ALTRUISM

It is as instinctive for some to be compassionate, to think in terms of the other, as it would be for another, so inclined, to rob a bank. Acting from an altruistic instinct can be just as self interested as not doing so. What is instinctive isn’t freely chosen. What isn’t free can’t be moral. Behaving in a non-selfish way therefore is not necessarily moral.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Towards the end of his eventful life the US president remarked to one of this friends: “There is not one among us in whom a devil has not dwelt. At some time, on some point, that devil masters each of us. It is not having been in the dark house but having left it that counts.”

CYNICAL

Advertising is instructed by middle aged businessmen trying to manipulate us into buying their products. To reach their objective they employ the talents of young, astute and ambitious creatives as their eyes and ears with a direct insight into contemporary culture. This tells them how to pitch and just as often what to sell. It is then presented as choice. The buying public are then to get excited - “I’d like that! I’ll have this!”. Invariably that’s just what they do. It’s the perfect partnership for a consumer society, short on any finer feeling for humanity or any elevated impulse. Big on material, power and money. Cynical about everything. Ultimately disastrous.

ON R.D. LAING

Stuart Hall talks of reading R.D. Laing on psychological disorder as a cultural system and how one person can take on the disfunction of his society. When this happens the social structures are lived through the psyche. This makes sense to me. It also made sense to Hall personally. It crystallised his feelings of not fitting in. He then left home thinking that if he didn’t he’d be eaten alive.

BLAND POLITICIANS

Probably the best kind. This, given thoughts from reading political theory as well as from personal experience. Yes, politics is about power but maybe less the power to do stuff and more the power to stop bad stuff happening. It’s taken 10,000 years of history to have this, the limitation of power, enshrined in liberal constitutions. Bland types are better leaders cause they do less damage. Their primary role is to preside over the constitution and protect it if threatened. If they do nothing else then that’s fine.

CONTROL

There’s a load of crap talked about control. “Control freak” for example is a now widely used term. The need, desire and capacity to control is probably one of the defining aspects of being human. Civilisation is virtually a testament to control. Truth is, everyone uses what they’ve got; everyone seeks to control in whichever way however subtle (Nietzsche). Some may do it badly and only for themselves, others for the greater good. These two are so divergently different as to be almost entirely separate things. To say someone is a control freak doesn’t specify but probably points to the former. The former is immoral, the latter among the highest of goods.

WOMEN & THE SENSITIVE MALE

Unless he is gay, most women will not know what to do with the sensitive or feminised male. Their superior faculties, their education, cultural background etc. might tell them that such a man is what they want but faced with one it is likely that the old biology will kick in. The man is then expected to behave like the archetypal rutting caveman. Useless. No good for relationship at all, only for procreation and power games.