Ratko Mladich & Muamar Ghadaffi. One caught & brought to "justice", the other not yet. How do you measure justice against crimes so heinous? More to the point, how do you punish?
Both men seem to be guilty of repeated, despicable, acts of great cruelty against hundreds / thousands of their fellow men, women, & children. It seems right that they should be held to account in a court of law & dealt with in a fair and legal way. In so doing we pat ourselves on the back and believe that we have been honourable & moral. We are not like them, we would never behave as they have done.
My first point is, why is it, that by an large, it is men who behave in this unbelieveably cruel way? What is it about the male psyche that allows them to suspend all of the normal inhibitors of gross cruelty & violence? I don't know. But it seems to me that we should be trying to understand the triggers & motivators of this type of behaviour, because there have been, are, and will be a lot more of men of this type in the world. Unless we understand them, we will never be able to deal with them & protect the poor unfortunate people whom they subject & torture.
A lot of it seems to be to do with getting & retaining power & wealth. Once achieved it seems that a certain personality type will do anything to retain it - To the point where it is ridiculous. How much money, for example, can one human being or even his family spend in a lifetime? They are not satisfied with millions, they steal billions from their people. People who are all too often living in abject poverty. Just like us, dictators cannot take money or possessions with them when they die. None of us actually own anything, we just have the use of it while we are alive.
My second point is what on earth should we do with men who are capable of this behaviour? Is there really any punishment which reflects the crimes they have committed other than capital punishment? If we bring such punishment back, where will it end & who will administer it? Do we really want to be like the Americans with all the huge flaws in their death penalty? So, do we just lock them away so they cannot harm anyone else & pay the huge costs involved in that?
Do we believe, as a society, that any criminal, however bad, should be given the opportunity to repent & be rehabilitated? Should these people be forced to come face to face with people whose lives they have destroyed in some form of restorative justice? Truth & Reconciliation as the South Africans did under Nelson Mandela. Are we capable as Nations of reaching any consensus on what should be done?
Finally, are we really sure, that given the right set of circumstances, each and every one of us might not behave in similar ways? I hope the answer is no in my case, but I can't be sure. If that is true, do I have the right to judge?
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Monday 22 August 2011
Death & Afterlife
I think there is an invisible wall between people who have / have not experienced the death of someone they are very close to. This results in a disconnect at the very time when the berieved are most in need of love and support. Many people simply don't know what to do, how to behave, how to show they care. So initial awkwardness sometimes leads to the loss of a friendship.
Serious illness, tragedy & death are very negative & sometimes people don't want to be closely involved with this. In our culture I feel there is also an intimacy barrier. Having to face the raw emotions of a friend or neighbour in this situation is something many shy away from. Also sometimes berieved people who have revealed their deep emotions feel they have gone too far and shared too much. My feeling is that it's better to do something rather than nothing, better to show you care as soon as possible and for as long as it is needed. It isn't about you, it's about the berieved.
We accept life as our right and due. We should be able accept death in the same way. Grief should be liberating, the open door to a new life. After the funeral all too often everything stops. The communications and invitations from friends get less & further apart. This is understandable given the frantic pace of many people's lives. We all have to make our own life & get on with it. Stepping into a new world when you are alone is quite hard though.
So you really do value the real friends, the ones who do make the effort to include you & do offer help when it's needed. They are very special, a treasure beyond compare. I am very thankful for all of mine. I would have managed without them, but not very well.
Serious illness, tragedy & death are very negative & sometimes people don't want to be closely involved with this. In our culture I feel there is also an intimacy barrier. Having to face the raw emotions of a friend or neighbour in this situation is something many shy away from. Also sometimes berieved people who have revealed their deep emotions feel they have gone too far and shared too much. My feeling is that it's better to do something rather than nothing, better to show you care as soon as possible and for as long as it is needed. It isn't about you, it's about the berieved.
We accept life as our right and due. We should be able accept death in the same way. Grief should be liberating, the open door to a new life. After the funeral all too often everything stops. The communications and invitations from friends get less & further apart. This is understandable given the frantic pace of many people's lives. We all have to make our own life & get on with it. Stepping into a new world when you are alone is quite hard though.
So you really do value the real friends, the ones who do make the effort to include you & do offer help when it's needed. They are very special, a treasure beyond compare. I am very thankful for all of mine. I would have managed without them, but not very well.
