BRITANNIA and HISPANIA

Two political states that exist today - which are really very flimsy historical creations - "El Reino de Espan~a" and "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" have some of their origins and the origins of their names in the names of Roman PROVINCES of the IMPERIUM ROMANUM -

HISPANIA and BRITANNIA.

The creation of the state of the Kingdom of Spain in particular in 1492 was one of the birthplaces of modern political nationalism.... often a great evil......

In Roman thinking political states as we conceive them would have been nearly inconceivable....

The basis of Roman political organisation and thinking about the world in general was the CITY of course - the CIVITAS...

and after that perhaps the province PROVINCIA.......

TBC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.09.12

It is fascinating - if a bit contrived - to compare the fact that it became absolutely illegal more or less overnight to be Jewish or Muslim in the Kingdom of Spain in 1492;
and very similarly - and for similar reasons - it became absolutely illegal more or less overnight to be a Roman Catholic Christian in the kingdom of England in about 1534.

Both of these measures - at that time - were "on pain of death".

Both these "staging posts" were also contemporaneous with the commencements of two of the biggest Empires in history - the Spanish Empire and the British Empire.

.......

Carriages

The word "car" is just an abbreviation of "carriage"......

TBC.

Semplicemente non capisco!

David Aaronovitch was rambling about Freud on the radio the other day.

Freud should be left behind totally. That's one thing to get clear anyway.

Now. What Aaronovitch forgot to acknowledge was this - that Freud to a point is exactly what his name nearly says he is - A FRAUD.

Next - and this is something that I simply cannot understand - WHY IS AARONOVITCH and people like him NOT talking about FROMM and SZASZ and people like them?

ALL VERY ODD :)

Very odd how people in the media are always saying:

"People are leading busier and more hectic lives nowadays - trying to fit more and more in....."

What? You mean like - playing on computers ALL DAY?? :)

Socratic Dialogue

What's that? The Independent for kids?


It's actually called "The New i". Make of that what you will. :)


It's basically a condensed version of "The Independent".


Oh, I just assumed it was aimed at kids. Is it any good?


Yeah. It's a good idea. Bit superficial. I mean if you are too lazy to read "The Independent" or any normal paper why buy a paper at all??
Must be for people who are busy playing computer games or something. So a very socially responsible idea really. Not! :)
..........................................................

Andre' Gorz

"For your one "job", I have with me all of Christendom."

ANDRE' GORZ.

BUY NOTHING CHRISTMAS! - ( and this is not just because I am skint! ) :)

Some Recent Filosofical Hilarity

Just perusing "Zoo" magazine's "Real Girl Of The Year 2010!" competition. (For research only I assure you.) It's an odd title. Are they saying that Lucy Pinder for example is in some way not "real"?  I'll ask Baudrillard. 

---------------------------------

I was feeling so fluey yesterday that I bought "Fishermans' Friend" tablets for the first time ever. That stuff is hardcore. The fisherman who invented them must have got fecking wet at some point. 

---------------------------------

We're supposed to be some kind of advanced industrial civilisation. But a little bit of snow and it's like the Dark Ages all over again. Which is probably an improvement in some ways.

---------------------------------

‎"Spinoza... would collect and train spiders to fight with one another and watch them doing so with gusto."   

---------------------------------

‎"Bede is the only Englishman who made it into Dante's "Paradiso". 

Some might consider this a little too generous."

 

--------------------------------

‎"The true aim of government is liberty." 

Benedict Spinoza.

--------------------------------

"Management Consultant"

One of the hightlights of my year was Johann Hari's article on "Management Consultants."
The extent of the relief it gave me was cosmic and immense. Personally speaking, I know instantly, painfully and continuously that the CONCEPT of a "management consultant" is PURE RUBBISH and not just the reality.
So when Johann seemed to point this out briefly and tentatively it was a MASSIVE COSMIC RELIEF.

http://www.johannhari.com/2010/08/20/the-great-management-consultancy-scam-and-how-it-could-be-coming-for-your-job

"Economic Growth" is simply PURE BULLSHIT.

