Heavy Reading

Heavy. That is an adjective I have heard many a time to refer to a book. We are not talking weight - but often it is also a factor. Who wants to lug around a book that weighs the same as a bag of potatoes? That kind of heaviness has prevented me from borrowing books. The prospect of carrying a particularly heavy book on robotics around nearly stopped me - but fortunately the bus route allowed for a relatively easy transportation. In the future I'd have my robot James carry it for me. It is one argument for electronic books. Just one. I prefer however the tactile quality of touching a book, the aroma of musty and new books alike - probably not good for you at all. The heaviness I am talking about here is the other type. Literary heaviness. The mind gob-stoppers like the modernists Proust, Musil, Nabokov, Joyce and their spawn. There was an exhibition in the Freud museum in Vienna where they had books that people were given but couldn't finish - many were from the modernist canon. You can't read these books and watch television - nor for that matter can you listen to Alexander Scriabin's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor and watch Paris Hilton and Friends. I tried and failed. It is either Paris or Alexander. Try the following. Reading Aidan Higgins' Balcony of Europe and listening to music. You can't do it. But you could read a John Grisham novel and stand one leg, watch a rare recording of Maria Callas and still know who did it. I found Higgins' novel, the first part to be very Iroishy and delightful in a Flann O'Brien way. The bulk however is rich. Every page is encyclopaedic in reference - we learn a lot from how a hedgehog makes love, to the slang of someone from x place. It is very rich. You must pace yourself like a box of expensive and filling chocolates. It has the catholicity of the Baron Corvo and the absurdity of Sam Beckett. If it were a dog it would piss on your trouser leg and then adopt the pose of a martyr. There is sex and booze there too. John Calder tells us in his autobiography that Aidan was a boozer. Maybe you need a drink to relax you while you are on board the Higgens' book.

Birds

Birds of a feather. I think if I were to choose a Disney character - it would have to be Donald Duck. I could quite easily mimic his face, but not his voice. I always preferred him over Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, both of whom though having edge, had a certain nastiness to them. Donald Duck though always scheming and with a positive ducky glee in his eyes when his plots work, remained a comic creature with a heart as seen in his romancing and in his attitude to his nephews. The Warner Brothers' characters lack real empathy. Having said this, I always found Mickey Mouse to be mawkish. Now that is a lovely word. Mawkish: from the word maggot perhaps, So, yes Donald Duck enters that list of birds in my private remembered aviary. Another bird which I remember with fondness is the white-bellied sea eagle of Singapore. Quite a mouthful, its scientific name sounds like bad breath: Haliaeetus leucogaster. The reason why this bird is important, is because it appeared on a Singapore postage stamp. I link this to geese. Again for the same reason. My father had decided I was to collect bird and space stamps, and from a Sikh selling stamps on Orchard Road got a bundle of Chinese stamps three of which were actually Japanese :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Japan-1949-Hiroshige-geese-sheet-5-MNH-FVF-defect-/180477206282



They were thrown out by accident when my mum was housecleaning. I was a tad upset. But then on the other hand I am not the tidiest of people. Years later I was to go to Japan and I became interested in Japanese prints. Thanks to those geese I believe. Still in Singapore, I lived with my family in Jalan Bankett near a stream and a mini jungle. I daily saw so many of the birds listed here:

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

Now I cannot really make my mind up if I saw a purple swamphen (common then) or the much rarer jacana visitor. I think it was the latter. Both are beautiful birds. As for the ubiquitous mynah bird, the talking bird of the Far East, I was told a story by an American officer (one with a lots of medals) on leave during the Vietnam war. His story merged with his recounting the meetings with Charlies. I thought he was quite something at the time - and I also liked John Wayne in the Green Berets. How times change!! Another common bird was the beautiful golden oriole, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_oriole . It seems like a bird dreamt up by James Elroy Flecker. A bird that causes a titter among Americans, it the titmice. The blue tit is the little bird of W.C. Fields' heart , his chickadee in Americano. My French master a keen bird watcher told me as I walked with him in a park near Alnwick castle, that the blue tit call sounded like a bicycle pump. Now maybe I am making it up, but one outing some boys took a bicycle pump with them. A friend of mine kept pigeons. They were his love. Darwin loved them too. My mother however was not so keen on them. I had Joey the guinea pig in lieu. I think I actually liked Joey more. I find the little pigeons to be the ugliest things around - even invertebrates look prettier. But pigeon fanciers love them. I preferred sea birds. The kittiwakes that swooped and circled the cliffs of Howick. How many times have I used them in imagery. Those doll's eyes. The plumage.