Thursday 18 August 2011
Straws & Camels Backs
Living where I do there are lots of steep hills & narrow roads with roadside parking. I think if I am driving uphill I have priority & oncoming traffic is supposed to give way. That's what I do anyway & I acknowledge people who give way to me. I am constantly surprised that other drivers ignore this polite rule & don't bother to wave in thanks when I let them pass. I'm infuriated when I am labouring uphill & a driver, often of a 4x4 or big car, drives straight at me downhill.
Ditto, when there is not enough room for 2 cars side by side, drivers who keep coming, when if they just reversed a short distance, could allow me to pass. So I end up reversing for a much longer distance & have scraped my car on the cotswold stone walls several times.
I am sorely tempted to just replicate their bad behaviour & keep going. I have done this very occasionally when it is very blatant, but been subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse.
I'm also getting so fed up with floods of nuisance calls, that I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime & being very curt & rude. Mostly these calls are "international", so you know what's coming if you don't have lots of foreign calls. But now there are also "witheld" callers, so you don't know if they are bona fide. You can't use call barring for international calls - why not? You have to respond to witheld calls because they may be genuine. I'm tempted to have a piercing whistle next to the phone to use once I've established who the caller is.
There is something about having your personal space invaded, whether it's real or rhetorical which is very annoying. There are barriers which other people should not cross unless invited.
I had a phone call yesterday from a wine company & the script obviously called for the caller to use my christian name ridiculously regularly. I didn't solicit the call, I wasn't interested in buying the product & I didn't know him or want to. This made me very averse to the company, who I have bought wine from once before. So their marketing has had completely the opposite effect to what they wanted, which was to drum up sales.
There is a tiger within me & one day it will get out & I will completely lose it. So beware!
Ditto, when there is not enough room for 2 cars side by side, drivers who keep coming, when if they just reversed a short distance, could allow me to pass. So I end up reversing for a much longer distance & have scraped my car on the cotswold stone walls several times.
I am sorely tempted to just replicate their bad behaviour & keep going. I have done this very occasionally when it is very blatant, but been subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse.
I'm also getting so fed up with floods of nuisance calls, that I'm breaking the habit of a lifetime & being very curt & rude. Mostly these calls are "international", so you know what's coming if you don't have lots of foreign calls. But now there are also "witheld" callers, so you don't know if they are bona fide. You can't use call barring for international calls - why not? You have to respond to witheld calls because they may be genuine. I'm tempted to have a piercing whistle next to the phone to use once I've established who the caller is.
There is something about having your personal space invaded, whether it's real or rhetorical which is very annoying. There are barriers which other people should not cross unless invited.
I had a phone call yesterday from a wine company & the script obviously called for the caller to use my christian name ridiculously regularly. I didn't solicit the call, I wasn't interested in buying the product & I didn't know him or want to. This made me very averse to the company, who I have bought wine from once before. So their marketing has had completely the opposite effect to what they wanted, which was to drum up sales.
There is a tiger within me & one day it will get out & I will completely lose it. So beware!
Sunday 14 August 2011
Straight Lines
Have you noticed
How life is full of straight lines?
No deviation.
The juxtaposition of lines & right angles.
Rectangles.
Space enclosed in regimented lines.
Empty.
But are they?
Even a white space
Is a subtle mixture of shades of grey.
What about a blackboard?
Such freedom.
You can fill it with anything you like
And then destroy it.
I can say anything
However outrageous
And leave no trace.
Who invented boxes?
Without boxes
Where would you keep life's trivia?
The television is just a box
Full of people who aren't really there
Who populate my world.
I can create, destroy & re-create them at will.
Walls, floors & ceilings enclose me.
Rooms & their contents,
Represent my life.
Everything enclosed, fenced, rigid.
Why?
Are we safer within straight lines?
Contained, restricted.
No choices.
Why not round rooms?
I wish there were more curves.
Val Carlill - Written years ago & amended today.
How life is full of straight lines?
No deviation.
The juxtaposition of lines & right angles.
Rectangles.
Space enclosed in regimented lines.
Empty.
But are they?
Even a white space
Is a subtle mixture of shades of grey.
What about a blackboard?
Such freedom.
