Eton going Epicurean?

Posted by on

Eton College is adding gratitude, kindness and empathy coaching to its curriculum to build its pupils’ “character”. Following a review into what values Eton should be promoting, boys at the £40,700-a-year school are being taught to take a moment each day to acknowledge how others have helped them and what they have to be grateful for.

What kept them?  My own experience of Old Etonians was at university, where a certain sub-set of them (not all!) proved to be rude, obnoxious and entitled.  Yes, they were in addition rich and titled.  What a shame the school hadn’t introduced them to the thought of Epicurus (or anyone else, if it comes to that) long ago.

This cannot stand!

Posted by on

Lawmakers in Alabama have passed a bill that virtually bans abortion. The legislation, to be signed by the state’s Republican governor, outlaws abortion except in cases where the pregnancy poses a “serious health risk to the mother”, the “unborn child has a lethal anomaly”, or the pregnancy is ectopic (in an abnormal place or position). . A Democrat amendment to allow exceptions for victims of rape or incest was rejected. Doctors who perform abortions could be jailed for life. The state’s Republicans have said they hope to use the bill to challenge Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to abortion. Several states have recently passed laws severely restricting access to abortions. Last week, Georgia banned abortions once a foetal heartbeat can be detected, which is often as early as six weeks.  Extremists expect the issue to reach the Supreme Court and have  abortion banned nationwide. Missouri has  now followed Alabama and Georgia.

It’s always the men, isn’t it?  The ultimate case of male chauvinism. Men don’t have babies and don’t have to look after them 24/7.  They  pay no heed to the intelligence and instincts of women or their personal situations, and think it appropriate to dictate to them on an excruciatingly personal matter such as giving birth, often without the loving support of a spouse.  Miserable marriages, rape, incest, flimsy means of support?  Never mind, men know best and have biblical quotes to support them. They should get out of the private lives of women they’ve  never met and don’t give a damn about!  There are already too many unhappy, struggling  people in this world – to bring more into the world by force of law is both un- Epicurean, counters pragmatic common sense, and is arguably a modern sin.

I hope this will bring out the women in force at election time to finally despatch the mis-named “good ‘ole boys” from power for good.

 

Assaults on teachers

Posted by on

Nearly 25% of UK teachers say they are physically attacked by pupils at least once a week, a study by the NASUWT union has found.  The report found that 89% have suffered physical or verbal abuse in the past year, and 49% say that at their school it is considered part of the job. The NASUWT also warned that pupils as young as 11 are harassing teachers by taking “upskirting” pictures; and that teachers are being subjected to “aggressive contact” from parents, as a result of schools giving out their email addresses.  (The Week, 27 April 2019)

Years ago, as an employer in a small business, I was invited by the head teacher at the secondary school next door to our factory ( in a poor, mainly black, neighborhood) to talk to the older, teenage children about employment and what to expect when they started work.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it turned out a disaster, which I have never forgotten. The kids, all about 16,  were out of control, talking over me, fighting, throwing things at one another, and muttering racial epithets at me before I had finished my first sentence.  The teacher was unable to quieten the main disrupters at the back of the classroom, and, poor man, seemed to have no means of instilling discipline.  He was essentially a “babysitter”, some of whose charges were brawnier  and more street-wise than he was.  Two or three kids, at the front of the class, listened and asked questions, but I could see that they were the object of derision as far as the bullies at the back were concerned.

One can’t generalise from one South London school or from a brief  experience, but one thing seemed certain at the time – the attitude of indifference and disrespect was brought from mainly single- parent homes and manifested itself in the classroom.  And nothing seems to have changed in nearly fifty years.  This can’t be addressed by reparations for slavery. That I felt humiliated while trying to offer well-meant advice didn’t matter; I wasn’t physically assaulted.   But what to do about the bullying and indifference to schooling and authority is/was a different matter.  In this case Epicurean courtesy and respect did not work.  What will?  You can lead a horse to water……….

Reparations for slavery

Posted by on

Letter to The Times

The proposal by Cambridge University to devote resources neither to teaching nor to research, but to virtue signalling over slavery is not only questionable for a charity, but also an endorsement of notions of hereditary guilt. Leaving aside the prevalence of coercive labour systems across much of the world, including Africa, throughout much of history, and the major role of African polities in the enslavement and sale of people, there is a preference for beating up on the past rather than addressing slavery in the world today. Public slavery in the shape of those oppressed under totalitarian rule, for example in North Korea, is particularly serious.

With the Left unable to use the Holocaust as a key signifier in historical consciousness, it has focused on the slave trade as an alternative and equivalent – inaccurately so, for the purpose of slavery was not to kill slaves.

