Of Babies and Bathwater

Francis Sedgemore quotes the following passage from a New Scientist article by Lawrence Krauss, in which the physicist at Case Western Reserve University tackles contemporary anti-scientism:

If this poetry of nature does not change the way we view our place in the universe, providing not mere facts but new meaning, then we are truly spiritually bereft. Yet too many people feel that they must invent alternative realities to justify human existence.

As a literary scholar - i.e. a person who makes a living from "alternative realities" - I find the latter statement not only bewilderingly naïve, but also fundamentally offputting. Krauss may make this point in the context of a more general critique of religious thinking, but, as Francis rightly points out, by extending a critique of religion to an attack on myth (i.e. the literary imagination) as a whole, Krauss fails to acknowledge the more general cognitive significance of our ability to create alternative realities.

I find this surprising, as I have been under the impression that the human mind’s fiction-making abilities have been one of the pet interests in the cognitive sciences in recent years – giving an entirely new (and timely) meaning to the term “constructionism”. Take the neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga, for instance, who has long emphasised the (unconscious) constructive and interpretive processes of the brain that allow humans to successfully navigate the world.

Furthermore, it seems plausible that our more conscious engagement in fiction-making may have cognitive and hence evolutionary significance, too. Storymaking and -telling are cross-cultural universals, a fact that has led evolutionary psychologists and humanities scholars influenced by evolutionary psychology to speculate on their adaptive significance. Michelle Scalise Sugiyama, for instance, suggests that (in our ancestral past) selection might have favoured groups in which vital information could be exchanged in particularly effective ways, notably in the form of stories.

Our storytelling ability seems to be related to the human brain's cognitive specificity. The cognitive psychologist Alan Leslie and the evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby have explored the implications of our brain's apparent and reliable ability to distinguish between fact and fiction - what is known as "decoupled cognition". Cosmides and Tooby have used this capacity as their point of departure to argue that our ability to create fictional realities is crucial to the ongoing (and pleasure-inducing) training of the human brain’s evolved architecture. We are not only able to create and enter fictional worlds, we have evolved to do so - and get a kick out of it to boot (see their essay "Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds?").

As the narratologist H. Porter Abbott put it in an essay on the evolutionary basis of the human capacity for storytelling (in Narrative 8/2000), this evolved capacity has helped shape human consciousness, developing not only our ability to represent lived experience, but also to imagine that which we have not yet experienced (and maybe never will):

Historical narrative, by its nature, extends away from what we are empirically aware of in the present; it goes back into the past where we cannot see or touch things yet still affirm them as true. It is a habit of mind that allows us to do what no other animal would think of doing – construct the truth. And it is also, of course, only a short remove from the fashioning of the immense analepsis which we call history to extend a world of time proleptically into the future, often with the same remarkable ability to make it true, despite a complete absence of empirical verifiability.

Religion, too, takes place on the level of narrative prolepsis; in that sense, it is intrinsically related to literature - and ought to be seen in this light. It is a fallacious argumentative leap to conclude (as Krauss seems to be doing) that all alternative worlds inevitably lead to dangerous scientific naivety. To the contrary (and that is the anti-ideology message that I torture my poor students with), the engagement with fictional worlds may actually train our critical abilities, asking us to explore the sources and intentions of ideas put forward within alternative worlds - however pleasant and comfortable we might find them.

Stop the presses

Following the blatant election farce in Zimbabwe, there are signs that the German government is finally putting pressure on the Munich-based company Giesecke & Devrient to cease its dealings with the Mugabe regime.

Among other activities, Giesecke & Devrient, according to their corporate website, 'is a leading supplier of banknote paper, banknote printing, [and] currency automation systems'. Among their many customers (such as the European Central Bank and the U.S. Government) is the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

As the Sunday Times reported back in March, cash (even rapidly devaluing cash -- the inflation rate in Zimbabwe is currently running at something like 160,000 percent) has been a crucial tool in the efforts by Mugabe and the Joint Operations Command to curry favour with key institutions, especially the military:

According to a source at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, G&D delivers 432,000 sheets of banknotes every week to Fidelity printers in Harare, where they are stamped with the denomination. Each sheet contains 40 notes and the current production is entirely in Z$10m notes.

