different—blacks, gays, women, immigrants—and were voting blindly based on this? 

How often did you hear that they're just angry they're not in charge anymore and want somebody to smash the system they feel has betrayed them? 

How often did you hear that they were just uninformed and had no idea they were voting against their own interests? 

If your answer to any of these is a number greater than "never", then congratulations, you have witnessed the factoring out of humanity of a sizeable chunk of the population, with a straight and sincere face. 

There are of course times when this line of thinking is acceptable and even effective, marketing being one of the more transparent examples. It's perfectly fine to target products and advertising at specific demographics, reducing your perception of their relevant agency to the influence you can hold over them, because it's the specific behaviour you wish to coax out of them that's important—the one where they give you money. 

This cannot work with governance though, because governors need to work with the governed. Reducing the people to automatons is the quickest way to mistake yourself for god. That's how dictatorships are started. Of course, laws themselves cannot be tailored to the individual, but that's exactly why the individual must always be given the upmost consideration when writing them.

All is not lost though—humanity is very robust, and will not be suppressed by abstract ideology, no matter how rational. Humanity always reasserts itself. It always prevails.

Q. Are there any other examples of humanity being suppressed by abstract ideology, only for it to reassert itself?

A. Many. One such example is in diversity quotas.

'XX% of managerial posts must be occupied by women by 20YY' is a frequently floated ultimatum. 

We can see straight away that the individual women don’t matter, and nor do the often more qualified men that are going to miss a promotion. Humanity has to play second fiddle to an abstract system of point scoring.

However, even those who would benefit from it are often quick to point out its shortcomings. It will never be universally accepted, because humanity will always reassert itself.

Another of the more recognisable situations occurs when a pregnancy is prematurely terminated.

Now I should state outright that while I take a largely pro-life stance on such things, I do recognise that there are situations where terminating a pregnancy may be considered the 'better' option, and that within reason the decision should be in the hands of those closest involved.

However, the constant romanticising of abortion as a feminist issue really isn’t doing anybody any favours. 

People who find themselves terminating a pregnancy typically fit one of the following patterns:

1. Those for whom the termination is a regrettable act, but ultimately the lesser of two evils, e.g. an abortion out of medical necessity or as an act of kindness to a child that would otherwise suffer from a birth defect or serious disability.
2. Those for whom the termination is an exercising of their right to bodily autonomy e.g. it's not convenient for the mother to have a baby right now, or she would prefer a baby by a different father etc.

Those in the first group typically turn out alright. They face the ordeal with honesty, and allow themselves to come to terms with the truth and consequences of their decision, so they may move on (as we also will).

Those in the second group are more of a mixed bag. Some end up regretting the decision later, and find a way to forgive themselves. Others don't, and it's them we will be focussing on. 

Those of them that aren't psychopaths often end up going mad, sometimes decades after the fact.

The problem is that they are presented with two conflicting versions of what happened, and are free to choose the version that suits them best.

One version is that of a commonly spread abstract ideology, which is apologist in nature. It asserts that having the abortion was empowering, that it was their body and their choice, that the foetus was not a real person—just merely a clump of cells, "what kind of life would the child have had if I’m not ready to be a mother”?

The other version of events comes from the true voice of their humanity, and is accusatory in nature. This one asserts that a literal piece of themselves died when they chose to murder their own child, that their soul is forever tainted by the stench of their heinous crime, that the blood of the innocent is on their hands, and will never be cleansed.

The first is the comfortable lie, the second is the harsh reality they know deep down to be true. 

And however much they cling to the lie, their humanity will persist; the barely perceptible tapping from the basement will increase in volume with each passing year until it becomes a mighty roar that shakes the very walls that protect them. And the longer they leave it, the harder it will be to ever open that basement door; to ever face the truth of what they did, in order that they may move on from it.

Most instead choose to go mad.

Humanity will always find a way to reassert itself, even if it kills the host in the process. 

Views from the Abyss #49: Narrative Hernia

Q. I see that a certain controversial celebrity is in the spotlight again, this time for the apparent endorsement of paedophilia, but on viewing the ‘leaked’ tapes involved, I saw no such thing. Now I understand from your previous bulletin on propaganda rookie mistakes that in similar scenarios, the only people fooled by such obvious anti-factual smear campaigns are those that are already committed to the smear—the evidence merely begs the question, so to speak. This time though, I’m seeing people and institutions from all sides of the political spectrum up in arms over it. What’s going on? 

A. Some material is simply ripe for lazy propaganda, and this is one such example.

The mistake, if one were to call it that, that our celebrity made was that he committed a cardinal virtue-signalling sin—he muddied the victim narrative.

People like to be outraged by sexual predators that prey on minors—it's one area where people from all sides of the political spectrum actually agree, but they really don’t like to think about it—and why would they? Instead, they have a very specific image of the crime in mind. 