Reparation for a distant and very widespread practice is absurd, both practically and philosophically. That the idea is gaining traction is an instance of the strange politics of these times.  (Jeremy Black, professor of history, Exeter University, pub. in The Week. 10 May 2019)

While I sympathise with the African American community in the  United States, I think reparations, as an idea, are inappropriate and would achieve nothing.  If you distribute a couple of thousand dollars, say, to every African American, as with most human beings , it would be a case of “come today, gone tomorrow”,  Money by itself cannot erase an historical problem or a folk memory. The best things you can do is to give minorities a good education, a good start in life , and finally prepare them for challenging and well- paid jobs in the modern economy, on the basis of racial equality.  (Problem – far too few youngsters of all backgrounds are getting a good education, except for a minority of well- to- do families).  The second thing I would do is to radically reduce the incidence of black incarceration, but this requires reform of the policing and legal system.  First, though, reform education, give it more resources and attract good teachers .

Sex and the Catholic church

Posted by on

In the early church nearly all Christian priests were married.  Popes tried to ban marriage and co- habitation,  but to little effect.  Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) said that all sexual desire is sinful in itself (meaning that sexual desire is intrinsically evil?), but right up to the 800’s the majority of priests were nonetheless married.

In 836, at the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle it was openly admitted that abortions and infanticide took place in convents and monasteries to cover up activities of uncelibate clerics.  As a result a very intelligent Saint, called St. Ulrich, a holy bishop, argued from scripture and common sense that the only way to purify the church from the worst excesses of celibacy was to permit priests to marry (Bravo!  he’s my favourite saint!).

The debate continued until in 1074 Pope Gregory VII proclaimed that  anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy: “priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives”.  It was at the 1st and 2nd Lateran Councils in 1123 and 1139 that clerical marriages were declared invalid, Pope Innocent II
(appropriate name) finally confirming the decision in 1139.

Pope Pelagius II let the cat out of the bag.  His policy was not to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children.  In other words, it :was all about money and preventing priests from passing land and houses on ( legally) to their offspring.  Celibacy was never scriptural, and was never mentioned by Jesus or his disciples.   So why not scrap it now and at least give no excuse for priests to abuse their parishioners?  Seems a no-brainer.

Incidentally, as late as the 15 th  Century it is estimated  that 50% of priests were married and that this was  accepted by the people.  So what’s the big problem with priestly marriage?

Does more than 2 hours of screen time really harm children’s brains?

Posted by on

It seems intuitive that children’s schoolwork will suffer if they spend too much time gazing at their phones instead of getting to bed or getting some exercise. And that is broadly what a recent study has found. But should parents be panicked into pulling the plug on their kids’ electronic devices.

Jeremy Walsh at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Ottowa, Canada, and his colleagues evaluated the lifestyle data  of 4520 US children, 8 to 11, and how far they  met various Canadian government guidelines on cognition.   These suggest limiting screen time to 2 hours a day, sleeping for 9 to 11 hours a night and spending at least an hour being physically active.

More than a third – 1655 children – met the guideline for limiting screen time, and their average performance in the cognitive tests was 4.5 per cent higher than that of the 1330 children who met none of the guidelines. The gain was even higher, at 5.2 per cent, for those meeting both the screen-time and sleep recommendations (The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, doi.org/ct95).  The US study is running for a further 10 years, and will enable researchers to track whether the children change their behaviour over time, and whether screen time depletes cognitive performance.

Two caveats:  What the the survey didn’t reveal was what the children were doing on their screens, which could be either educational or trivial. To truly understand the impact of digital media on children, researchers must understand not only how much, but also how, what, where and with whom they’re watching.  Secondly, the answers were self- reported by the children .  Can 8 to 11-year-old children reliably report their own screen and physical activity behaviour?

More research will make the data more reliable.   So far the lessons are sensible: parents should try to set some limits on screen time, especially prior to bedtime . Screen time before bed is doubly problematic because it keeps kids up later, and exposure to light impairs sleep quality, cognition and the general working of he brain..  (Andy Coghlan. New Scientist , 23 Oct 2018).

So now I am off to the gym, where I will find numerous young adults staring fixedly at their phones or treadmill screens – with exercising an incidental.  Epicurus never opined about exercise, as far as I know, but then there were the Olympics and the near- worship of physical fitness.  Add to that sunset and the difficulty of reading after sun-down, and I guess the ancient Greeks must have been psychologically well- adjusted.  They certainly produced some smart philosophers.