Last week some of this money was used to award huge pay rises to the army in an apparent move to buy their loyalty ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections on March 29. Teachers belonging to a union supportive of the government were also given large sums.

Soldiers received windfalls of between Z$1.2 billion for privates and Z$3 billion for officers, while teachers received Z$500m on average. Those belonging to the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, which criticises Mugabe, were excluded.

Even despite such open bribery, as we know, the regime lost the election, though it succeeded in forcing through a run-off, then using terror and violence to ensure a result that would be laughable if it hadn't cost so many lives.

Pressure on Giesecke & Devrient has since grown, with increasing press attention in Germany and abroad and criticism from politicians becoming more vocal.

Now, according to Der Spiegel, development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (SDP) wrote to the company on Friday, strongly requesting that it cease delivering money to Zimbabwe. This may sound weak, but the government states it has no legal authority to take more direct steps in the absence of stronger EU or UN sanctions. The company also claims that it is abiding by World Bank rules.

Nonetheless, there are signs that a rising tide of political pressure, press coverage and public outcry might be working. After weeks of steadfastly denying that there was anything wrong in their dealings with Zimbabwe, Der Spiegel reports that the company has now agreed, following Wieczorek-Zeul's letter and further discussions with the Development Ministry, that they have to 'reconsider the situation'.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reports a German government spokesperson's statement that the 'whole German government stands behind Ms. Wieczorek-Zeul.'

This could be significant.

This is Zimbabwe (via) has provided excellent background on this issue and information for taking action, such as e-mail addresses and sample letters.

This seems a good moment to up the pressure on Giesecke & Devrient. See This is Zimbabwe for (continuously updated) suggestions.

[UPDATE] For what it's worth, I sent the following to some of the senior management contact addresses at Giesecke & Devrient, along with the general contact address, provided at This is Zimbabwe. (Background on the names provided there is available from the company's website.)

Feel free to re-use, adapt and improve as you wish (it's not perfect, I know, and I didn't have the time to come up with a German version. I'm sure that English will get the message through just as well...)

Dear ______

According to an article in Der Spiegel online (‘Deutsche Firma soll kein Banknotenpapier mehr liefern’, 27.6.2008), Development Minister Wieczorek-Zeul wrote to your company last Friday requesting that it cease its deliveries to Zimbabwe. This request has come, you are no doubt aware, in the wake of what Chancellor Merkel and many others have described as an electoral ‘farce’ engineered by Robert Mugabe and his supporters in the military.

The same article reports a spokesperson for your company as saying that Giesecke & Devrient are ‘reconsidering’ their relationship with Zimbabwe (To quote the article: ‘“Wir müssen die Lage neu bewerten”, sagte er.’)

I find this statement encouraging, and am writing to urge that your company suspend its contract with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe immediately.

As the London-based Sunday Times reported in an article in March (‘Planeloads of cash prop up Mugabe’, 2.3.2008), the brutal and illegitimate regime in Zimbabwe is assisted in maintaining its grip on power through its control of the money supply. In that article, a Zimbabwean professor points out that ‘The regime is surviving by printing money’ and opposition politicians describe how the banknotes your company provides have assisted the government’s efforts to stamp out opposition to its rule.

As a Zimbabwean banker quoted in that article observes, Giesecke & Devrient are, ultimately, ‘bankrolling the regime’: ‘These notes are being used to buy votes, to purchase foreign exchange to import electricity and vehicles to keep their regime going, and to fund the import of Chinese water cannons and police equipment to keep us intimidated.’

This article was written – you may note – before the more recent escalation in intimidation, violence and outright murder that Mugabe and his allies have unleashed upon the people of Zimbabwe and which has received detailed coverage in the German press.