The victim is always faceless, voiceless, passive, innocent, irreparably damaged by the assault that they were powerless to prevent. 

The adult perpetrator on the other hand is evil, active, predatory, has no sense of guilt or shame, and will do whatever he (or technically she, but not in this narrative) wants regardless of how much it hurts other people. They pluck the innocence of the young while laughing maniacally, before slithering back into the shadows. 

Nuance really doesn't make a good bedfellow of a child sexual abuse victim narrative.

In a dissimilar but related fashion, reporters from combat zones are very careful not to show you the human cost of war. Talking about a decisive victory in front of a field of strewn bloodied bodies, both friend and foe, distracts the audience from the narrative they wish to weave, and may cause some people to rethink their stances on things—and the people themselves really don't appreciate that. Nuance muddies the waters in unpredictable ways, and is best avoided when hearts and minds are concerned, especially at dinnertime.

The celebrity in question effectively showed us such a battlefield. He talked about his experiences as a victim, but rather than showing us the passive, faceless, voiceless avatar of childhood innocence we all prefer, he showed us an arrogant, pubescent, sexually curious 13 year old who was an active and willing participant in his own abuse. He even joked about it. And the perpetrator—he was the one that remained faceless, voiceless.

Of course, he was talking unguardedly, and did clarify later in the interview (a part that was edited out by many propaganda merchants) that he was indeed a victim of serious crimes, and that it had a terrible lasting effect on him. Astute seekers of truth should see this for the deeper meaning it represents—that the psychological trauma of child sexual abuse is much more complicated and much much worse than we would normally assume.

But people don't want to have their perceptions challenged when they're so much more comfortable being outraged by an abstraction. They don’t like to think about the victims of child sexual abuse as being real organic people with all the idiosyncrasies that entails. They don't want to see the human cost of the crime, and especially not at dinnertime. 

His breaking free of the unspoken victim narrative ruined some people's dinners, and only the worst kind of decadent sexual deviant, undeserving of any empathy, would dare do such a thing. Why, he's probably a paedophile himself, I knew it.

And that of course was his other mistake, if one were to call it that—the unspoken implications that his becoming an in-for-a-pound homosexual directly resulted from his experiences of childhood sexual abuse, and that the true nature of homosexuality is one of inherent perverse decadence, sits in striking contrast to the officially sanctioned narrative that ‘gay’ is a normal and healthy sexual orientation, and absolutely equivalent to heterosexuality. 

Nobody, least of all him, actually said these things, but even casual advocates of the pro-LGBT narrative are all thinking it. The Emperor has no clothes, and the little boy must pay the price for bringing it to our attention.

With all this to one side, there is a much worse crime occurring right now that will continue to go unrecognised and unpunished. The staff of the propaganda merchants involved or complicit in the editing of those tapes to enable this coordinated hit piece are guilty of exploiting the sexual abuse of children, just to score cheap political points. The same is true of every single person gleefully denouncing the celebrity over this manufactured non-issue.

Views from the Abyss #48: Musings on Common Themes

Question time—what do the following have in common: affirmative action, female managerial quotas (as well as other diversity management schemes), same-sex marriage, and open border policies for refugees and economic migrants?

Correct! These are all examples of collective self-flagellation, as alluded to in a previous bulletin.

While many would rationalise these as being examples of correcting a historical injustice, they are actually more consistent with an act of atonement for an ongoing sin.

We know this, because no injustice is actually being corrected; nothing is being fixed; nobody is being helped. The only thing such actions achieve is to administer a collective self-punishment for the guilt of clinging onto certain attitudes that are deemed now to be regressive. 

Ironically, however, enabling the continuation and proliferation of those very attitudes is the exact form that each act of atonement has taken.

To elaborate further:

Affirmative action is not necessary to correct a past injustice (slavery), it exists because many people believe that blacks are an inferior species, and cannot achieve academic or occupational success without a fast-track and/or financial leg-up. To atone for this elitist thinking, they give blacks a fast-track and/or financial leg-up at great expense, and to the detriment of those who are actually capable.

Female managerial quotas are not necessary to correct a past injustice (I dunno—patriarchy, I guess?), they exist because many people believe that women are inferior, and cannot achieve managerial success without a fast-track leg-up. To atone for this sexist thinking, they give women a fast-track leg-up, to the detriment of those that actually earned their promotions.

Same-sex marriage is not necessary to correct a past injustice (persecution of homosexuality), it exists because many people believe that gays are inferior, and all they really want is to pretend they're just like straight people. To atone for this bigoted thinking, they advocate for allowing gays to pretend they're just like straight people, and suing into oblivion anybody who thinks otherwise.

