Monthly Archives: May 2011

Online petitions? Celebrity charity campaigns … enough, no more

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There has been no little debate on the subject of online petitions following the one circulated opposing the proposed Ugandan anti-homosexuality legislation. Rob Shepherd does a good job of explaining why it’s a cop-out here: http://bit.ly/l0epvM. I should like to go further.

Rob’s right, but not right enough. The online petition, whether ‘it worked’ or not, is a very interesting piece of social legislation (and I say social in order to differentiate it from governmental legislation). Rob’s analogy with the miner’s strike was intriguing, not least because then, as now, there has been a fair amount of cyber-bullying going on. ‘Just sign it’ and similar has been tweeted and facebooked and amounts to coercion, an attempt to guilt you into signing, an interesting movement considering the petition’s target.

Rob may or may not be onto something when he asks:

So where are the other marches and demonstrations of old? Where are the spirits of Jarrow, Aldermaston and Greenham Common? We’ve recently, potentially started our latest Iraq- or Afghanistan-style war, with narry a trickle of protest. We’ve just had the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster, but where are the anti-nuclear marchers of the 60s and 70s?

Safe in their comfortable 21st century homes, clicking on ePetitions.

Perhaps this e-petition is the spirit of Jarrow, though the Jarrow marchers necessarily had somewhat more time on their hands, and the Aldermaston and Greenham Common camps not only took place in a different world, but were rather skewed towards middle-class ‘alternative experience’ seekers, who wished to ‘protest’ in a politically comfortable manner. After all, I don’t recall them having much success. At the risk of sounding trite, being the world’s worst nuclear disaster when, if you discount those bombs, there have only been three, doesn’t say much.

The issue is two-fold. Firstly what is effective, and secondly what is an acceptable way of approaching it. When is ‘direct action’ (which is a euphemism if ever there was one) acceptable, and when is it merely an excuse for a good dust-up (and on a separate point, I don’t recall the Police being armed when confronting the miners, other than with truncheons. It is a matter of record that concrete blocks were dropped on vehicles carrying miners exercising their democratic right to work by the strikers – and here I make no political point, merely point out that one has to be careful with the mode of protest lest one surrender legitimacy)?

Either one protests within the rule of law – the law which one accepts as valid when entering into the social contract we make with each other on election of governing bodies – or one foments revolution. Work within the system to change it, or smash it. Anything else is hypocritical.

I recently protested myself against the strange preponderance of ‘celebrities’ doing ‘charidee’ in such a way as it merely coincidentally keeps them in the public eye. No, I do not want a fucking candle to illuminate parkinson’s. Stick it up your arse, if it’ll fit next to all those ever-so firmly inserted heads.

Online petitions and most all charitable donations are designed to benefit one individual, the signer/giver. They are the new indulgences. Salve your conscience and save your soul with a tenner and click. And here’s the rub. My totally scientific in-depth survey and statistical analysis says it makes it worse.

Don’t treat the symptoms, treat the cause – change the way people think, don’t tell them what they can and can’t do. If we leave the world to carry on being as arrogant, narcissistic and selfish as it is now, we’re all fucked. And it’ll be a miserable death to our pitiful yet beautiful ‘civilisation’. Will twitter let the internet allow for revolution in the way the printing press did? Maybe, maybe not. But it really is a cop-out to ‘sign’ a petition via it.

All this, of course, makes me wonder what possible good writing a blog about it can do. But, then again, you’ve read this far, so perhaps there is hope. Just make sure that, if you choose revolution, you only cite me as an influence when you’ve won …

Inspiration or perspiration?

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This morning there was yet another ‘nature vs nurture’ debate on the radio. One commentator was adamant that talent was a myth, and that the nature of the brain meant that with enough work – and, crucially, self-belief – anyone could become, say ‘good at maths’. His opponent suggested that we had natural, innate propensities towards certain activities, and this was what was important.