Previous statements by Giesecke & Devrient spokespeople have argued that your company only deals with central banks rather than governments and that the transactions are made in accordance with World Bank rules. While both these statements may be true, they miss the point.

First, the Mugabe regime has effective control of the central bank, so the distinction is meaningless. Second, while your company’s relationship with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe may fit within current World Bank guidelines, these guidelines do not require your company to continue activities that clearly violate Giesecke & Devrient’s stated commitment – in its code of conduct – to ‘respect the personal dignity, privacy, and rights of every individual, regardless of their origin, nationality, culture, religion, or gender.’

Your company proudly claims that this commitment is valid ‘worldwide’.

If this is not to be seen as rank hypocrisy, I urge you to demonstrate this commitment to the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe by ceasing to deal with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe until such time as a legitimate, democratically elected government is in place.


Sincerely,

[Name and Address]

Articles referenced above:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,562644,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3466861.ece

Hinkende Vergleiche

Although we here (and others elsewhere) have commented on Angela Merkel's apparent authority over the German national soccer team, it is important that one's comparisons remain appropriate and fair. Just as a cuddly bat cannot be compared to batty Nicole Kidman, so furry Angela Merkel (photographed on a good hair day) cannot be compared to the hirsute (and happily deceased) Uday Hussein.

Of course, we know how to take a joke. Honestly, we do!

But we will not rise to the bait.

And vee vill vin!

Related Matters

On the day that Anglican traditionalists, driven not least by their dismay about the increasingly liberal attitudes of their Church vis-à-vis gay clergy and same-sex marriages, found a conservative "church within the church" at a meeting in Jerusalem, nationalist groups in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic stage violent protests against Christopher Street Day parades.

Yes, I am suggesting that a certain structural (and not only that) similarity exists between the anxious representatives of Gafcon (Global Anglican Future Conference) and the homophobic extremists throwing bottles and eggs in Sofia and Brno.

Weekend puzzle

How do you explain this, after having read this?

Vive la différence!

I am happy and relieved to learn, via the Guardian, that the letter "ß" (read: "Eszett"), probably the most idiosyncratic feature of the German language, has been granted the status of "special consonant found in western European languages" by the International Organisation of Standardisation (ISO).

Never heard of that organisation. But I guess it's an occasion to celebrate.

Winning by losing

The zen of German football is described by Steven Howard in The Sun, where he points out that the team has revealed to us 'the most important quality':

Winning when you are playing badly.

Now that is an approach to life that I can wholeheartedly embrace.

And, now that I think about it, this very same message reminds me of my favourite film.

Bad press

Today's Independent has an article with the following headline: "UFO sightings should be taken more seriously."

Intrigued by this promising piece of tabloidy trash, you read on and learn that David Clarke, lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, "believes that UFOs are a worthy subject for academic study."

So you continue further, mildly aghast at the fact that The Independent - which you naively thought to be one of the last few halfway serious papers around in the UK - would pay and publish such ... stuff (and completely muddled ... stuff at that).

Mr Clarke complains that he has so far failed to obtain funding for his UFO research:

Nobody's interested in it because it's got this image. It's a real shame, because there's massive amounts of interesting material, but we're too close to the material in time. It's perfectly acceptable for historians to study witchcraft mania in the Middle Ages, but because this is happening here and now, and these are people we can go and speak to, it's a little too close.

The "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio/Than are dream't of in our Philosophy" argument is of course a long-standing strategy amongst sectarian maniacs who wish to construe scientifically-minded rationalists as dangerously blinkered positivists and a serious threat to the progress of science.

The aim of such arguments, however, is exactly the opposite of the alleged salvation of scientific knowledge. "There are always mysteries in life," Van Helsing tells Dr Seward in Stoker's Dracula, brandishing his host and rosary and positively salivating at the opportunity to drive a stake through the hearts of the undead. The Professor's credo functions as a powerful peer group adhesive for his annoying posse of Aryan Vampire hunters, who thereby seek to assert their superiority over all others - be they vampires, rural Romanians or women.