Open border policies are not necessary to correct any past injustice, they exist because many people believe that other countries are third world hell-holes occupied by vile repugnant sub-human scum. To atone for this flagrant I-don't-even-know-whatism, they invite them in in droves so their own country can be similarly turned into third world hell-holes by vile repugnant sub-human scum. Remember, don't upset them by suggesting they easily get angry and turn violent, though—they'll get angry and turn violent!

So there you have it in a nutshell. Affirmative action, female managerial quotas (and other diversity management schemes), same-sex marriage, and open border policies for refugees and economic migrants—nobody wins, and everybody else loses.

Views from the Abyss #47: Same-Sex Marriage—Prove Me Wrong

Q. Aware as I am that you have had to carefully research all sides of the debate by yourself, due to the impossibility of having a civil conversation, I can’t help but feel you’ve been a little harsh in your attitude towards same-sex marriage. What would it take to prove you wrong?

A. Harsh is not the word I would use. I’m starting to think I’m the only sane one left.

But I see what you’re getting at. And it’s for that reason that I would, as always, invite my loyal readers to come and prove me wrong. Bring facts!

And because I’m such a super helpful guy, here are two approaches you might want to take:

Method 1

First, you have to appreciate that I have not lived in the Western world since the last century, and I have also never lived in a time where somebody’s sexual orientation was stigmatised anywhere other than the playground (where literally anything is worthy fodder). When I left the West, it was well understood that marriage was between a man and a woman, everyone was perfectly happy with that, and there was no talk of changing it (none that was particularly well publicised leastways). For same-sex couples, there was such a thing as a civil union, which was able to open those last remaining doors that may otherwise be shut.

Fast forward two short decades, and to even suggest that marriage is between a man and a woman is to be name-called at best, physically attacked, stalked, and fired from your job at worst. 

Social attitudes do not naturally change to that extreme in that short period of time without a very specific catalyst, especially in light of the complete absence of any kind of public discourse. If you can tell me what that catalyst was, then it might cause me to update my thinking.

There are of course two other possible explanations that would require no catalyst. 

One is that support for same-sex marriage is nowhere near as strong as the more vocal corners of the internet would suggest. That would raise the question of why so many politicians are so keen to push through legislation, but it wouldn't be the first time they've misread the prevailing attitudes of the people they represent.

The other is that the whole Western world is undergoing a serious bout of mass hysteria.

I'm suspecting it's a bit of both, but if it's either to any extent, then you may have better luck convincing me with method 2 below.

Method 2

For as long as marriage has existed as a State sanctioned legal contract, it has been very specific about who is eligible—one consenting unmarried man and one consenting unmarried woman, both of sound mind. Most of those aspects are not unique to Western countries. You will need to first establish why marriage exists as a State sanctioned legal contract in the first place, then establish why this very specific criteria was outlined from the outset, before finally establishing what specifically has changed in the past few decades that renders this criteria no longer valid.

Beware the following pitfalls:

■ Persecution of Homosexuality

“Of course same-sex marriage wasn’t allowed in the past—homosexuality was thought of as some kind of abomination, and its practitioners were persecuted! Society no longer views homosexuality that way, so it makes sense that the marriage eligibility criteria should be updated to reflect this."

There are a number of issues with this approach.

First, it doesn’t take into account countries and cultures that do not have a history of persecuting homosexuality, but still have the same criteria for marriage eligibility.

Secondly, a country that has a history of persecuting homosexuality would especially not need to specify that criteria, if preventing same-sex marriages was the intent. The idea that same-sex couples could form a stable relationship was not mainstream thinking until fairly recently. Moreover, if a same-sex couple had attempted to marry during the persecution eras, they would most definitely not have been considered to be of sound mind.

Yet moreover still, homosexuality was legally persecuted—getting married to somebody of the same sex would have been a surefire way to get found out, arrested and subsequently jailed and/or neutered.

In short, there would be no reason to specifically exclude same-sex couples, so the reasoning behind specifying an opposite sex coupling is far more likely to be related to the nature of marriage itself.

■ No-Fault Divorce

“Since no-fault divorce has been a reality, divorce has skyrocketed, and the sanctity of matrimony is pretty much meaningless. At this stage, why not just let them marry?"

Ah yes, the old 'in for a penny, in for a pound’ appeal. The observation about no-fault divorce is certainly a strong argument for an ending of State regulation of private relationships, but the rather uncharitably paraphrased ‘It’s already broken, so it won’t matter if we break it a bit more’ approach as a matter of legal policy never works out well, and it’s a very weak line of reasoning. You would do yourself no favours bringing it to this discussion.

■ Hospital Entry

“Now that same-sex partnerships have become mainstream, there are situations where without same-sex marriage, somebody could be hospitalised, and their life-partner won’t be given access to their hospital bed. That doesn’t sound very fair to me."

It doesn’t sound very fair to me either. The hospitals should probably revise their access policies. Don’t they know what year it is?

So there we have it. Come at it then—prove me wrong!