Nosey Caricatura

Having a rather prominent nose, I have been throughout my life been alerted to its comic potential - a fact which has been seized upon by bullies and friends alike. My brothers, not so well endowed in this department, would make ducking motions after calling my name. At school, those of a Pythagorian persuasion were wont to call me Terry Triangle which also fitted my pigeon or barrel chest (the late Robert Mitchum and lots of others sported). I think it hurt me. Children, and even work colleagues, love to tease and given any purchase on a person, such as a minor defect will be emboldened to enlarge, extend, until it takes upon such proportions until you think that person is just a walking spot or nose. Of course it would seem that public figures with power or fame, are sitting ducks for this wilful misperception. It can hurt, and of course it is also a lot of fun, to be handled like a firework, very responsibly, lest it blow up in your face. I can now celebrate my nose, and can anticipate jokes regarding my schnozzle at the blink of an eyelid, like the more celebrated schnozzlee, Cyrano. Large, pointed, snubbly, flat, whatever the shape, noses are more than olfactory organs. Mine was used as a prototype for concorde design. Boom boom. I am in no need of a remote control because I can use my nose. Boom boom. Yet, if one discusses noses of people of different ethnic backgrounds, then it is a different matter, it is ideological. Difficult then, for the caricaturists of the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, because from their perspective, his nose defined him as different and had obvious comic possibilities. Much easier with Gladstone whose nose, though not semitic, was an object of ridicule through extension. It would seem that though caricatures can be used to support politicians or as fun souveneirs from Paris, they can hurt individuals greatly and should be seen as a visual assault in the case of those who belong to classes of people who are without power such as ordinary folk and minorities. The classical example of bad caricature is the one that offended the Islamic community. It was one of their prophet. Firstly, it would seem that Gods and Prophets are fit subjects for caricature, because they are all powerful. However, while that may be true, the object of the caricature was not primarily the prophet, but his believers, and they in Denmark belonged to a minority class who did not have the real power to either smile and accept, because they did not share the same values, nor have the power to defend themselves. The caricaturist working for a fairly right wing newspaper felt that his intended readership, the ones who would titter over his drawing, would share his beliefs regarding the minority that had been ghettoised in Denmark and had been from the newspaper’s pov, radicalised by extreme Islam. The local moslems could not themselves defend themselves, thus it became a matter of concern for the Moslem world. Many in Denmark in their defence of the caricaturist say that freedom of expression is primary, and that the moslems should learn to laugh at themselves. After all Jesus and Christianity had been satirised for eons. However, this is arguing from a position of strength and shared beliefs – to make and extend jokes about the Danish royal family is tolerated, but there is a line. You can only go so far in attacking a sovereign leader. It would seem that common sense can dictate how one represents people, in fairness, one should not really mock those who cannot defend themselves, even if it is the targetting of a prophet – there is collateral damage that harms people locally.