I am listening to discussion on Radio 4 about "economic growth."

My anger at what I hear is what has caused me to place my blog up before the world once again "warts and all.":)

Once "economists" start to question their measurements and their subject the extent of the "rot" can be seen.

ID EST:) - the extent of the unreality that constitutes most of what they go on about normally can be seen in the rubbish that they come out with when they question their basic assumptions.

I want people to question NOT JUST "GDP" - BUT "Value" ITSELF!!

:)

MOREOVER - let's face it - it's high time - GDP is PURE BULLSHIT anyway!

I mean GDP means the (exchange) value of "the goods and services" "in a society" etc.

What's a "good"? What's a "service"? "Value" is an opinion! .......

So even that figure has little or nothing to do with the scale of physical production!!

FUCKING MEGA YAWN!:)

.......

How can we POSSIBLY be in an "Age of Austerity"?

How can we POSSIBLY be in an "Age of Austerity"?

Has half the planet disappeared?

This is so obvious.

It is pure bullshit and propaganda.

AUSTERITY MUST involve a lack of resources.

What has caused a lack of resources?

There is no lack of resources.

LIVABLE INCOME

http://livableincome.org/




"For your one "job", I have with me all of Christendom."

Saint ANDRE' GORZ.

A Guaranteed Basic Income of some kind is

-- inevitable

-- overdue

-- necessary

-- possible

-- easy to achieve and maintain

-- preferable to what we have now

-- has not happened till now merely due to cultural lag

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Do comedians, footballers, newsreaders, DJs and other such people HAVE JOBS??

To answer this rhetorical question - because it seems that they don't have force unanswered nowadays - such is the inanimate dullness of people's intellects -

NO THEY FUCKING DON'T HAVE JOBS!!! OBVIOUSLY!!!!! :)

ALL "famous" people are BASICALLY TAKING THE PISS!!!! And they know it - and you know it!

:)

It's hardly begun

Not only is filosofy not finished. It has hardly begun.

Where oh where is "The Sceptical Economist"????

There is a book entitled "The Sceptical Environmentalist"

My simple point is - where is the book entitled "The Sceptical Economist" ?

The second book would be far more needed - and far longer!

The Tea Party

The Tea Party - what an AMAZING IRONY? - is named after an early American ANTI-IMPERIALIST and SOCIAL JUSTICE movement.

What does it represent ideologically now? Next to nothing.

It's a shame - there is so much in USAmerican history to feed upon for ideas about what to do with your country.

Amongst the first thing to do is face up to any wrong it MAY have perpetrated.

There is much within the USAmerican experience to be commended and to learn from.

Can we be friends again?

God bless America!

:)

Another thing is that they say they are PRO-USA BUT WANT NO/LESS GOVERNMENT

? DUH!.

..........

SDP

The Social Democratic Party was supposed to be a European-style social democratic Party - and look what happened to them! Typical of England's protracted and doomed to be successful attempt to become European!

Question Autism!

Question Autism!

Someone unable to know what someone else is thinking is merely not psychic and hence quite normal.

:)

Someone whose child supposedly has "autism" was being inteviewed the other day on the radio.

The interviewer asked the parent when they first thought the child had "autism".

The first words in reply were "He was a nightmare!"

...........

Outrageous!

Nick Clegg calling anyone "inconsistent" has got to be one of the darkest liaisons between kettle and pot in the human story!


:D

"Philosophy is the only subject" and other treat tweets!

Philosophy is the only subject.

That is why it is a compulsory subject in France between 11 and 18.

I don't necessarily propose anything at all in the light of this.

I do think that there is maybe scope for doing things differently in England in the light of this however.


--------------------------------------

Salvaged tweets:

Pope Boniface XXIII founded the University of Salari in 1178 in order to:
"boost the local economy and make sure middle class people had jobs."

Universities weren't founded to get people jobs - which has to be their purpose now.
They were founded to impart knowledge.
In the sense that this was what they once did - they have at present entered into a decline, as compared to their past.

