Written Within the Pages

 Greetings,

If you do not read the books, you do not know what is contained within the book. Thus, you have no right to assume to know what the author thinks or has written. This can be applied to those who love to quote aphorisms from authors and then go on to attack them, as much as it is to those who claim that this or that writer is of this or that particular political leaning, due to what they have written. How would a person know what their political leaning is, if they have not read what the author has written?

People need to open their eyes. They need to open their eyes and realise that if they do not at least look at these books and authors they hate so much, they will be unprepared for those who use the writings within them. 

The Nazi Party in Germany did not just sprout from the ground, its popularity did not just grow over night it took time and persuasion of people. It was only when people's rights were being infringed upon, when people were being attacked and murdered that some people realised that something was wrong, but the mass of people didn't. The actions that the Nazis took were legal, they were passed by law. Think about that for a moment, those who hid Jews were breaking the law, those who murdered them, homosexuals and disabled people, were doing it legally according to the laws of their country.

How can you defend against a political standpoint if you don't know how it grows?

How can you defend against an ideology if you don't know what its tenets are?

How can you prevent the same things from happening if you don't know how it all started?

Erasing history because it's ugly, or because it makes people uncomfortable is not a good thing. It is criminal because it leaves people unprepared for the same to happen again. They are unprepared because they don't see the warning signs. The threat is not from the idiot skinheads in the streets marching about, it is from those who keep their feelings hidden, who keep their ideologies to themselves, but make small changes to our society to gradually twist things their way.

People complain about eugenics programs. How about the eugenics program by default that is happening in the world right now as a result of price increases? What happens when the poor cannot afford to eat? What happens when people even on benefits from the government cannot afford to keep themselves alive and eat? They die. The prices go up, more people die. It is eugenics by social class, by wealth. If you are not healthy enough to work, or do not have employment, you are priced out of LIFE.

Sounds crazy? Well who controls the ability to change inflation? Who controls the ability to give people on payments enough money to live rather than having them on the poverty line, or below it? Yes, that's right the government. Who do they act in the interest of? Their rich friends, no the so-called "people". Tax breaks do nothing for people on benefits.

What are the policies of these people? What are their true ideologies? How many of those match up to the ideologies of the fascists that people claim to be fighting by preventing people from reading books? Our oligarchical society, I say oligarchical because it takes thousands of dollars to run for office and not everyone has that money, only the top of the money piles, makes pitiful concessions to those below them while hoarding the riches to themselves. 

They complain about the cost of welfare, that the people on payments are not giving back to society. Well have a look at the Nazi policy and how they felt about the disabled, it is pretty much the same. The problem with the budget does not come from those from below, it comes from those from above. If the billionaires and millionaires actually paid any tax, rather than getting tax breaks, the budget would be a lot healthier. Our politicians look at things from the top, they have no clue about the people they represent. They are the enemy that, so-called politically-enlightened people, are ignoring because they foolishly believe we live in a democracy.

They would understand our actual state if they actually read some of the books they are so frightened to read. They would understand what's happening to their society, and what's happening to the people that they are supposedly defending while they are failing to do so, if they picked up the book and read it and understood what's actually happening.

Read the book. 

Yes, it will be ugly. 

No, you won't like it. 

That's not the point.

Get an education.

Learn how you can actually do some good.

Cheers,

Henry.

Symbols of Hate: What is a Symbol?

Greetings,

I have been thinking about this post for a while. It is about a sensitive topic, and likely to get me hounded from some quarters, but such is the nature of being a person willing to put their thoughts to print. This should be noted, I am just putting my thoughts to print, nothing more.

There are certain symbols which have been recognised as "symbols of hate" due to certain crimes which have been perpetrated in association with them. In some instances, these have been crimes against humanity. This discussion does not deny any of these crimes, nor does it deny that they were crimes. This is an examination of the symbols which have become associated with them.

The government of Queensland, Australia decided, along with several other governments in Australia, that symbols of hate should not be tolerated, and thus they proposed a ban on hate symbols, so the media tells us. Now, one should always be careful about what the media tells us, and what exactly the media is telling us. The purpose of this ban is to strengthen the government's stand against hate crimes, "Queensland’s attorney general has confirmed the Nazi salute will be captured under proposed laws that ban hate symbols and strengthen the state’s response to vilification." 