A Fresh Page

Fresh. A fresh page. "Turn over a new leaf" as they say. I did. Literally. I started a short piece in the notebook; starting with a kaleidoscope of images and topics, all colliding into each other, then settling down into a pattern, finally forming a topic. Degas og Orleans. To the non-Danish that "og" would be pronounced like the "og" in Caveman argot, in the speak of Anthony Burgess in 2001 in front of the black obelisk, "Og!" Maybe even in the suave but chilling curse of Alex in A Clockwork Orange. But relax, "og" just means and in Danish. It is the title of a catalogue-book that I picked up for a snip at 10 Danish kroner. There was in the 1990's an exhibition in which the New Orleans Museum of Art cooperated with Ordrupgaard Gallery to put on a show of Degas's art connected with New Orleans. What attracted to me the book was the cover pastel. The book was lying on top of an out of date atlas and other books of irrelevancies. Of course there might be a sad soul who collects those - I don't. The cover pastel is of a woman (Matilde Mussen in the catalogue) but later I discovered that it is her sister Estelle Mussen who married René de Gas, the artist's brother. The pastel is in the Ordrupgaard Gallery. She was pregnant at the time, and perhaps this accounts for the colours in the face, and the expansive dress. Her skin tones and the grey-blue eyes are echoed in the dress and the indefinite vista to her left. A light orange tinges her lips which in cooperation with a salmon pink are reflected in the trimming of her top. She holds a fan that is a vague slab. The lighting in the pastel suggests heat one that radiates and irradicates the visual definition of the balcony. There are features that I dwell on when I look at the pastel - like the hair. She has a fringe that points up like a Gothic arch, and the eye brows plus her nose area seem to be in simpatico with the arches in the railing. The mass and airiness of the dress is Dega's forte. I remember seeing something similar in the 1980's work of Francesco Clemente, the Italian neoexpressionist. The sketchiness of the pastel links the work . Of course in Degas we are confronted with impressionism - the art of suggestion. But the modelling in the face is not adventurous. You find that face in the Renaissance. The more abstract forms are found in the accompanying sketches that led to this work. In one of the drawings, we see that Degas is no Raphael - Estelle has a masculine face, the shading and neck, looks as if they are coming towards rather than receding. The arm does not look as if it belongs to the body. A metaphysical paradox which you find in many drawings, where the artist fails to integrate and harmonise the parts. Yet, this is a mistake, because what Degas is doing, is sorting out the planes or levels of the art, working in different media to understand the colours, etc. Funnily enough, those experiments, like the rough models of sculptors of the period, anticipate the works of the Fauvists like Henri Matisse by thirty or more years.

Having a Cup of Coffee

Last night I saw the wonderful series of Sherlock Holmes starring the late Jeremy Brett. The particular tale was the one about the red headed league which was a "red herring" for the evil scheme of Professor Moriaty to rob a bank of French gold. What struck me was the fact Holmes said it was a "three pipes" case. I am sat in a railway cafe and this short essay or prose piece, is a one cup of coffee piece. I will write it up later. At the time of writing I am using a cheap 3 kr notebook and of all things a red felt tip pen. It looks as if everything is incorrect - I mean one maths teacher of mine used to use red and scrawl all over my geometry. If it was wrong. She tore the page out - like those torturers ripping out innards in Singapore's Tiger Balm Gardens! I do recollect, probably incorrectly, that Balzac was a sixty cups of coffee a day man - it killed him. One strong espresso gets me jittery. However, one coffee in the morning usually wakes me up. Was it King James I or a Sultan who banned coffee? These monarchs! They suddenly take a dislike to something and then they ban it. Now of course if I were a supreme sovereign ruler, I'd ban lemon curd. Jars of that toxic substance would be carted down to the sea and tossed in. Of course I would not really do that, because as much as I abhor this vile yellow substance, I do like fish and marine life more. As I sipped my coffee and look around at the usual bunch of station types, I thought of Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women (1965/2010). It is all to do with the problem of the erotics of the content and the text. Does a reader get excited and skip the "padding" to go straight to the act, without any textual foreplay? Is that not a form of zapping? In this particular book, there is not much explicit sex - so is the male reader disappointed? What do they do? Flick through for the horny moments, then read? Is that how an adolescent reads D.H. Lawrence or Henry Miller? Flick through. Or do they maturely, read the book for the pleasure of the text? It's one of those Sex and the City questions. Was it just a case of the failure to understand that the reader seduction is not the commonplace realist description of organ going into organ, but the words? Henry James and Marcel Proust knew all about this. They courted us with suggestiveness that never led to consummation. We remain virgins! This aesthetic pleasure is a kin to the inner laughter or buzz we get from a witty comment rather than the belly laugh we get from a bawdy joke. I can see that sitting down which is by the way in a IKEA wannabe cream white ceramic mug - without saucer, so with me the napkin is soaked as if some little imp had bailed out some coffee. At this juncture I turn to Lin Yutang and ask myself whether coffee has the right properties for meditation as against green tea? Probably not. I think also of the details. The magnifying approach of Nicholson Baker whose Mezzanine (1988) has me wondering whether this hyper-attention to the minute is a tad too much. I am horrified at the prospect that if I were to write a novel, I would not get further than the crud on the rim of my cup. Then I might look up that cup on the internet and wax lyrical about its manufacturing procress, even discuss all the people who drank from it! The horror. The horror! But after a judicious moment. I think, heck no, leave the darn thing on the table.