One general point needs to be made here, though: to study the medieval witchcraft mania does not mean that you also believe in witchcraft per se. Methinks Mr Clarke is confusing things a little.

In a similarly confusing twist, he then aligns the belief in UFOs with other types of religious belief:

People used to come up to the astronomer Carl Sagan after lectures and ask: "Do you believe?" He was struck by the question. Not, is there evidence? But, do you believe? It's a matter of faith to a lot of people and UFOs can become a substitute for religion. What they like is the mystery, they don't want a solution. In 1956, an American sociologist joined a flying saucer cult, predicting the end of the world. Obviously this didn't come to pass, but rather than the people who followed this cult saying what a load of rubbish, they went on to strengthen their belief.

Fair enough, Mr Clarke seems to have a point there. But he is clearly jumping to all sorts of conclusions when he interprets the pyschological phenomenon of heightened stubbornness in the face of critical resistance as a proof of the existance of UFOs. Some people - among them sociologists, apparently - may be manic enought to believe in flying saucers. This does not mean that flying saucers really did hover over Shropshire last week. And so all scholars can do (if they absolutely must) is research the apparently widespread belief in UFOs as an expression of an individual and/or collective mania that bears structural similarities to religious belief.

Mr Clarke however, doesn't quite seem to be able to make the distinction between fact and fiction, which kind of also shows in the style of his concluding passage:

So there is a massive amount of material for sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists to study. And the Ministry of Defence itself has come to the conclusion that UFOs do exist, but are not spaceships. So these are reports of some kind of natural phenomenon we do not understand, which could be studied by atmospheric physicists. It's a pity no one takes it seriously.

Can someone tell me what this man is saying? Material to study what? Real existing maniacs or real existing alien spacecraft?

Is that the style of journalism taught at Sheffield Hallam?

And what the hell drove the editors of a serious paper to print this ... stuff?

[UPDATE: After this brief encounter with the "Flying Saucers are for Real" set, today's Independent appears to assert the paper's rational credentials with an article by David Randall which puts the alleged recent spate of UK UFO sightings in perspective. So what now? I really think the editors at the Independent have to make up their mind whether they are on the side of the sane or the silly.]

Why we love Philip Lahm

Via.

See what I mean?


Via.

Philipp Lahm

...you are my hero.


Well done, Jungs!

An excellent game. And the Turks were amazing. Hard luck.

[Update] Someone, just now, found us via a Google search for "Philipp Lahm wife". From Phoenix, Arizona.

What are you thinking? No, I'm really wondering. The man scores an incredible last minute goal, and you're immediately thinking WAG??

Nature still wins

So, here we are, our shiny happy Planet Football shut down by...a thunderstorm?

I am annoyed.

Still, as long as it stays 2-1, I'm content....

[Update] A nice summary via the Guardian.

The last word goes to Ravi Hiranand. "Here's how the game ended on TV in Hong Kong," writes Ravi. "Five guys in a studio listening in on a phone call between one of the presenters and someone sitting in the stands attempting to describe what's happened over the noise of the crowd and an awful mobile phone connection. Of course, it's all in Cantonese. Brilliant."

And another really meaningful Machtwort

Interesting. The British government has finally gotten around to stripping President Mugabe of Zimbabwe of his honorary knighthood.

First of all, I didn't know that Mugabe was an honorary knight. Did you? But then I also didn't know that Nicolae Ceausescu belonged to this illustrious circle of worthies before the knighthood was taken away from him in 1989.

What is the mysterious link between receiving a knighthood and being a dictator (or ageing pop star, for that matter)? Is it causal or merely coincidental?

And second: That's of course one hell of an effective political measure to take. I'm sure Mr Mugabe will be impressed.

