Septic General Missing the Obvious

I am watching the EBC News.

The Septic US General in Afghanistan reckons that most ("60 percent") of the Taliban are fighting not for an ideology but for money.

I am not really an expert but might at least some of the Taliban be.... erm..... fighting against foreigners that are.....erm... occupying their country? Or at least that might obviously be one way that they see it?

It doesn't take a great deal of intelligence to realise this.

Donovan "Universal Soldier"

Donovan. 
"Universal Soldier".


He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.


He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.


And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.


And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.


But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.


He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.
........

Johann Hari on Derrida

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=461


This is a great essay. And the footnotes are fascinating too.
One thing not to be forgotten is that (I think) Derrida was sincere. He was a genuine philosopher. He wasn't deliberately trying to "destroy" philosophy. He didn't set out to do such a thing.
He wasn't deliberately being "incomprehensible."

Besides, his philosophy continues philosophy; it doesn't destroy it.

The "mad axe man of "Western" philosophy" was principally Nietzsche in my view.
He was a precursor of nationalism in World War One and of fascism and general irrationalism, whose spell is still sadly cast on some. Furthermore, Nietzsche is an ancestor of the dreaded post-modernism itself.

Capitalism Is Crisis!

Capitalism Is Crisis!

"Inglorious Basterds"

"Inglorious Basterds" is a good film. Quite unlike anything I have ever seen.

I admit that at one point I was about to get up and leave the cinema in indignation - something which I have never done before and something which I don't really believe in doing if only because it is quite pointless.
(I was disgusted by the scene in which a German soldier is brutally murdered.)

It is a surreal, fairy tale, semi-fantasy war film.

I prefer historically accurate films. And I prefer political films and politically engaged films.
But I still like this film. One reason is because it is made obvious that it is not really supposed to be overly political.
Obviously, all films are political in a sense. I think this film is not politically suspect.

Why should all war films be conventional?
What is the point in making yet another conventional realistic war film?

It is clear enough that it is meant to be surreal and a kind of fairy tale.
It achieves a good balance because it is not too surreal.
It bears comparison with French surrealist gems like "La cité des enfants perdus" and "Delicatessen".

As for the excellent and considered view of a journalist who I think is fantastic, Johann Hari, who says that the film is morally bankrupt because of the way it uses violence, I am not sure.
I would say that I think he may be right.
But fairy tales can be violent too. Violence can be part of life. How you view it is up to you.
The point is it is not real. It is a film.

.........

I am anti-psychiatry

"Subsuming his [Szasz's] work under the rubric of antipsychiatry betrays and negates it just as surely and effectively as subsuming it under the rubric of psychiatry.

Szasz powerfully argues that his writings belong to neither psychiatry nor antipsychiatry. They stem from conceptual analysis, social-political criticism, and common sense. "

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Well I personally am anti-psychiatry. By which I mean simply that I am against psychiatry.

Just like being against cars.

I suppose it depends what you mean by psychiatry but....

I see this as the same as being anti-slavery, anti-racist, anti-fascist etc.

Just a very general term.

I would also see it in the same way as these possible terms:
"anti-phrenology", "anti-astrology", "anti-Tarot" or "anti-Scientology."


Would I seek to ban Tarot or astrology?
Well I believe in freedom so I wouldn't.
I probably could not anyway.
But would I seek to ban them if they institutionally abused people?
Maybe I would.

Maybe Szasz means by "anti-psychiatry" a specific ideology?
I will read his book and find out.

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In English English "anti-x" can be an adjective. Maybe that's not so much the case in the USA.

But (thankfully) I wouldn't know.

...............................

to be continued.

as always.

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I would never seek to call Szasz an "anti-psychiatrist" nor "anti-psychiatry", nor part of (the ideology of) "anti-psychiatry."

I suppose he is a philosopher of a kind.



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This reminds me of another interesting point about the difference between what could be called "European English" and American English.
There is a book by T.S.Eliot called "The Idea of a Christian Society".
In American English this title can mean "the purpose of a Christian society."
In European English this title principally would mean "the concept of a Christian society."
To an American mind the American meaning is perhaps so forceful as to almost preclude the European meaning.
.......

Philosophy

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."

Marx.

Philosophy and academic study undoubtedly are about understanding and interpreting the world.

I personally firmly agree with Marx here that a further purpose of philosophy and hence of academic study in general is also to change the world as the philosopher sees fit, and to work out how to do so.

"AQT"

"The Taliban are challenging our way of life."

Well firstly they don't exist.

Secondly, even if they are you can't just kill them all. Even if you do

they may still come back.

The "Taliban"

- is not an organisation as implied

- is not one entity as implied

- is not an army as implied

......

Shall I go on?

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the "7/7" bombers weren't in "Al Quaeda".

Mainly because it doesn't exist:)

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And then there is the entity "AQT"

"Al Quaeda/Taliban"

A fiendish conflation of 2 non-existent entities :)

Is this an enemy that we need?

An enemy that we need to create to justify our war?
Someone on whom to take out our own hatred of ourselves?

A simple "badguy" catch-all label?

......

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http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

John Simpson

John Simpson said corruption is rife in Afghanistan.

It is ALSO rife amongst the "Western" governments and aid contractors as well as the Afghans.

The "Elgin Marbles" and "Kettle Logic"

This is the thing I was trying to remember about the arguments about the Parthenon Frieze.

It's called "Kettle Logic."

http://www.pocm.info/kettle_logic.html

One thing that this maybe suggests is that if you have more than one argument in favour of something it can sometimes suggest that you may not have any at all.....

With regard to the British Museum; their BEST argument is undoubtedly that keeping the Parthenon Freize in London perhaps allows more people to see it.

The fact that they may try to introduce other arguments when they don't really have any other arguments makes their case more suspect in my view.

Calling them "The Elgin Marbles" is a good metaphor for English hypocrisy.

The marbles are respectfully and traditionally called "The Elgin Marbles."

This is in reality nothing more and nothing less than naming them after the person that stole them.

To be honest I hate nationalism and countries more and more really.

So like the Greek philosophers I am willing to be flexible in my view of this and if it were best to keep them in London then that is where I would say they should stay.

But that's just my opinion.

Corrective

If I exaggerate on this blog, I regard it as a corrective.

What's wrong with a minimum safety net?

What's wrong with a "basic safety net" health care for all?

Just as a minimum.

There are no secrets.

There are no secrets. There is only truth and lies.

Hypocrisy

I don't like nationalism.

I don't like violence.

I don't like wars.

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I don't like ETA.

But ETA have every right to be talked to.

They are only asserting what is supposedly the principle on which ALL states are based -

self-determination.

They are also practising what many states practice - violence.

All states are supposedly built on a (violent) assertion of self-determination.

So not to talk to ETA is pure hypocrisy.

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Bookshops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/04/oxfam-shops-booksellers

"Oxfam is the Tesco of the second-hand book world. It is destroying the industry."

As someone who absolutely adores second-hand bookshops I would be very sad if this were the case.

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Well I would say the following.

If people didn't donate the books they would end up in land fill.

If second hand book shops accepted donations or even paid money for unwanted books then I would feel they have more right to say this.

Generally speaking, they seem to do neither.

I have often tried to sell my valuable unwanted books to second hand bookshops.

They simply do not want to know.

......

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As far as I can see the internet is surely taking away a lot of the business previously given to second-hand bookshops, in the same way as it is affecting the newspaper industry.

On the internet you can find what you want in seconds. At a bookshop it might take a bit longer.

There is still a gap between Oxfam prices and quality and McWaterstones prices and quality.

The Greatest American Ever