Future Human

On the bus this morning I thought of the human being in the future. I arrived at the image of the "immortals". These are derived from a bit of Aldous Huxley's brilliant Brave New World and the science fiction of Phillip Dick. So what will it be like? Firstly there must be continuity in the genes. This will be achieved by copying or rather mimicing them. The creation of artificial genes that will perform like our genes do. There will be probability screening of the originals - so that the effects of bad genes will be minimal. Maybe they will just be eliminated. Behaviour would be controlled through design. During the transition period perhaps the original genetic material will be supported by the artificial mimicgene. Later all humans will be "created" from mimicgenes. When the human reaches maturity (full development of the nervous system) then the Sacculina-silicon programme will start. This is an artificial parasitical system that takes over the entire body, gradually encasing the body in a tough plastic material. The body then will no longer develop or age unless programmed to do so. The result will be humans that have tough bodies with organs that do not age. They can experience and feel everything a human can today, but remain young and "immortal" for centuries.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee: Resemblance and Similarity theories and ontological relations.

In the Twentieth century, modernist philosophers like G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle took ordinary things and relations to tackle profound metaphysical problems. Most famously, G.E. Moore in his "Refutation of Idealism" starts with a discussion of properties and moves from the Universe to chairs and tables. It was this example that Virginia Woolf was said to have had in mind in her perambulations in philosophy as found in To the Lighthouse and that delightful character, Mr. Carmichael. I thought of something we are familiar with as a starting point. The cereal bowl. Suppose there are cereal bowls on the table. They are identical to look at. This relation of being exactly the same, is troubling, because one starts to think about it. If the cereal bowl was truly identical to the other. Then the other would not be there! Since to be truly identical it would not only have to have all the same features and qualities that make up its appearance and reality, but it would have to occupy the exact same space. Being identical then is an approximate. Once we step back from this metaphysical quagmire, we see that when we say that the bowl is identical, we mean it is in the sum of elements in its appearance to us at the time of perception. Upon closer inspection we will find differences, because though at one level we enjoy the predictable and similitude, we actually crave for difference and novelty. How do those two bowls differ? Well in the manufacturing process one may have had a marginally different amount of glaze or there might be a slight difference in the patterning. You will be sure to find differences if you look at it with the zeal of tv forensic detective. However, the relationship of being identical is useful in negotiating everyday life. When we buy something, especially a pair, we hope that they are identical. Rather we hope that the degrees of resemblance are such that we and others will take them at first glance as having the same properties – albeit in a pair of socks reversed . Now that is interesting. We can say that the individual socks are identical except for designation, and that pairs of socks resemble each other more than the individuals do. The topic of resemblance has been discussed for many years in philosophy. At what point does one start? Is resemblance arbitrary? Can we predict resemblance? Can we say that given x element that there is a higher probabability that an object will resemble another? Is there a third bowl? An ideal bowl that serves as a template? An approach which I believe is interesting is Tversky's theory of similarity and features. Maybe we can have a theoretical mix of resemblance and similarity theories? Two worlds of similitude? Consider events in the market. We could in portfolio theory analyse performance in terms of resemblance, then seek another more qualitative take using similarity theory. It is like behaviours in an ecosystem. An archer fish in the river will perform and view events differently than its prey a spider on the branch. The life on land and in the river is affected differently. Yet the result of the fish capturing the spider, is an event that occurs in both "worlds". When we look at relations in the world, we should remember that these occur as events in different worlds, though have a metaphysical consequence in the relation of relations.