[UPDATE: Nice touch in the Mail, where the front page screams: "Queen strips dictator Mugabe of his knighthood". You can just imagine the scene, can't you .... Oddly enough, the relevant article puts things in perspective. Oh, words, words, words.]

Wer das Machtwort spricht

From today's Guardian: comments from German national team player Sebastian Schweinsteiger about advice given to him by Angela Merkel in the run-up to tonight's match against Turkey:

"When Frau Chancellor says you have to do something you have to do it."

No comment.

Safe at home

As a follow up to my brief comments on George Carlin's death, I bring your attention to this wonderful clip (via Norm) in which he examines the linguistic differences between baseball and (American) football.

I think it demonstrates one of the qualities that I was trying to get at in my response to Francis's astute question about what distinguished Carlin from countless other ranters in the media and online.

Although anger and swearing were key parts of Carlin's act, they were not the point at which his talent ended. He was also a subtle observer (and manipulator) of language.

I don't know the rest of the show in which the baseball/football comparisons are made, but I'm wondering: does anyone think they can identify which sport Carlin preferred after watching that?

I have the feeling that partisans of either sport could walk away from that portion of the act and feel confirmed in their prejudices.

(In my experience, the baseball/football divide can sometimes be a very wide one. Declaration of interest: I used to be far more a baseball fan and really had no interest in football. In recent years, however, I have been more open to seeing the merits of football. I am aware of how utterly unimportant this topic is, but I thought I'd mention it...)

Recent Study Challenges Group Selectionism

The good news comes via Francis Sedgemore.

On Names and Diets

The Times has an article about very young children, boys as well as girls, obsessing unnecessarily about their weight. That is a disturbing fad indeed and goes with the whole sexualisation of childhood thing that was unheard of when I was small. I wish someone gave these kids back their childhood.

Maybe a good way to begin that process would be to start giving children serious first names, rather than burden them with fantasy labels that come dangerously close to sounding super-bling:

Teleisha Coulson, from Northampton, is a ten-year-old girl who is acutely conscious of her body and weight. “I don't like my stomach area because I think I'm fat. I worry about my stomach.” Teleisha monitors the fat and calorie content of what she eats; she swims three times a week, regularly works out on a cross trainer and runs and cycles constantly. “I think it's important to look good because it sets a good impression. I want to look good so that other people think nice things about me. If not, I think maybe people would talk behind my back and say things such as ‘Oh she's big'.”

Teleisha? Teleisha?? Might that name be the root of all evil?

I reckon it's about time for a major, EU-funded academic study investigating the first name/body sensitivity nexus.

Orwell für Zwischendurch

I'm afraid I have no time to comment at length on the following passage from an essay on W. B. Yeats by George Orwell. But then again, Orwell tends to speak for himself:

How do Yeats's political ideas link up with his leaning towards occultism? It is not clear at first glance why hatred of democracy and a tendency to believe in crystal-gazing should go together. Mr Menon only discusses this rather shortly, but it is possible to make two guesses. To begin with, the theory that civilisation moves in recurring cycles is one way out for people who hate the concept of human equality. If it is true that “all this”, or something like it, “has happened before”, then science and the modern world are debunked at one stroke and progress becomes for ever impossible. It does not much matter if the lower orders are getting above themselves, for, after all, we shall soon be returning to an age of tyranny. Yeats is by no means alone in this outlook. If the universe is moving round on a wheel, the future must be foreseeable, perhaps even in some detail. It is merely a question of discovering the laws of its motion, as the early astronomers discovered the solar year. Believe that, and it becomes difficult not to believe in astrology or some similar system. A year before the war, examining a copy of Gringoire, the French Fascist weekly, much read by army officers, I found in it no less than thirty-eight advertisements of clairvoyants. Secondly, the very concept of occultism carries with it the idea that knowledge must be a secret thing, limited to a small circle of initiates. But the same idea is integral to Fascism. Those who dread the prospect of universal suffrage, popular education, freedom of thought, emancipation of women, will start off with a predilection towards secret cults. There is another link between Fascism and magic in the profound hostility of both to the Christian ethical code.