You can fill it with anything you like
And then destroy it.
I can say anything
However outrageous
And leave no trace.
Who invented boxes?
Without boxes
Where would you keep life's trivia?
The television is just a box
Full of people who aren't really there
Who populate my world.
I can create, destroy & re-create them at will.
Walls, floors & ceilings enclose me.
Rooms & their contents,
Represent my life.
Everything enclosed, fenced, rigid.
Why?
Are we safer within straight lines?
Contained, restricted.
No choices.
Why not round rooms?
I wish there were more curves.
Val Carlill - Written years ago & amended today.
Thursday 11 August 2011
Law & Disorder
The rioting & looting of the last few nights in our cities has been shocking. It shows how superficial the veneer of civilised behaviour is & how close to the surface anarchy lurks. But why are we surprised? History, here & the world over, is littered with examples of this phenomenon. Yet again I wonder why we don't learn from the lessons which are so clear for us to see.
We are all capable of good & bad behaviour given the right circumstances. Hopefully we are not all capable of the sort of violent, selfish and abhorrent acts we have seen on TV lately. But the gang mentality seems to be very strong, in males particularly. We are animals with strong drives. If those drives are not tempered by an upbringing which values a moral code & ideas of responsibility, respect & caring we end up with people who can behave in the ways we have just seen on TV & many have directly experienced to their cost.
If humans are not reared in a secure, loving environment which meets their basic needs then they become disfunctional & repeat the disfunctional patterns of behaviour they have learned from their parents - the very people who should love & nurture them. The first 5 years of a child's life are the most important time in their development. The behaviours they develop are copied from the "adults" who rear them. If those adults don't have the understanding or the skills to parent properly we need to tackle that problem. There is a great deal of talk about the "underclass". But in my experience there are seriously disfunctional families at all levels of society. If we only focus on the poor & disadvantaged we will fail.
We are so fixated on our rights as adults, we have forgotten about our responsibilities to those who are vulnerable in our families & the wider community. Life seems to be all about self gratification & selfishness. So both ends of the spectrum are now not being cared for properly - the very young & the very old. What about their rights? If we cease to be caring individuals we cannot have a caring society. If we pass on responsibility to an organisation or the state our society will fail. We are all responsible for this crisis in some way. We all have a duty & a responsibility to do something about it. It isn't going to be solved by a charity or a group of politicians. We, the people, have to change ourselves & the way we live together for the better.
I wonder if we can? This is a warning. The price we will all pay if it isn't heeded will be very high indeed. Quite literally we might be living through the endgame of life as we know it. The outcome is up to us.
Read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond if you don't believe me.
We are all capable of good & bad behaviour given the right circumstances. Hopefully we are not all capable of the sort of violent, selfish and abhorrent acts we have seen on TV lately. But the gang mentality seems to be very strong, in males particularly. We are animals with strong drives. If those drives are not tempered by an upbringing which values a moral code & ideas of responsibility, respect & caring we end up with people who can behave in the ways we have just seen on TV & many have directly experienced to their cost.
If humans are not reared in a secure, loving environment which meets their basic needs then they become disfunctional & repeat the disfunctional patterns of behaviour they have learned from their parents - the very people who should love & nurture them. The first 5 years of a child's life are the most important time in their development. The behaviours they develop are copied from the "adults" who rear them. If those adults don't have the understanding or the skills to parent properly we need to tackle that problem. There is a great deal of talk about the "underclass". But in my experience there are seriously disfunctional families at all levels of society. If we only focus on the poor & disadvantaged we will fail.
We are so fixated on our rights as adults, we have forgotten about our responsibilities to those who are vulnerable in our families & the wider community. Life seems to be all about self gratification & selfishness. So both ends of the spectrum are now not being cared for properly - the very young & the very old. What about their rights? If we cease to be caring individuals we cannot have a caring society. If we pass on responsibility to an organisation or the state our society will fail. We are all responsible for this crisis in some way. We all have a duty & a responsibility to do something about it. It isn't going to be solved by a charity or a group of politicians. We, the people, have to change ourselves & the way we live together for the better.
I wonder if we can? This is a warning. The price we will all pay if it isn't heeded will be very high indeed. Quite literally we might be living through the endgame of life as we know it. The outcome is up to us.
Read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond if you don't believe me.
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