My comments about stepping up to values was a bit of a muddle. What is going on in the United States appears to be but a symptom of what is going on around the world. It is a rather difficult concept to deal with. Difficult in the sense that what is going on is rather sad and I do not wish to be depressing, so I was trying to find a way of avoiding using the words sad and depressing, but it is just that. I am simplifying a great deal, so please bear with me.
Many years ago, human beings evolved on this planet. They formed into groups of varying sizes, nomadic at first, hunting, gathering, etc. and eventually creating territories they considered their own, and marking the borders that subsequently defined nation states. There was the odd dispute over territory, the attempted land grab and the colonising of one state by another. These geographical problems and disputes have carried on in one form or another. The members of the group occupying each territory, soon devised their own form of communication and their own way of organising how the group within the territory would co-exist as members of the same group. They created their own rules and regulations. The individuals within each group and subgroup had certain needs in order to survive, and as the groups expanded certain essentials became apparent. Shelter, food and clothing were top of the list. As living arrangements grew more complex, and the well-being of the group became a problem, sewage and the collection of waste within the community became equally essential. With each development of inventions to enhance and improve the lives on the individuals within the group, more rules and regulations were required to keep pace. Roads needed constructing. Cooking and home comforts required heating and lighting. All these facilities had to be safe, secure and simple. That required more rules and regulations, such as road traffic, health and safety regulations, licencing etc…
On top of everything, various individuals within the group behaved badly. Some behaved very badly indeed. The groups then developed their own individual methods of dealing with this bad behaviour, establishing various rules regulating the behaviour of how individuals related to one another. A number of ‘Thou Shall Nots…’ emerged, along with ‘If you do, then…” certain punishments would follow. This led to organised law enforcement, just as disputes between nations led to armed forces for protection of the state.
Those straight forward simple matters evolved regardless of how the group chose to run its affairs. Whether run by committee, dictator, king, queen, parliament, duma, congress, tribal council etc., shelter, food, clothing waste disposal and communication were always there to be dealt with.
As humans evolved into their nation states, it became sufficiently apparent that some form of co-operation between groups was advisable in order to avoid the various outrages and wars that blew up from time to time. As a result, a variety of international events evolved to bring nations together in peaceful endeavours, in particular sporting events-football, athletics, tennis are but a few. Nonetheless there still remained a couple of stumbling block along the way, and these stumbling blocks became the cause of mass murders and genocide: individual freedom, race and religion.
Every once in a while, an individual comes along who somehow captures the imagination of some of or the whole of the group, or indeed the whole of the world. In more recent times Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Adolph Hitler are instances in point. Those individuals are few and far between, and their influence is such that it can change the course of events, for good or bad.
The religious mayhem and racial atrocities that have occurred between Muslims and Hindus, Catholics and Protestants, black and whites, Native Indians and Settlers, Colonials and indigenous residents, Jews and everybody, is endless.
The 18th Century however, produced an extraordinary number of people who thought very much about the way we live: Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Georg W F Hegel, Jeremy Bentham, Edmund Burke, Arthur Schopenhauer, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, Gottfried Leibniz, Germaine de Stael, Emilie du Chatelet, Giambattista Vico, Frances Wright, Judith Sargent Murray, Motoori Norinaga, , Nimnomiya Sontoku, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Dai Zhen, Gim Jeong-hui and a number of others around the world. How humans behaved and interacted was very much their concern. Rousseau’s Social Contract, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense emerge from a period referred to as The Enlightenment.
In contrast, here is a more recent discussion of Justice and Power from 1971 between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault:
Although the beginnings of the codification of the rights of man, all be it limited in scope, starts with Magna Carta 1215 and some 400 years later with the Bill Of Rights Act 1689, it was not until the last quarter of the 18th Century that a group of men came together to establish a government, a nation state, dedicated to the proposition that all human beings are created equal, and that that principle would be establish in law, and further, that human beings had inalienable rights which would also be codified in law.
That was no small thing. It might not have been the only place in the world where that sort of thinking took place, but it was one that sparked human beings to speak out boldly and proclaim those inalienable right as the principles which are meant to guide our lives. Certainly, for the last 50 years, the proclaiming of civil rights and individual human rights has been a keystone of every government. If has been well established and put into law in many countries. Race hatred, religious hatred, gender hatred, discrimination of any kind infringing on individual liberty is not to be tolerated. It is taught in school. It is not a political position; it is simply a matter of human decency which everyone must adhere to. The mantra is do no harm. It should by now be beyond argument. And yet it is still an issue.
We are in the middle of a pandemic. The question of the face mask is an issue. The fact, that cannot be in dispute, is that wearing such a mask will probably prevent the spread of the virus, even though it would not stop one getting it. Wearing a mask might prevent you from spreading the virus. I repeat Wearing a mask might prevent you from giving someone else a virus that could kill them. This has been stated over and over again, yet there are those who claim it is a blow against liberty. “You can’t make me wear one, it’s against my rights”. Why is a simple gesture which might prevent another person dying a blow against civil liberty? Why should it become a matter of law enforcement to make one human being try to safeguard another? I assumed it was what being human was all about. Do no harm. Keep your distance. Where is the blow to liberty in that? Simple gestures are not a blow to human rights. It is simple human decency.
Recently, football (soccer)
players have, at the start of each game, ‘taken a knee’ in support of yet
another attempt at eradicating racism by ‘black lives matter’. Because of the
pandemic, games have been played without spectators. Recently some 2000
spectator have been allowed in, to help the clubs financially as well as reviving
the proper sporting atmosphere. A match at Millwall in London, once more
displayed the arrogance and ignorance of the racists. When the players got down
on their knees they were greeted with loud shouts and boos from the spectators.
By what right do they have to disrupt the activities of others in this fashion.
One cannot say that, everyone is entitled to free speech, everyone can have an
opinion. That does not wash. Racism is not an opinion. Racism is not free speech.
Racism is a fact, and the fact is, it is illegal. It is against the law. It is
not something to be tolerated under the guise of free speech. Why are we still
having this discussion? This from Sky New UK.
The human values that are held in greatest esteem should by now be second nature. Too many people and too many young are so sadly ignorant of decency, one is rendered almost speechless.
The example of a so-called President of the United States, who dribbles lies and fantasies, proclaims hate and fear to ignorant crowds of worshipers is a disgrace so abhorrent to decency it is beyond endurance. Is his voice so loud that the cries against him go unheard, or are the cries against him not loud enough for them to be heard? It is difficult to tell from abroad. Why wait for the 20th January. Can you not urge him to get out now? Let the transition team in now, too many real lives are still at steak. Do not wait for his exit, press him to go now. No news network should expose anymore of him to the American public, let alone the rest of the world. Shut him out.
The fascist example of the 1920’s and 1930’s was surely enough of a lesson to humanity that arrogant narcissists elevated to power is not a very healthy political position. But they build such marvellous roads and the trains run on time.”Il duce ha sempre ragione” was the mantra for Mussolini, it is the same with Trumpism “The Donald is always right.”
Please! ENOUGH
Why do I care so much about values? I should have stayed in the class.
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