Now, of importance about this proposal, is that it is not to ban images or symbols of Nazism, as has been interpreted by some, it is a ban on the "public display of hate symbols" which is a much broader area, and allows for much broader interpretation. One should really read the ministerial statement a little more closely to realise what is actually going on.

A symbol on its own means nothing. It is just a character, a pictogram, an image. When that same symbol is carried by a group of individuals, then it comes to have meaning. National flags are symbols not because of the images themselves, but because of their association with the nations to which they belong.

The Eureka flag, for example, is now associated with trade unionists, and it is now banned from being flown. It's original association was for gold miners on the Ballarat gold fields who revolted against the British administration and their taxation of the miners, culminating in the Eureka Stockade. 

We should all carefully consider what the symbols mean, and what they are associated with. In every situation, context is of great importance. The question that should be asked, is whose interpretation of "hate symbol" is going to be used when a symbol is banned in Queensland and other places that adopt such legislation? Will the Eureka flag fall under such jurisdiction? Will this be simply another method to curb our "freedom of expression"? Hopefully, the government finally use a tool correctly, as it was designed to be used and use it to reduce hate crimes.

Just for a thought process: Consider what the Palestinians think of the Star of David, painted over the tanks of the Israeli Army which come through their streets, marked on the members of the military who  kill members of their families, and force them into refugee camps. In reverse, consider what the Israelis think of the Crescent and Star, or the white Arabic script on a black background, as a terrorist group celebrates another attack on an Israeli target. Are these symbols of hate? Certainly not to those who carry them.

The individual's interpretation of a symbol, the society's interpretation of the symbol, the use of the symbol and what it is associated with give the symbol meaning. A symbol gives everyone something to rally around; sometimes the symbol is an individual, sometimes it is an icon. It gives power through the strength of those who rally around it. Consider the symbols of Star Wars or Star Trek, and what would happen if the people who rally around these symbols were motivated? Then again, who says they are not.

Cheers,

Henry.

Academic Reading: Reading Documents with Emotional Content

 Greetings,

Reading is a skill, we teach it to children, and it is vital that we do so. For the most part, we restrict what our children read, because certain content is not for their eyes, because they simply would not understand the content, or because their young minds simply could not take it. Adults do not have such restrictions on their reading. Well, actually there is some restrictions on what they are allowed to read, some books are "banned", other documents are "restricted" due to their classified or sensitive nature. 

There are also a host of other texts people will read, and they will cause them to have an emotional response. This is often because of the nature of the text as compared to the cultural upbringing of the individual, or the historical significance of the author, or what the text may have led to or been used for. It is these text which I would like to address. To truly read something as an intellectual, and appreciate it for its intellectual value, the emotional response needs to be removed. This is the only way that we may gain a greater understanding of our world, both the positive and the negative, for only this way will we be able to combat the negative. If we do not understand it how can we hope to do anything about it?

I have read Industrial Society and Its Future, the manifesto of Theodore ("Ted") Kaczynski known as the "Unabomber"; he conducted a nationwide bombing campaign across the United States which lasted for 17 years and killed 3 people and injured 23 others.  Why would I want to read the manifesto of some "madman"? It contains some interesting information, and an interesting view of society. Does this potentially make me one of his disciples? Is it going to inspire me to go on a bombing campaign in order to change the world? I think not. I do not believe this is the way to change the world, nor do I now believe that his methods were correct. I read it to understand his perspective, to understand him. To understand why he thought it was necessary to do what he did. A person's writing is a small window into their mind... including what you are reading now.

So the question is can you read something with emotional content, without the emotion clouding your impression of the document? If you can, this is an intellectual or academic reading of the document.  This is a logical, as in read with logic rather than emotion controlling you, reading of the document. The intellectual discussion of a document should contain no emotional content, only discussion of what's present in the document, nothing of what emotion may have placed there.

Emotion clouds our senses, derails the intellect, gets in its way, sees things in the intent of the writer which are not necessarily present or meant in the words. It will put meaning to words which are on the page, often to the most extreme, positive or negative, depending on the document being read. Keeping emotion at bay may be particularly difficult when the document is particularly personal. We feel this when a letter is written to us, because it is personal, but it is also felt when it may attack one of our belief systems, or raise the spectre of one of the ghosts of the past, some dark secret of history; maybe not even personal history, it may be cultural history.

