To be subjective rather than objective (as will be most of this article), it has been an interesting few days for me on various websites, including of course the centre piece of my Internet universe - this blog.
Firstly I have been accused of jealousy (being jealous of Lindsay Lohan, American actress and recidivist criminal, to be precise)
Secondly I have been told that I must be Gay or at least a Gay sympathiser. It was also suggested that I am a Muslim sympathiser (check out the bulk of the items on this blog, you will soon be persuaded otherwise, and also remember that fundamentalist Muslims regard homosexuality as a cardinal sin, so logically (as ever) I cannot be a sympathiser both with Gays and Muslims simultaneously, right?).
Whether I should be jealous of someone who has to do Community Service (rather than jail time) in a morgue is very much open to doubt. I do not make a point of envying other people anyway, most of the time my concern is to see a rise in the economic circumstances of those who need it, want it, and are prepared to work to get it. I do not actually wish to deny the right of people to be wealthy. I will only criticise such when you have an economic system that works purely to make a few people wealthy while large numbers of people remain hamstrung in poverty with no way out (also known as the "McDonalds economy"!).
You can raise the standard of living of the people at the bottom end to a reasonable level, and see an end to unemployment while we are it, while allowing the wealthy to stay wealthy? Fine. But we are not going in that direction. Rather we are watching the impoverishment of people who were once in the middle (well lower middle actually) by sending worthwhile jobs as cheap labour elsewhere in the world, while creating more "burger flippers"! And try getting a job in IT after the age of 55!
And so to Gays. I have never once mentioned that subject upon my blog. I never discuss it on other fora either. I am an old man now, who always was heterosexual. I make a point though of not interfering with lifestyle choices for people who do not fit the same description. That is a personal choice for them to make.
This is not what I always thought. I used to be sceptical of why a man would want to have sex with another man, and I still do not really understand the desire, but I will not interfere in other people's choices (nor should any legal authority unless consent does not exist). It is not my issue. Everything said, finish, move on.
What we are seeing increasingly though in most areas of debate upon current affairs is something that I first saw raised in my first year at University. We were presented with an analysis of Voltaire's work "Candide" where the author deliberately simplified facts and excluded significant details to get a point over.
If you only present a proportion of the facts (or twist the facts so that they are not facts at all), you can always win your argument. The less detail that you have, the more erroneous your conclusions are liable to be, though. There is a basic flaw, as you learn when studying classic Aristotelian logic - namely arguing from a particular standpoint to reach a general conclusion.
There are loads of examples that can be used, politicians do this all the time - sadly. The point being though conclusions are only valid when you have taken all the facts into account, and reached a conclusion by tying them altogether. Some of the criticism aimed in my direction in the past few days is worthless because all the facts are not being considered before any conclusions are drawn.
We can disagree on principle. I am personally not opposed to constructive criticism, but there need to be some logical principles involved before such criticism can be regarded as "constructive". The simple spouting of abuse for its own sake achieves nothing, and the principle of selective screening of data (excluding arguments that are important links in the chain) is scarcely better than that.
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