Apple

An apple is a fruit. It is not a apple. It forces us to consider the rules of articles. I have an apple in my mind as I write. It is the beautiful cherry-red apple that matched the lips of the evil Queen who gave it to Snow White. If I were Snow White I would jump at the chance to take a bite of that crisp and fresh looking, Disney apple. Of course, it is too good to be true. The apple was poisoned, causing Snow White to fall into a death-like coma. But that particular apple is memorable. It is not an apple. It is the apple! Yet there are other apples in this category. For example the cooking apple. My mother used to cook wonderful apple pies with a pastry crust that was mouthwatering. I have never encountered a crust as perfect. The cooking apple was larger than the usual apples we had. Bigger than the brambles for sure. As my mother peeled it, I could already taste the pie in my mouth and the dollops of thick cream.... So there you have the cooking apple. Next in line, is the large dessert apple. I had this in Japan. This is a super-sized apple that is served as a dessert in its own right. My mother-in-law would order these, or someone would bring them back as a souveneir. Imagine that, an apple as a gift. But in Snow White it served the same function. It was also the fruit which children used to present their teachers. If you were fond of someone, they were "the apple of your eye". This large fruit was peeled totally, washed and sliced. You ate the slices with a two pronged dessert fork if I remember correctly. It was special. My feelings and respect for the Japanese culture are linked in part to that apple which was wrapped in a scarf or special packaging. By eating that apple I realised that we can make from ordinary things something transcendental. Another apple I remember is the tomato. Now that is odd isn't it. When I was at art college, I took a course in English literature. One of the set books was Flora Thompson's Larkrise to Candleford, and I believe she said people used to call tomatoes "love apples". It's the red and lushiousness I guess. Also there is the reference to the sinfulness of the apple. When Eve took a bite of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge - most accounts have it as an apple. I would have thought a fig which has more of the appearance of genitalia might be more appropriate - at least D.H. Lawrence used it for some very erotic poetry. The apple figures in Greek mythology too, but this time it the golden apple. That brings me through association to the Golden Delicious, a French apple which I love and on another level I vaguely remember the television commercials.

I prefer this apple to those very sharp tasting apples. Which strangely reminds me of... the potato. For me, whenever I taste something that is too sharp and hard - I think of new potatoes. Now, here I remembered that the French call potatoes "pomme de terre", literally apples of the earth. Quite funny. From those apples I bounce to the word pomme or pom. This is the Australian slang term for a British person. According to the OED it is a truncated version of pomegranate (literally means an apple with seeds). Being British, then I am an apple!