-------------------------------------

Good to see the economy's been growing - must have been all that watering I gave it, and the nice sunshine.

In market news, three large chickens and a pound of potatoes were sold at a small farmers market in Upper Silesia earlier today.

-------------------------------------------

The economy "growing" means a "growth" in value - I assume?

Is this "exchange value"?

Is not value of any kind merely an opinion?

-----------------------------------

People can earn as much as they like - indeed they do - what I fail to understand is some Americans' objection to providing everyone with their basic needs?

--------------------------------------------

Oh No! Not a "double dip" recession!

"Oh no!" the nation screamed in horror. "Not a "double dip" recession! We don't even understand what it means! And not everyone likes all the rides at Alton Towers!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Camoron contends that the cuts are based on necessity not ideology. The exact opposite is the case. Obviously so.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

What would people's reaction be if when 10 different physicists were asked at what temperature water boils 10 different replies - with temperatures ranging from 27 to 124 - were given?

Yet when this happens with "economists" - also - according to some - "scientists" of a kind - this is regarded as normal!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

@everyoneontwitter

@everyoneontwitter HELLO EVERYBODY!!! I am missing you!!!!!

*sobs*

:)

I did a good tweet before I went:

So we're off to space are we, Beardy? You're more likely to get me to Brummie!
And even that I'll believe when I see!

Citizensofa
About 27 hours ago, from twittter and tweetbakecakedeck

Some Good "Tweets" Salvaged

James Joyce is a very boring writer. "A bowl of lather" - a phrase occurring in the first sentence of "Ulysses" - sums up the whole thing. Discuss.

--------------------------------------------------

Does a geographer ONLY study volcanoes, floods and earthquakes?

NO! So why do "psychologists" and "neuroscientists" sometimes seem to go on about only so-called "disorders"?
--------------------------------------------------

If "psychosis" is a "break with reality" then our entire economic discourse is "psychotic". Discuss.

--------------------------------------------------

If I shag a sheep - and it does happen to a lucky few - then what percentage "sheepsexual" am I? (Socratic Question).


----------------------------------------


Where in the Bible or any other work of fiction does Jesus say "Thou shalt burn books"?
It's explicit - the guy said "Love your enemy!" - if he existed. TANTUM RELIGIO POTUIT SUADARE MALORUM.

It's amazing that people in the USA want to burn books and impede mosque-building!
It sent thousands of its finest sons off to die in order vanquish people who did the same - people who burnt books and burnt synagogues to the ground - the Nazis!

There is no necessary link or Special Relationship between the USA and England nor between the USA and the State of Israel.

The USA is an independent secular republic. One of the first anti-imperialist entities in history.

The USA - especially since 1945 - has also been probably the most imperialist entity in human history.

A History of Ethnocentrism and Eracentrism in 100 Objects

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"An Astrolabe was a Medieval blackberry"

(Offensive to Medieval people)


"Spanish silver was "The American Express" of the 16th century".

(Since when was a credit card a pinnacle of civilisation?)


"Persian chariots were the Ferraris of the Ancient world."

(I'd rather have a chariot myself.)


The three quotes above are some near exact quotes from:-
EBC RADIO4's - "A History of Ethnocentrism and Eracentrism in 100 Objects".

Capitalist propaganda as well.

------------------------------------

AN "I-PAD"  =  Computer + Phone + Musicfile Player =  Pointless and useless.

???

Some African Wisdom

******* "FORGIVING IS VICTORY" - from SWAHILI WISDOM.

"WHERE THERE IS NO WEALTH THERE IS NO POVERTY." - from TSWANA WISDOM.

"WEALTH TAKES CHARGE OF ITS OWNER." - Ancient Egyptian WISDOM.

"THE DEPTH OF A PERSON'S LIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT'S LENGTH". - from SWAHILI WISDOM.

"HE WHO DOES NOT ASK A QUESTION LEARNS NOTHING." - from SWAHILI WISDOM.