Mafia steals billions: surprise, surprise

Posted by on

The Italian Mafia has made €3bn over the past ten years by siphoning off EU funds intended for farmers within Sicily’s largest national park, according to a former director of the park, who survived a Mafia assassination attempt in 2016.

In his new book, Giuseppe Antoci claims that Cosa Nostra clans use threats to deter farmers within the 210,000-acre Nebrodi National Park from bidding for land leases, then secure the leases at low rates through front companies to gain access to millions in EU subsidies. Anti-Mafia prosecutors say that, across Italy, the clans have expanded beyond their traditional activities of extortion, drug dealing and prostitution, and moved into the farming and food sectors. They put the value of the “agro-Mafia business” – which affects the entire food chain, from producers to restaurants – at more €22bn last year.  (The Week Feb 13 2019)

So the Cosa Nostra bullies farmers and get their hands on land and EU subsidies.  If you are a European this is your money that is being swindled from the EU.  On this issue I sympathise with the EU critics (who are not only British).  The EU seems incompetent to deal with fraud, which has been going on for decades ( centuries?).  The problem is that the EU citizens are not being swindled only by the mafia.  We can guess at the extent of fraud,  but know few details.  However, the mafia has always been with us and will continue thus.  The answer is not to scrap the EU, but to beef up law enforcement.

In contrast to media Wikipedia arguments are quite civilised

Posted by on

An analysis of millions of Wikipedia articles suggests that ideologically diverse groups can not only cooperate effectively, but also produce better work than homogenous groups. How did Wikipedia succeed where much of the online world has failed?

Misha Teplitskiy and his colleagues at Harvard University looked at the editors of Wikipedia articles on politics, science and social issues and categorised them by their political and social attitudes.   The most active editors were clustered around the ideological extremes and the more editors an article attracted, the more likely it was to attract them from both sides of the political spectrum.

The team found that the intense disagreement that happens between ideologically polarised editors often led to a more focused debate, with editors on both sides admitting the process had improved the final article.  Meanwhile an unbalanced article attracts more offensive language on the Talk page.

Part of Wikipedia’s successful bipartisanship is down to design. “On Twitter, if you don’t like the climate change debate, you can go off to your own echo chamber,” says Teplitskiy. “On Wikipedia, if you want to talk about climate change, there is only one place to do it.”

The findings suggest that even ideologically opposed people can cooperate when working towards a meaningful goal, and that to make this happen both parties need to agree to a common set of rules, and have a clear arbitration process in place for when disagreements do flare up.  Tense disagreements can often lead to a more focused debate, with editors on both sides admitting the process had improved the final article.

The attempt to moderate 1 billion users on Twitter and Facebook  has failed because there is no consensus about the rules, and no clear objectives, either.  If people are not prepared to abide by rules of conduct all you can do is ban them.

Journal reference: Nature Human Behaviour, DOI: 10.1038/s41562-019-0541-6 (Frank Swain, Gary Cameron, Reuters)

Raise taxes on the rich!

Posted by on

A majority of people living in developed countries want their government to tax the rich more to help the poor, according to an OECD survey of 21 countries. “Too many people feel they cannot count fully on their government when they need help,” said Ángel Gurría, secretary general of the OECD, which polled 22,000 people. The UK was not included in the study, but almost 80% of people in Portugal and Greece wanted the rich taxed more, as did half of US respondents. Almost half of Americans in the survey said they would pay 2% more income tax to receive better healthcare, and one-third would be prepared to pay a 2% levy in return for better state education. (The Guardian, 12 March 2019).

Every day there are stories about heads of companies who pay themselves multi millions a year, while their low level employees have barely enough to live on.  This is unsustainable, and if the recipients of these massive salaries do not have the wisdom and human decency to acknowledge the huge disparities in wealth they will deserve no sympathy when the system upends, which I believe it must.

Under Eisenhower, in 1951, 90% was the top marginal rate of tax on high incomes.  (under a Republican administration, as well, although not many people paid it).  Even in 1980 it was still 70% In other words the rich had plenty to live on, but a big hunk of the top (or excessive, depending on your viewpoint) bit of top taxed income went to governments to support decent housing, health and education.  There was no mass famine or desperate suicides among the super-rich; at least, they were not  reported.

Over the years the rich have been able to reverse these high tax rates, pouring money at lobbyists and right-wing think tanks, to great effect.  The marginal rate is  now 37%.  The United States has morphed into an nationalist oligarchy, although most voters haven’t noticed it and still support politicians who constantly act against their best economic interests, responding only to their financial masters.

This, on top of climate change and the rise of illiberal China, will all end badly for the short- sighted and greedy.  I believe Epicurus would agree, were he with us.