Let's take the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, there are those who would tell you that reading his works is tantamount to reading the work of the Nazis, due to the concepts which they took from his work and then turned and twisted to suit to their purposes. Something anyone who has actually read Nietzsche's work can tell you. Further anyone who has delved into his life can tell you it was his sister not Nietzsche himself who invited the Nazis in and gave them access to his papers. Nietzsche was not in any state to be receiving guests by that stage, his health would not allow it, as anyone who read his biography could tell you. 

Nietzsche's work bears the mere taint of Nazism and there are people who will not read it because of this, because it sets them afire, sets their emotions in a frenzy. How can they call themselves led by their intellects if this is the case? There are works which bear the marks of history which have much greater reason to cause such response, but in the individual who is reading academically, reading letting their intellect guide them rather than their emotion it should not. How about Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler? If this is not the heart of what real Nazis feel what else could be? If a person was to read this it could tell us what the Nazis believed, what philosophies brought them to power, what ideals that similar movements even follow today, because they are still reading it. Aside from that, if a person wants to understand Adolf Hitler it is the best source, because he wrote it. For the historian, it is a primary source, just like a birth certificate, or a school newsletter, nothing more. This is the way that such documents should be approached, with the emotional content removed.

Another document which sparks controversy was published more than 500 years ago, yet its mention, in certain parts of the community sparks debate and emotional response. The book I speak of is the Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, published in Latin, and is also known as the "Hammer of Witches". This book has been the subject of much debate since it was published. In some circles it is considered an "evil" book because it supposedly drove the witch trials in the 16th- and 17th-centuries, and it certainly has some part to play here. Ironically, 

"The top theologians of the Inquisition at the Faculty of Cologne condemned the book as recommending unethical and illegal procedures, as well as being inconsistent with Catholic doctrines of demonology." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum)

In any case, it is another text, which just at its mention will strike people an emotional response. The book itself is a view into the perspectives of the subject, at least from one point of view, from the period. For the historian, especially one investigating such practices, of either side, from that period, it is a primary source. It needs to be read academically, intellectually, without any emotion attached to the reading to gain the greatest benefit. Without such reading, the information will be interpreted, bent by a person's emotional response to the content, and a warped sense of the contents will be gained.

The intellect is used to read a thing. The individual then allows their mind to interpret what they have read. If, the emotion is allowed to override the intellect in the interpretation process, then the interpretation becomes warped, or may even be blocked. The emotion will allow an interpretation based on only what it feels, the intellect requires evidence to reinforce the interpretation, some proof of the interpretation. For the academic, and the academic reading, the intellect must win out. This is how we gain information, this is how we gain facts. Not truth, truth is a matter for philosophy, but facts.

The emotional content should be acknowledged. You should accept how the document makes you feel, but you need to get past this to read the document properly. You should even record how the document makes you feel when reading it, as this is important information, put it as a side-note. But, the emotional content should not dominate the discussion of the document, at least for an academic discussion of the document. How the document makes the person feel, or how the document may make others feel is irrelevant to the document's academic relevance or use. There would not be many documents left if all the documents with "emotional content" were destroyed, indeed it is vital that these documents are preserved so we remember where we went wrong, so we can improve ourselves.

Arguments. It is said that there are three sides to an argument; one side, the other side, and the truth. A person who wants to get anywhere near the elusive "truth". Needs to read documents from both sides of a discussion or argument, only then will you begin to understand the entire picture. Most of the time we know "our" side very well, but the other side is very hazy. They may not even be an enemy per se, we just don't know "them" particularly well, so we don't communicate well. When the miscommunication occurs because we don't know "them" and they don't know "us" this is when they become "the enemy". Could they have stopped becoming "the enemy" by knowing them better? Likely.

Miyamoto Musashi says, “It is difficult to know yourself if you do not know others.” By reading what is written by the other side of an argument, or by an opposing intellectual discussion, or an opposing political thought, we not only begin to know them but also know our own strengths and weaknesses. Sun Tzu, the ancient military strategist talks about knowing enemy and knowing yourself. To do this in an intellectual sense requires us to read what they have read and understand the documents which form their foundation. This cannot be done if a person is choked with emotion every time the read something by the person, or about their political view, or concerning their way of life. 

Remove the emotion from your reading and read intellectually, let your logic what its designed to do, read from an academic perspective, and you will discover all sorts of different things about the world.

Cheers,

Henry.

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