Thereby lies the rub. Do we follow what, to my mind, is a nicely conservative line which suggests that attainment is entirely down to hard work? It’s politically useful, but that’s about it.

As we all know from watching those delightful shows like Britain’s got Talent that there are issues. Issues with taste. Plainly, someone’s told these people they can sing … someone lacking an aesthetic appreciation of the human voice. Secondly, there are problems with the voting systems, which seem to show audiences voting for the cutest/sweetest rather than the best – but this is perhaps more of a comment on the nature of modern showbusiness than anything else …

It is dangerous, but I think any musician or sportsman will tell you that it takes more than simple hard work to climb the dizziest heights of achievement. With intelligent study, pretty much anyone can attain a certain proficiency at their chosen craft, that’s for sure. But to shine takes somehing else. That’s what talent is.

With music, there’s a certain way of hearing things which does seem to be innate, and which allows the technical training to have its fullest affect. With sports, there’s a certain way of seeing things, of seeing the ball, for example, which sets the player apart.

They are in many ways the same thing. Both involve accurate and ‘instinctive’ prediction. Where will the next note be? Where will the ball be?

But it not the ball or note as a whole, it’s knowing where the exact centre will be at any specific moment in time. Then the decision is made regarding how to play the note/ball … where you play it relative to its middle defines its future behaviour. The truly talented player knows this and manipulates it. They can play it wherever they wish.

That, combined with hard work, is when the individual achieves what Castiglione called sprezzatura, or effortless achievement.

You can have all the talent in the world, but without hard work, it will come to nought.

You can work as hard as you like, but without talent you will only ever be a journeyman.

The trick is identifying where your talents lie.

Charity, celebrity and Parkinson’s

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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1193179890/illuminate-parkinsons

Apparently, it’s a ‘travelling gallery show featuring photographs of parkinson’s sufferers and celebrity supporters for a cure.’

It’s very ‘American’, and, well …

What is it with this stuff? Check this out:

Hi, my name is Allan, and I’m a commercial photographer. Inspired by my best friend Becky, I’m creating a travelling gallery show and photo book documenting individuals with Parkinson’s. Becky has had Parkinson’s since she was 29, which surprised and appalled me enough to want to create this series of photos documenting young Parkinson’s sufferers. A few fancy faces I’d already counted among my clients were similarly inspired and decided to pitch in: thus far we have shot such luminaries as Terry Gilliam, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman and Kevin Smith, with more to come, all jumping in to help illuminate this condition through art. We are taking these photos on the road, promoting autumn shows in Los Angeles, Edinburgh and Berlin, and we need your help to make them a reality.

The words that get me are ‘create this series of photos documenting young Parkinson’s sufferers. A few fancy faces I’d already counted among my clients were similarly inspired and decided to pitch in: thus far we have shot such luminaries as …’ I see no PD sufferers. The video says that the presenters are actors, not Allan and Becky. I see nothing but PR.

I am increasingly uncomfortable with celebrity campaigns. I think that they reinforce the feeling that we can give some money and salve our consciences – and our consciences are soiled not with our guilt at not doing anything, but our guilt at being well when others are ill.

I am ill when others are well. I find it monumentally patronising, and yet, recently, was amazed that PD awareness week arrived and neither I nor anyone else seemed to notice.

Creating a gallery documenting the lives of sufferers of PD or any other condition is a legitimate and, I think, useful thing. It cannot but help to disseminate awareness of this and other conditions.

Showing lots of pictures showing celebrities holding candles to ‘Illuminate Parkinson’s’ illuminates nobody. It perpetuates the feeling that we need not bother actually thinking, actually trying to empathise.

I know that their hearts are in the right place. I merely question their choice of medium, and my question says more about public attitudes to anything remotely uncomfortable: if it’s embarrassing, then we must swaddle it in niceness.

Yes spread the word. Yes let’s have ore people realise that PD sufferers, like many others, are not always obvious. I do not have a tremor. But I have PD. Surprise followed by awkwardness is the usual response to the news. This and embarrassment, and not mine.