No doubt Yeats wavered in his beliefs and held at different times many different opinions, some enlightened, some not. Mr Menon repeats for him Eliot's claim that he had the longest period of development of any poet who has ever lived. But there is one thing that seems constant, at least in all of his work that I can remember, and that is his hatred of modern western civilisation and desire to return to the Bronze Age, or perhaps to the Middle Ages. Like all such thinkers, he tends to write in praise of ignorance. The Fool in his remarkable play, The Hour-Glass, is a Chestertonian figure, “God's fool”, the “natural born innocent”, who is always wiser than the wise man. The philosopher in the play dies on the knowledge that all his lifetime of thought has been wasted (I am quoting from memory again):

The stream of the world has changed its course,
And with the stream my thoughts have run
Into some cloudly, thunderous spring
That is its mountain-source;
Ay, to a frenzy of the mind,
That all that we have done's undone
Our speculation but as the wind.

Beautiful words, but by implication profoundly obscurantist and reactionary; for if it is really true that a village idiot, as such, is wiser than a philosopher, then it would be better if the alphabet had never been invented. Of course, all praise of the past is partly sentimental, because we do not live in the past. The poor do not praise poverty. Before you can despise the machine, the machine must set you free from brute labour.

On a related topic see here.

Garden city

The EinesTages section at Der Spiegel has a striking series of photos recounting the efforts by CARE to bring humanitarian relief to postwar Europe. (Those who cannot read German can still enjoy the images. Click on each picture to move forward.)

Among them is this image of a street garden in Berlin.

From the Spiegel caption: 'Vegetables between the tracks: Many people tried to help themselves in devastated postwar Berlin and planted little vegetable gardens all over the city. Along with packed groceries, the CARE packages sent from the USA often contained several varieties of seeds.'

I know that this image captures people simply trying to survive and is a document of hunger and deprivation.

Still, I can't help finding it somehow beautiful.

Although that might be because last night we cooked up the first vegetables we have harvested from our own little garden.

And they were very good indeed.

Just make us be brave

George Carlin -- hell-raiser, comedian and self-described 'old fuck' -- has died.

I learned this via Kris, who has some choice words on the matter.

I am tempted to make some kind of inappropriately sentimental comment, not least since I was floored this morning by finding out that a dear friend and much admired scholar is in the midst of a fight against cancer. I'm still reeling a bit from this, and not sure what to say about it.

So it's a bit of a relief to hear someone say some very rude things about people who say sentimental things about death, like, 'If there's anything I can do, don't hesitate to ask.'



George Carlin, from 'It's Bad For Ya', 2008

There's a nice comment in the New York Times obituary:

Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

And that, George, is one of the reasons we (well, some of us, I won't speak for you all) loved you.

As some of you know, related issues (mainly death, but also, actually, Carlin) have been much on my mind in recent times.

And I'm more of an overt sentimentalist than he was.



'Don't Let Us Get Sick', by Warren Zevon, sung by Jill Sobule

Sunday reading matter

I have too much to do right now to find the time for serious blogging, so a few links to news items that caught my eye as I was scanning the web will have to do.

1) German public TV-channel ARD messes up the German flag in a spectacular way (just out of stupidity or by way of retaliating for a recent Swiss blunder, I wonder? This might be another case of "young colleagues" at work ....).

2) A Dutch insurer pays its insured members sickness-related trips to the shrine of her holy whatsit? at Lourdes.

3) Most Britons doubt the sources and significance of climate change.

4) In a controversial interview with Corriere della Sera, Ian McEwan voices his critique and fear of Islamism.

Considering the bloody battles currently being waged at other sites, all this may indeed appear trivial. But then we are in birthday mood over here at OD, today, and too concerned with licking the wounds of old age. And celebrating, of course.

And, no, it ain’t my birthday ….