“Death – we make too much of it. All religions do. Of course, I may alter my opinion”. (Winston Churchill)
Integrating those who don’t want to be integrated
The immigrants who went, especially from Pakistan, to Britain, and who have formed large communities in places like Bradford, have notoriously failed to integrate. Actually, it’s a bit more complex than that. The young women of Pakistani origin seem to have taken advantage of British freedoms to educate themselves and become medics or accountants. They are a fine example of what you can do if you are offered an opportunity. The men, however, still seem to cling to the old ways, considering themselves, for instance, superior to women. Some have been radicalized in the new British mosques.
Part of the fault lies with the Labour Party, which adopted a deconstructionist policy of “everything’s acceptable; there’s no right or wrong. Form your mini-Pakistans if you want to”. This was never wise. Immigrants migrate because there are no jobs at home, or because of political violence, corruption etc. It is unreasonable, whether you are an ardent moslem or a hasidic Jew, to spurn the country that gave you shelter, freedom, education and opportunity, not to mention government payouts and health benefits. Actually, it is a form of racism, and breeds reciprocal racism. Epicureans do not approve of racism.
I am all in favour of tolerance but share the concern about the attitudes of immigrants who seem to despise Western values and refuse to fit it. They are free to return to their homeland, but don’t want to do that either. If you decide to support ISIS and think your fellow citizens are infidels not to be tolerated, then you should be treated exactly the same as those other subverters of Western values – the NAZI and Fascist sympathizers during the Second World War. Tolerance has to have limits or it becomes licence. To this extent I do sympathize with the supporters of Brexit, who want to cut themselves off from immigration. I regard myself as liberal; imagine the private views of some who regard themselves as conservatives.
The boss is spying on you!
Bosses can not only legally monitor your company email and internet browser history, they can also log keystrokes to check your productivity and even see what you type on private services like Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have a work cellphone, your employer can pinpoint your precise location through GPS. A survey from the American Management Association found that at least 66 percent of U.S. companies monitor their employees’ internet use, 45 percent log keystrokes, and 43 percent track employee emails. In 2009, UPS fitted its delivery trucks with about 200 sensors that track everything from driving speeds to stop times. This allowed the firm to find out which drivers were sneaking breaks, and to determine how many deliveries could be squeezed into one day. Within four years, the company was handling 1.4 million additional packages a day with 1,000 fewer drivers. Employees, of course, resent the relentless monitoring. One UPS driver told Harper’s that the company used performance metrics like “a mental whip,” adding, “People get intimidated and they work faster.” A 2013 study of five chain restaurants found that eateries that used point-of-sale surveillance systems saw a 22 percent drop in theft on average, and a 7 percent increase in revenue.
All this monitoring is done automatically: software programs scan employee’s email accounts and computer files and alert supervisors to anything inappropriate, such as an employee visiting a pornographic website. The American Management Association says a quarter of large and midsize firms have fired employees for misusing office email or the internet. There are effectively no restraints or legal protections against prying employers. Employment experts say workers should avoid doing anything on their company computer or phone that they wouldn’t want their superiors to see. You have to assume you’re being monitored.
On the other hand, it’s a tricky balance — if employees discover their boss has been spying on Google searches they thought were private, office morale can plummet. “Right at the heart of all of this is trust,” says Ken Oehler of Aon Hewitt, a human-capital consulting firm. “What sort of message does it send that they need to monitor [workers’] desktops?” Companies might treat workers as mechanical ciphers, but in the end the workers has the last laugh – the bankruptcy of the company.
The state of education of our fellow citizens
The Australian neighbours of a friend of ours went to the Dept of Motor Vehicles to get DC driving licenses. Exchange with official:
“Do you have Australian licenses?”
“Yes”
“Well, you’ll have to get them translated into English.”
The importance of Lucretius
Epicurus was a very serious person and his work, now lost, may have been hard going. He was fortunate that Lucretius was later able to explain Epicureanism in an accessible way. His six volumes of poetry now rank as outstanding pieces of literature in Latin. You might have the greatest idea ever thought up, but if you cannot popularize it you are lost. It was the role of Lucretius to elucidate the ideas of the great philosopher.
De rerum natura deals with atomism, nature, the universe, the body and the soul. Everything, he says, can be explained by natural laws, not by superstition or the intervention of over-active gods. The idea gods waft around Mount Olympus but don’t create universes or concern themselves with our lives. The soul dies with the body. Death is natural and not to be feared, for we and our atoms are all re-cycled in the grand scheme of things. Mankind has free will. Earthquakes and sicknesses are not caused by witchcraft. People become sick from natural causes. Nothing can be produced from nothing, and nothing can be reduced to nothing. The planets and space have their origin in an infinite number of atoms in a great void, swerving, joining together, making new planets. The sun and moon, day and night, the seasons and natural calamities all obey a set of natural laws.
The work of Lucretius was anathema to the early Christian church, which effectively discredited him. Even today he doesn’t get the respect he deserves. The more one knows about the early christian church, its politics, power moves and intolerance, the more one values the calm, studied rationality of Epicurus.
The real importance of Lucretius lies in the fact that his work survived until modern times, since most Epicurean writings were deliberately destroyed. He and Epicurus (with a bow to Democritus before him) are responsible for helping to lay a foundation for the work of more scientifically proficient men during the Renaissance and Enlightenment.
The explosion, or revolution, that is scientific progress since the time of Galileo and Newton had one of its origins in the Garden. I say “one of its origins” because, for instance, a century before De rerum natura was rediscovered, men like William of Ockam and Francis Bacon were already applying scientific methods to the natural world. Lucretius was re-discovered at an opportune moment.