Let’s save people from embarrassment. Just not by celebrity.

‘What is truth?’ Asked Pilate …

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But did not stay for the answer.
I just felt like having a little, utterly pointless, rant.
While I do not, nor have ever believed, that bin Laden was a good egg, or anything other than deluded, extremist murderer-at-a-distance, I do rather think that his death is not to be applauded.
By this, I do not refer to the understandable but hypocritical celebrations in various countries. And, for the record, they’re not the same as the celebrations when the tower fell, not in the least, but they are wrong.
What troubles me is the rabid abuse of the word ‘justice’. Obama, Cameron, Milliband and lord knows who else have repeated the anodyne and utterly fallacious formula ‘justice has been done’.
No. It has not. What has been done is revenge at best, straight murder at worst. Justice is something very, very different.
But first, revenge. Yes, the Old Testament says, ‘an eye for an eye’. Ghandi suggested that way led to blindness. The Bible also says ‘Justice is the Lord’s’ – that and that with regards the first murderer, revenge was reserved for god. Francis Bacon called revenge ‘a kind of Wilde Justice; which the more Mans nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out’. Revenge was, for Bacon, incompatible with the rule of law.
Justice was the subject of Plato’s Republic, and in the widest sense concerns the application of fair and reasonable principles. But in our ordered (ish) and measured society, justice must be codified, a set of behaviours notionally agreed on by the mass of people – a codification of Rousseau’s Social Will. What is ‘just’ behaviour? This, in western democracies, is in large part based on the idea not only that justice be done, but that it is seen to be done … that is, that those who transgress against society in any way whatsoever are treated reasonably and fairly, and given the opportunity to defend their position or actions. In this way, the theory goes, those convicted of offences against principles of right held in common will be punished or acquited according to strict rules.
Justice, in the modern democratic world in which we live may be creaky, and splutter, but it is the best thing. It works quite simply. Those who are deemed to have transgressed by a jury of their peers, beyond all reasonable doubt, are found guilty. Those who are not, are acquitted.
What is utterly irrelevant is whether they actually did what thy are accused of or not. A murderer acquitted due to lack of evidence? Justice is done. If someone is found guilty when they did not carry out the crime? Justice is done. A miscarriage of justice is not related to the actual guilt or innocence of the party (and you never hear about the former), but to whether the process of justice is allowed to occur unimpeded. If evidence is hidden, perjury committed and so forth, there is a miscarriage. If a mistake is made, that’s not a miscarriage, merely very, very unfortunate. The system can fail, can seem too skewed in favour of acquitting the guilty. In fact, it must be so. Otherwise the risks of innocent parties being convicted are too great.
When Cameron, Obama and Milliband talk of justice being done they are wrong. They mean the same as when someone comes out of court having failed to get the verdict they wanted. ‘Justice has not been done’. Actually, it has – you simply don’t like the verdict. Camoband simply got the result they wanted. It may well be right that bin Laden be executed for his crimes, but summary execution is not the same as transparent, judicial execution.
For justice to have been done in the case of bin Laden, he would have had to have been tried in a court of law. Unpleasant, embarrassing, messy. But just.
Well, what about Bacon?
Bacon, you may or may not know, was impeached for taking bribes while Lord Chancellor. The fact that everyone took bribes because that was how the world worked is neither here nor there. Ponder this:
Bacon was accused (rightly) of taking bribes to influence the course of various court cases. By the men who bribed him. They weren’t upset about him taking bribes, but by the fact that even though he took bribes, the cases in question didn’t go the way that they wanted. Or, to put it another way, Bacon was impeached as a result of a simple trades dispute – failing to deliver on goods or services agreed and paid for.
Justice? Revenge? They are not the same thing. Bacon once more:

This is certaine; That a Man that studieth Revenge, keepes his own Wounds greene, which otherwise would heale, and doe well.

Justice is dispassionate. Revenge is personal. It really is foolish to confuse the two.