"COMMON SENSE BORN BEFORE BOOK" - From BAJAN WISDOM.

"NOT TO KNOW IS BAD - NOT TO WISH TO KNOW IS WORSE" - from WOLOF WISDOM.

"THE WOODS ARE NOT HEARTLESS - THERE IS COMFORT IN SOLITUDE." - from SOUTH AFRICAN WISDOM.

"MONEY IS NEVER COUNTED WELL FOR YOU WHEN COUNTED BY SOMEONE ELSE." - from UGANDAN WISDOM.

"TO FORGET A WRONG IS THE BEST REVENGE." - from SWAHILI WISDOM.

"PEOPLE WHO SHARE WITH OTHERS ARE SELDOM HUNGRY." - from HAITIAN WISDOM.

"TO LOSE YOUR WAY IS ONE WAY OF FINDING IT." - from SWAHILI WISDOM.

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

What is Growth?

There is no economy. And even if there were one it would not matter at all if it "grew" or not.

TALLY HO!! CHOCKS AWAY!!

BATTLE OF BRITAIN - FORGOTTEN AIRFIELDS REMEMBERED!

Across the British Isles during the summer and autumn of 1940, dozens of bases provided the runways and maintenance facilities for RAF Fighter Command's defence against the relentless attacks of Hitler's Luftwaffe.

Sixteen of the most famous, many now disused and forgotten are featured on this superb T-shirt, with a patrol of Spitfires symbolising heroic Allied resistance to the planned Nazi invasion seventy years ago. Wear it with pride, against fascism then and now. 

Available from:

www.philosophyfootball.com

HORNCHURCH MENTIONED ON T-SHIRT!

More simplistic ramblings

So we asked an economist - will there be more wealth and more resources?

He answered - this will obviously and ultimately be determined by human action!

So we asked an economist - will poor people get wealthier?

He answered - this will obviously and ultimately be determined by human action - id est if the rich give the poor more money and or resources....

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

???????




Also there is an interesting comparison between "Economics" and Astrology.

People go to astrologers to see what it going to happen in the future.

People also often go to people called "economists" - once again supposedly to find out what is going to happen in the future.

I put it to you that :-

- The "economist" has no more clue as to what is going to happen than the astrologer and is no more scientific than the astrologer and
also that

What will happen will principally be determined by freely chosen human action!

-------------------=================================================

Another thing I want to salvage:

SPORT is PRIMARILY a recreation!!


NOT a business, an industry, a profession......


SPORT OF ANY KIND is a RECREATION.

.......

Hundertwasser - architecture in harmony with nature - wunderbar! :)

"For a more human architecture in harmony with nature."

FRIEDRICH HUNDERTWASSWER.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensreich_Hundertwasser

Architecture in the past was more in harmony with nature in my view.

"TINSTA!"

An incomplete list of things that I question the existence of or I do not think exist (as distinct entities) or I do not think are valid concepts.
:)

There Is No Such Thing As ("TINSTA"):-

An "economy"
"economic growth"
"unemployment"
"economics"
"mental illness"
"insanity"
"madness"
"Autism"
"adhd"
"mind"
"psychiatry"
"social science"

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

The Golden Age of Religious Tolerance

One cause of the decline of the "Golden Age of Religious Tolerance" - not entirely a myth - in Spain and elsewhere - was the growth and development of political nationalism.

"The Science of Copper Wire"

Neuroscience =

"The Science of Copper Wire".

------------------


Fundamentalist rendering of a sceptical view.

To make people think.

:)

---------------------------------------------------

The idea of a metaphor is fundamental to philosophy.



--------------------------------------------------

The BE NICE Creed

The BE NICE Creed!

UBI CARITAS ET AMOR IBI DEUS EST.

Try to BE NICE! is my NICE CREED :)

We're all humans. We're all the same. We're all capable of good and bad.

If in doubt leave it out

I am in the process of deleting stupid / pointless / superfluous / abusive posts from this "Think Tank".

Hopefully there will still be some of it left.

