Pray the News » Ignacy K

Effortless Anglo Saxon Superiority

Denis — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:16:52 +0000

After seeing him on TV the other night complaining about Tuvalu “behaving badly” at Copenhagen I am saving up to buy Nick Smith one of those white pith helmets with lots of feathers on top so beloved of British colonial officials of yesteryear. It would make a great Christmas present and would nicely complete the picture he presents, of, in the words of a London Tablet editorial used in another context, “cultural assumptions of effortless Anglo-Saxon superiority.” How dare these uncouth primitive people to complain loudly about the big boys doing things that are potentially lethal to their community’s very existence.

Any attempt to find out per capita carbon dioxide emissions only demonstrates how inaccurate and unreliable the statistics are, however it is evident that the developed nations caused the problem and that the developed nations then encouraged the developing nations to join them in the feeding frenzy of consumerism.

Although we may not be as crass as Mr. Smith the actions of most of those of us who live in the technologically developed world show we are really no better than he is. There is an unspoken assumption that some how or other we have a right to use more than our fair share of the earth’s resources The first step should surely be for the developed nations to reduce their emissions until they are equal to those of the developing nations before asking the poor to make more sacrifices.

It makes us all less human

Denis — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:45:37 +0000

I might be alone in this, but I suspect I am not; there is something about other people’s lapses into what is politely referred to these days as “inappropriate behaviour” that has a certain fascination. I remember as a child being spellbound by the accounts of human nature out of control in the wonderful old scandal rag “Truth” which while officially banned in our home sometimes made its way in, as it did in many other homes, on the pretext of having a very good racing page – which I am told it did. I can still be lured, by the sheer tackiness, into watching things like the E channel or New Zealand’s Top model. Harmless maybe?

What I have to do is to remind myself, that these are real people with real feelings. Nathan Thorose Connolly, 31 and his victim probably have children, fathers and mother, brothers and sisters who love them. And they have all been turned into a commodity. While the media maybe responsible for using people’s misfortune as a means of generating ratings or circulation I have to take responsibility for the fact that it is the likes of me who boost those ratings and sales. I am not an evil person – I reckon I am really quite compassionate, but like so many other ordinary people I am allowing myself to become inured to the human misery that is paraded before me. I have decided that I will no longer read or watch this stuff. The constant trafficking in human misery makes us all less human. Maybe I am just spitting on the ocean – but at least I

Is One Group Just Imposing its Values on the Rest?

Denis — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:15:21 +0000

Is section 59 necessary for the good order of society and the protection of the vulnerable or is it just a case of one section of society imposing its values on everyone else? There are some things that are immoral and some things that are illegal and some things that are both. I have always understood that the purpose of civil law was to preserve good order in society and to protect those who cannot protect themselves. What some one considers immoral, good or bad, however depends on how they perceive reality, not on laws.

For example, if some one I does not believe, as I do, that there is life after death and that “no man is an island” – my being is woven into the tapestry of the universe connecting me intimately to all other beings – then I can understand why that person would see nothing at all wrong with euthanasia. The question then arises is a law prohibiting euthanasia necessary for the good order of society and for the protection of the vulnerable? That is where the discussion should be, otherwise we are talking past each other.

Now that we live in a society in which there is no shared understanding of what life is all about and consequently no agreement about what is moral and what is immoral – what is good and what is bad-, there is a growing tendency to impose morality by means of law and to ask policeman to take over from ministers and priests the task of persuading and sometimes imposing morality on the masses. Is section 59 a case in point?