 

 

One person’s (very personal) journey towards Epicureanism

Posted by on

When I was seven years old I was sent to a boarding school.  There I was cheek by jowl with the other little boys, sharing ice-cold baths in the morning and crammed into small rooms with eight other boys, teasing and being teased. There was no privacy whatsoever.

On to the next school at 13, which was precisely the same, except the bullying had been institutionalised over four hundred years.  The little boys ran errands for the senior boys, you never cried in front of anyone and you were expected to excel at rugby, cricket and field hockey. Contrary to popular expectation I never came across any hint of sexual harassment (or sexual activity. Even smiling at a girl from the nearby girl’s boarding school was a reason for expulsion), Life at school was lonely misery.  The objective was to toughen a generation and erase messy emotion so that the kids could go on to be tough managers without misgivings.

After that I had two years in the Army, under canvas and in acute discomfort, commanding 45 men on active service, and, again, cheek by jowl with my men, with whom I had absolutely zero in common, but from whom I learned so much about man management and the importance of humour.

The above is a background to the reasons why I am now running this blog.  An average little boy (me) had to work out a means of survival that did not involve running home to Mum and Dad (Heaven forfend!).  I worked out in my little brain that everyone else was suffering too in this great concentration camp, designed to have you grin and bear almost anything.  Others too needed a sympathetic pair of ears, real conversations about real feelings, and I reckoned if I offered them, along with a good laugh, I would win friends.

I went to chapel every day when little, and have nothing against moderate, organised religion.  But it seemed to me that inter-personal relationships were key, developing empathy, trying to put yourself in the shoes of others, keeping your word to the very best of your ability, treating subordinates, workers, acquaintances and suppliers fairly and decently, and being moderate in all things – these were the priority for a life that you could look back on with (moderate) pride, a  sort of Christianity without the supernatural, the priests,  Hell and Damnation.

Years later I read the extant writings of Epicurus and immediately related to the words and thoughts. These are the very principles I’ve worked out for myself, I thought, without a single course in  philosophy or prompting from my betters.  As a result, this is my 2,500th posting on a blog that tries to apply Epicurean principles to modern issues.

Britain is the bolthole for crooked money from all over the world

Posted by on

More than 87,000 properties in England and Wales, worth £100bn in total, are owned by anonymous companies registered in tax havens.  (The Week, 23 March 2019)

If you think this is sleazy, wait until Britain is out of the EU.  Given the main cheerleaders of Brexit one has to conclude that one motivation of the better- off Brexiteers is to build on the UK’s reputation as a the money laundering centre of the world, attracting the most disagreeable people.   It is up there already.  In the part of London I know best a big proportion of properties are owned by (corrupt?) foreigners, Russians being prominent.  Ordinary British people can’t, of course, afford these homes, whose values have sky- rocketed, leaving rows of usually empty houses owned from abroad.  Meanwhile,  the  building of new homes used to be the task of local councils, but successive governments have reduced their powers and their financial resources.  Homelessness continues upwards.

One of the few possibly positive  outcomes of Brexit, I thought ( in more charitable moments) was that, once a large contingent of ordinary working immigrants had left the country, the homelessness and affordability problem would improve.  Maybe it will, but then there will be no one to do painting, carpentry, plumbing or electrics.

Epicureanism is based upon pleasure in life, not just for the out-touch super- rich, but for everyone.  A secure roof over your head and the financial ability to pay for its upkeep is a core principle of Epicurean decency. The rich people who agitated for Brexit will always be able to afford pleasant, well-kept homes.  Others, alas , will not.

Reconnecting with the voters

Posted by on

If we really want the parties to reconnect with voters, we should import – from Australia, say, or Brazil – a far more important innovation: compulsory voting. Obliging people to cast a ballot may sound illiberal: but it has the huge advantage of forcing political parties “to reach beyond their comfort zone”. Labour could no longer seek to win elections by “wooing public sector, welfare-dependent and unionised voters”, or the Tories by wooing “the propertied, wealthy and rural”. It would also put an end to the favouritism shown to older voters. That 76% of pensioners voted in 2010, but only 44% of eligible first-time voters did, explains why the heaviest cuts have fallen on younger people with families. With compulsory voting, parties would have to consider the effects of their policies on everyone. Insisting that voters devote 20 minutes of their time once every four or five years to the act of voting seems a small price to pay.  (Tim Montgomerie,  The Times).