This process might take some time obviously :)

Please bear with me while this maintenance occurs and the attempted march towards relevance carries on.

My principle is "if in doubt, leave it out."

But there are some that I would like to keep up because I feel they make a good point.


-----------------------------------------------



What is in here may sound hardcore.

Remember - it's just words and images. Nothing more. Any thought, word and image can exist.

Also - it is to a point a corrective and an exaggeration to make people think!

Also - why not air an alternative view?

Also - you don't have to agree with it.

........

School 1690 v. School 2010

Scenario:

Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.

1960 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up friends.

2010 - Police called, arrests Johnny and Mark.. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it. Both children go to anger management programmes for 3 months. School board hold meeting to impliment bullying prevention programs. Mark accused of being a racist.


Scenario:


Robbie won't be still in class, disrupts other students.

1960 - Robbie sent to office and given 6 of the best by the Head Master. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.

2010 - Robbie given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. Robbie's parents get fortnightly disability payments and school gets extra funding from state because Robbie has a disability.


Scenario :


Billy breaks a window in his neighbour's car and his dad gives him a whipping with his belt.

1960 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.

2010 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison.


Scenario :


Mark has a headache and takes some aspirin to school.

1960 - Mark gets glass of water from his teacher to take aspirin with.

2010 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. His house is searched for drugs and weapons.


Scenario :

Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from Bonfire Night, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up an ants nest.

1960 - Ants die.

2010- Police Force, & Anti-terrorism Squad called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, Police investigate parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated. Johnny's dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.


Scenario :


Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary . Mary hugs him to comfort him.

1960 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.

2010 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.

------------------------------

This shows how stupid we have become!

Think about it!

"Lord" Shirley Williams

Vera Britain was a pacifist, socialist and feminist.

Her daughter "Lord" (only joking, darling) Shirley now works for the hard right Tories and lectures on how to bomb.

"A nuclear assault on the psychotic North Korea would be unadvisable."
(Nearly exact quote from Lord Shirley).

"Unadvisable" is not the word, love! lol

Who the pheck is the "psychotic" one here?

If we nuked North Korea would they fucking notice the difference? The poor people there!

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are so obviously utter bullshit that her words are unbelievable.

JEAN BAUDRILLARD: an interesting thinker

Jean BAUDRILLARD was an interesting thinker, if rather abstruse, inaccessible and possibly quite irrational.

"I am a peasant at heart," said Jean Baudrillard. He was also possibly more of a poet than a philosopher.

He was also ridiculously and magnificently "YANKOSCEPTIQUE"! Magnifique! Something that I like.

An example of this dislike of the USA is the following rather irrational comment:

"Deep down, the USA, with.. its technological refinement, its bluff good conscience...is the only remaining primitive society." 
Jean BAUDRILLARD




"La guerre du golfe n'aura pas lieu ; La guerre du golfe n'a pas lieu ; La guerre du golfe n'a pas eu lieu."
("The Gulf War will not happen; the Gulf War did not happen; the Gulf War did not happen.")
Jean Baudrillard, 1991.

Whilst this quote could acceptably be dismissed as irrational nonsense, the point that Baudrillard was making in his book "The Gulf War Did Not Happen" was quite subtle.

He did not deny that bloodshed had taken place but he did deny that what was happening was a conventional war.

I personally think the Gulf War and the 20 year long assault on Iraq that followed was Anti-Semitic mass murder and genocide.

As someone who has an unconventional view of the Gulf War of 1991 and what followed it,
I used to think I saw an ally in Baudrillard on this question. But now I am not so sure.


A Baudrillard quote that I like is "Forget Foucault!" with reference to Michel Foucault. I dislike and reject the work of the thinker Michel Foucault.

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   "French theorist Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) was one the foremost intellectual figures of the present age" was one assessment of the man.
3. I do not know if I concur with this view or what this means if it is true in any way.    Some people think that he was so bad and irrelevant as to be a "laughing stock" - along with other post-modernist thinkers. I do not know if I would go this far.
4. Baudrillard was to an extent seeing where ideas led. Not always a bad idea. I do think that Foucault was fundamentally nonsense and indeed a "laughing stock" however.