Boredom

In the many essays of Michel de Montaigne and Sir Francis Bacon and there is not one on boredom. As the online encyclopedia helpfully points out, this is because the word to describe this affective state had not been coined yet - it was Charles Dickens who like William Shakespeare who first used the word in his novel Bleak House (1853). That is not to say boredom did not exist before then! Of course people have been in that state for eons. But what exactly is it? Is it when we feel listless, tired and succumb to a feeling of redundancy? Perhaps then doing repetititive work like stamping invoices for seven hours a day might bring about that state? What then? A seventeen year old in an office with trays and trays of papers coming in from the offices below. The job is routine and boring. Then one enters that kingdom or domain of boredom. One can see that it is a close cousin to apathy. The loss of feeling and interest due to routine work. Could Dante have worked it into his La Divina Commedia? Where might it fit? Of course not in the Inferno - there it is too exciting. But probabably in the Purgatorio. There would be terrace called taedium. Who would populate this terrace. Well I suppose it would have to be all those higher civil servants and anyone who drafted senseless regulations which bring about boredom in the work place. They would be forced to forever go in circles without an end in sight, until they are allowed to go to the Inferno. While we recognise in ourselves the state of boredom in those all too common signs of yawning and fidgeting. What of animals? Do ants get bored? Probably not since they do not possess emotions. Many zoo animals do have emotions. You can see them moving aimlessly in motor activity we identity as belonging to caged animal syndrome - not too different from the human animal sat in front of a computer. All those behaviours of pacing up and down, self mutilation, aggression and so on, are the result of boredom (caged animal syndrome). Here it is the lack of capacity to be themselves. An animal that is genetically programmed to migrate thousands of miles, or to mate, when unable to do so, will be frustrated. Frustration turns into aggression, then after awhile the aggression settles into a state of repetition. This is not unlike the job of the office clerk. They start with the promise of a career. They can become a manager and own a luxury house. That is the promise. The realisation is years of the same, day in and day out. Of course this affective state can be tested by developmental changes. The mid-life crisis can have some quite bizarre consequences. The comic novel A History of Mr. Polly (1910) by H.G. Wells encapsulates the dire results. Those liberties taken by the dreamy Mr. Polly are not available to the lion that paces up and down in its cage. He has to spend his entire life in a very tiny compass though lions like many animals in the savannah range a considerable distance in search of food. They like their human equivalents should be given diversions other than training to present themselves to the zoo visitors. To pretend that they are wild is a cruel joke. All zoo animals should be given the opportunity to exercise, interact and mate. Boredom in humans is a state which will pass in most - in the zoo animal it is a liestyle.

Duty

Consider the difference between the two following sentences that emanate as a reaction to a situation. The situation is an accident whereby a third party is left hurt.

"It is your duty to help them"
"It is your right to help them."

This is not an exercise in speech acts. What we have here is an awkwardness that occurs to us as being more than semantic dissonance. We simply do not have the right to help, but of course the duty. It is not a question of propositional play. Now look at at the same situation but now from the victim's perspective:

"I have a duty to expect help."
"i have a right to expect help."

Now it is the turn of duty to be seen out of kilter. One does not have a duty to expect help! We can see that the problem is do with relations and agency. We have rights and we have duties toward others. But let's now see what happens when these two, duty and right, are exercised to their fullest. One is witness to the victim lying in agony.

"I have a right to ignore the victim as it not my duty to help. It is the duty of professionals.it's their job."

But argues the second:

"That is omission. You have a duty which has arisen in the context to the situation. As you enter that zone, you have a duty of care. You cannot neglect that duty."

"Maybe not, but suppose I did that duty - wouldn't my rights be taken away from me? I mean once you enter that relationship of duty of care, then if anything happens to them as a consequence of my assistance, I may be held liable. "

"True, but in a conflict of interest between the right of an individual and his or duty to another, the latter is paramount."

"Really, I hold that rights are before duties!"

"True, to some extent, but does not your conscience trouble you? Aren't you moved to relegate yoir rights here?"

There you have it. "The I have rights" argument the T-shirt slogan of the 20th and 21st centuries. Duties smack too much of the military and authority. They sound Victorian. The civic duty seems no longer tenable. Of course we press for rights in the Romantic mould. The rights of minorities, rights and rights....

A state is taken to task over its human rights record. Not because of a failure or neflect of duty. It is a clear and cut case of human rights violation. Here it seems to make sense. Those without power are empowered in defence against the powerful through a bill of rights. Yet, here is the rub, the clamour for rights often goes against the interests of the state that is founded or supported by a national makority. The individual must use the law against the state. David versus Goliath. Often it antagonises and worsens the situation. As once a right is upheld it is often to the detriment of the nation or body politic. The individual or minority must challenge in the courts the state to uphold rights. Far better following Machiavelli and Kant is to have the state as an agent that has a duty towards all citizens, a duty in ramifications that covers all kinds of harm. Then there is no need for the individual to seek the court to uphold his or her rights - the state if it fails to carry out its duties, will face exclusion from statehood and all the entitlements that go with that. Moreover it will be taken to court and it will have to defend itself not in a court of human rights, but in a court of nations.