 Yes, this is very do-able and it works fine in countries like Australia. Opponents would be libertarians (wrongly , in my opinion.  A government should govern for all the people, and all the people should get to choose).  The other people who would strongly object are the very people who have been trying to prevent the poor and  people of colour (a.k.a presumed Democrats) from voting, or gerrymandering the constituency boundaries, which amounts to the same thing.  In any case, not voting is not some kind of political statement  – it’s a lazy person’s cop- out.  Every citizen should vote!

 

Five things you shouldn’t do

Posted by on

Don’t smoke

The Hisayama Study, an ongoing investigation of a suburban Japanese community, has found that smoking in mid to late life not only raises the risk of lung cancer, but also ups the chance of developing dementia. Smokers who quit, even in their 40s or 50s, didn’t see the same rise in risk.

Don’t binge on booze (or go teetotal)

Too much is bad, but so is too little. The latest large studies on alcohol consumption suggest that those who drink excessively or give up completely are more likely to suffer cognitive decline.  Those who drink moderately fare better.

Don’t retire early

The Whitehall Study, which followed some 3500 UK civil servants as they aged, found that retirement seemed to accelerate cognitive decline, especially related to verbal memory. (Yes, this is a sweeping statement –  it depends what you do in retirement.  My wife and I wrote music for twenty years, which is excellent for the brain, hers, anyway).

Don’t gulp down sugar

Even one extra sugary drink a day is associated with having significantly reduced total brain volume. That was the finding of a 2017 study looking at nearly 4000 people. That drink also worsened memories of personal experiences.

Don’t lose those last few pounds

Being a healthy weight is an all-round good idea. But don’t go too far. A study that investigated the diets of some 2 million people over 20 years found that, compared with people of a healthy weight, underweight people had a 34 per cent higher risk of getting dementia. ( New Scientist 26 Jan 2019)

All these studies do seem to have one underlying idea or conclusion behind them : no need to metaphorically wear sackcloth and ashes and be miserable in pursuit of health.  Do what you enjoy, but do it moderately.  This is what Epicurus was teaching in ancient Athens.

 

Evolution

Posted by on

Only 40% of adults in the United States believe evolution to be “true”.  A third of American adults positively believe it to be false, presumably believing that God delivered man and woman,  fully formed, to the Garden of Eden five thousand years ago, as per one of the Hebrew creation myths (there were two of them – read Genesis).  And 78 % of all American adults are happy with the idea of natural selection in plants and animals, just so long as the word “evolution” is not mentioned in the same breath. It must be reassuring to think we are SO special, us humans! 

This ranks the US with Turkey in terms of resistance both  to reason and to scientific discovery, which begs the question, “ What is the role schools and teachers in America?”  Are the teachers simply babysitters, keeping an eye on phone- obsessed kids while their parents are out at work?  What are children learning?   Good question. There are doubtless many children who are open- minded and who reject the long- discredited, but stubbornly- held beliefs of their parents.   But while we still have adults who seriously believe that Genesis states the literal truth about creation, we have to put up with a vocal section of the population who reject every aspect of science, but who hold very significant political power.   

You can’t make America great again when such large numbers of your fellow citizens trash science, scientists and professional research, and elect Know Nothing people who regard anyone educated as “elite”.  Most of the scientists and researchers I have ever encountered were good, nice, interesting and articulate people, but “elite”.   Hardly.

Ignorance rules.  Was it like this fifty years ago?

Unhappier and unhappier

Posted by on

According to data produced by the General Social Survey Americans are getting more miserable.  On a scale between 1 and 3, where 1 represents “not too happy” and 3 means “very happy”,  Americans on average give themselves 2.18.  In 1993 the figure peaked at 2.26.  The downward trend has been confirmed in the latest World Happiness Report, the overall life satisfaction of Americans falling 6% between 2007 and 2018.  Reasons given for the fall include:

  •  Social media:  young people, alone on their phones or computers, watching others who seem  so good looking, apparently successful, earning good money, with plenty of friends.
  • The opioid epidemic
  • The poor state of health of very many Americans, linked with soaring health costs and the sheer frustration of dealing with health insurance companies, whose objective in life seems to be not to pay out.
  • The gig economy and chronic economic insecurity.
  • Wretched housing and lack of local amenities experienced by black people, plus the insecurity caused by guns.
  • The general feeling of helplessness in a society which is dominated by a very rich 1%, the perceived unfairness and the corruption caused by too much money being flung at politicians in return for favours.
  • The catch-22 situation that young people find themselves in – they are told they have to go college or university to get a good job, but in the process acquire huge student debts that often prevent them saving enough to buy their own houses.

In the Republican desperation to reduce taxes and benefits, aimed at the poor, to jthe benefit of their election donors we have got it all wrong.  Society should not be so skewed and so unfair.  We will surely pay for it.