  

If Baudrillard was the embodiment of a decadent civilisation and a also a "laughing stock" then we must not forget that the supposed civilisation that was doing most of the laughing and condemning - namely the USA and England - was engaged in an Anti-Semitic genocide on the people of Iraq.

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17th August

I am very far from being an outright vegetarian myself.

Just like I am very far from being an outright teetotaler.

Thomas More, English humanist and philosopher

I was reading "The Story of England" by Christopher Hibbert and came across something that made me annoyed.

Thomas More was portrayed as going to his death for refusing to deny the principle of Papal supremacy. This may be so.

What is not mentioned is that the so-called "Church of England" asserted the Monarch's supremacy in every way over the English Church, and complete governership in every way of the English Church.

This principle of Monarchical Supremacy is a totally unacceptable principle for any Christian - or any humanist for that matter - and Thomas More had no choice but to refuse to accept this principle. The principle of Monarchical Supremacy is quite wrong. To this very day.

He - and thousands of others - had no choice but to refuse this "principle".
Many saw it and its implications as quite simply apocalyptic.
Some events of the time were indeed apocalyptic.

The Church of England is neither Catholic nor Protestant but nationalist and imperialist.
And in this sense it is not really Christian. Pope was simply replaced with Monarch.

There's no avoiding or shying away from this.

"For your one kingdom of England, I have with me all the kingdoms of Christianity."
Saint Thomas More, RIP.

'If Parliament should make a law that God should not be God, would God not then be God?' -
Thomas More.

He also said "I am the King's good servant - but God's first." This is the kind of sentiment that a Protestant would be proud of.

Thomas More was one of England's greatest ever humanists and philosophers - murdered by an English King!

The trivialisation and disparagement of Thomas More by his own culture is one of the greatest crimes in historiography and our cultural life.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also it is odd that English people could call my ideas - as expressed in this "think tank" - "Utopian" when the concept of "UTOPIA" seems to have been invented - or at least developed - by this great English filosofer.

In a similar way to Plato's "Republic", More's "Utopia" is a depiction of an ideal human society.
It included - far before their time - equality of the sexes, freedom of religion, representative democracy and no private property.

Furthermore, it is pretty much a slander to disparage and denigrate this concept - usually involving the point that the word means "nowhere".

It means "nowhere" as well as "good and/or better place" (this would be EUTOPIA). It is a word play and a double meaning - of course.

Of course - More was a man of letters and it is very clear that the word is itself a proposition - and it is up to us which meaning we chose!

It is certainly deliberate that it could have two meanings - "good place" and "no place". Very witty!
Show me this ideal place and I will show you a place that doesn't exist! But we never stop trying to create it! Both of these things seem to be human nature! Utopia never arrives and yet we never stop tryng to make it!
It makes us think! Which is a good thing!

The island depicted in the piece is of course fantastical and non-existent, and hence is indeed "no place".

Almost anything created by humans is perhaps "utopian" in the sense that it is designed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Latin was a language of Europe as well as being a language of the humanism re-emerging at the time across all of Europe - (in a similar way to Arabic being the language of the Islamic world).
One reason why Thomas More was notorious for opposition to translation of scripture, was because
it changed and changes the meaning. It was not necessarily due to a fanatical and unquestioning religious belief and disposition. Though sadly he certainly had such a disposition.
Latin remains a symbol of humanism for me, though I don't see any point in learning it or studying it as such.
And I would not really have Latin or Ancient Greek at my ideal "one-man university" except as hobbies.

Thanks to wikipedia - and that doesn't embarrass me at all - I now know for the first time that More was very vehemently opposed to the views of Luther.
If he felt that way about Luther, it is hard to imagine exactly how he felt about the idea of the monarch being head of the church. The important point is that making the monarch the head of the church is more unacceptable than the institution of the Papacy itself, even from a Protestant perspective.