Exchange

When we kiss, we exchange not just body fluids, but our love and affection for each other. An exchange is a transaction founded upon a contract of trust. When I hand over something in exchange, I trust that what I receive will be a good. We do not expect in its simple form a bad. Good meets good. That is an exchange. Yet economics founded upon scarcity of resources does not recognise this simple element of trusting and good exchange. I can shake hands and contract myself to an exchange where the value might meet the market price, but the tenor of the exchange is bad. If we were to compose an orchestral piece made of all the exchanges irrespective of kind, there would be melody and sweetness in the old sense, but very often it would jar with bad exchanges. Indeed, it may well be that although intentions at the scale of the individual exchange, like all codes of honour and trust, are good; the mechanisms of the market driven by monetary interests distort and destroy that good. Suppose, we imagine that some poor person living in project housing or a mobile home, aspired to change their lives by moving to a better neighbourhood or bigger house. This person would be vulnerable to an exchange which allowed for this to happen for little in return. They might think that the interest repayments in the future were not really part of the exchange. Because they saw the contract as an exchange of trust at the very point of transaction in that realtor's office in a small town in Alabama. They could not envisage that there would have to be trust that was additional - and that while the realtor beamed like sunrise itself, the conditions and terms of the loan were not made obvious, nor that this was indeed a bad, because it was in the future. Instead one had the feeling that the keys of the house were handed over as if they were a gift. "Here you are, for a petty sum I here donate to you long-suffering citizen, a house. "According to the practice of the time, this exchange was all kosher, but its consequences were a bad. By a bad one does not need to import JudeoChristian connotations, simply the break of trust between two individuals as enshrined in the fiduciary relationship. Now, as we know this kind of dishonesty, and let us not mince words, was built into the financial system, since it was predicated upon value rather than good. Many were party to exchanges that involved a bad. This multiplied and became a pandemic of lack of trustworthiness. Much of this has to do with what Erwin Goffman calls face. The social psychology of interpersonal space, and its behaviours, fails to describe the interactions that occur within a system rather than between two individuals. As the millions if not billions of exchanges took place, many took place in the emptiness of computation inside machines, as flashes of information. Lost was the kiss of affection, the shake of a hand....

Compassion

Compassion is held universally to be one of the more important virtues. It in the Western world is derived from the concept of "suffering with", and in this respect is linked to empathy. But it is not a passive form. It directs our conduct. To have compassion we must not just feel or suffer with others, but act to alleviate that suffering - this being the true end of compassion. Now it is very easy of us in the wake of a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti to take pity upon the people and act charitably by sending money or relief. This would seem to satisfy the definition of compassion. Seeing sufffering remotely, then responding through charitable gifts. That is good. Yet, the nature of compassion goes further. It is not enough to see all those victims in Haiti and to isolate in our minds those more in need of our charity. The charitable act is conducted through a click of a mouse button which buys relief, just as one buys the latest DVD from Amazon. Charity with its roots in caritas is linked to mercy. Oh that we can be merciful and charitable to the victims. But compassion? Do we truly have compassion for the people of Haiti or elsewhere? Here we find it problematic since we cannot really be said to "suffer with" as we are in our homes seeing the suffering through media at a great distance, several dimensions removed. Then what of our compassion? Does it have limits. Is there a statute of limitations on it? Once the charitable deed is performed, then no infelicity occurs when one gets on with everyday life without thinking ever again for the victims. Also how can one suffer with millions? No one has that capacity. Our compassion is practical and selective. It is based on how the victims are presented. we do not have any compassion for the looters nor those involved in crime. We have more compassion for children. It is a compassion of neoteny. The cuter the victim. The more compassionate we are. Of course our charitable act shows no discrimination as the relief organizations do not discriminate. Or do they? I would argue that to be truly compassionate, we must take the resolve to allow for the looters and the dictators. We must suffer with those we could not ever love. Then perhaps we can begin to understand the meaning of compassion. So for example, in the case of Haiti, one of the poorest nations on the planet, it has been our charity and pity that has kept it so. We did not have compassion for all the people and their dreams and aspirations. How could we?

Alma-Tadema Range