An honest book review of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals:

An honest book review of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals:

By Samuel Mack-Poole

Under the star-filled sky of Cyprus, I read Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche’s (a famous German philosopher, 1844-1900, whom proclaimed “God is dead”) passionate investigation into the historical origin of morality. Nietzsche is one of, if not the most, famous philosophers in the cultural zeitgeist of the West because of his fierce criticism of our Judeo-Christian heritage; he is one of my favourite philosophers due to his exquisite, and often intricate, writing style. He is almost poetical and often aphoristic; thus, his writing does not lend itself to the common man (and he did not intend his philosophy to be read by a mere plebeian, either).

Although I find much of what Nietzsche states objectionable, his eloquence is never in doubt. I have written about another work of his before – Beyond Good and Evil for The Philosophy Takeaway – and I don’t doubt that I shall also review Thus Spoke Zarathustra at some point in the future. What is beautiful deserves to be investigated, after all.

The Genealogy of Morals (hereafter shortened to the acronym GOM) is comprised of a preface and three essays, and each essay is itself reduced into intellectually digestible slithers and chunks (and are numbered).  This makes the weighty content easier to comprehend, and it is the one favour which Nietzsche affords the reader in this regard.

The preface is more or less a bond between his previous work (Human, All-Too-Human) and GOM. However, Nietzsche enticingly adds that his thoughts on the topic of the “origin of human prejudices” have ripened, become more coherent, rational and bolder – and thus has evolved, just as he thinks morality has.

The three essays are titled Good and Evil, Good and Bad, Guilt, bad conscience and the like and What is the meaning of ascetic ideals? respectively.  As this essay will only number a mere thousand words,  I cannot analyse the true depth of his work, but perhaps by analysing a quote of his from each essay, I could perhaps give you a glimpse of his abyss (but don’t let that glimpse become a stare).

“To demand from strength that it does not express itself as strength, that it does not consist of a will to overpower, a will to throw down, a will to rule, a thirst for enemies and opposition and triumph, is just as unreasonable as to demand from weakness that it express itself as strength.”  -- First essay, Section 13.

One of Nietzsche’s major complaints was about the form of morality permeating through Germany, and the wider Western nations, in the 1800s was that it was, in essence, weak. He despised its averageness. Nietzsche’s view of relatively early human history was that there were various races in Europe, but that a blond haired, blue-eyed savage tribe – the Aryans – dominated the rest and imprinted its ethos in the nature of their descendants’ characters.

This, for him, was all to the good. However, Christianity reared its ugly head, rich in blood sacrifice, and changed the essence of human conduct in Europe. Nietzsche was an avowed atheist, and one of Christianity’s most fierce critics. Whilst many Christians bristle at the mention of his name, his criticism of their religion is due to the consequences of it for the human condition, rather than its twisted theology.

Nietzsche feels that Christianity is a denial of the stronger human instincts – the urge to conquer, to dominate and create empires are what he values as true greatness --  and that its charitable ethos makes its adherents a flabby, meek mess, intent on being utterly average. In Christianity Nietzsche senses something egalitarian and he vehemently despises it. Although humans are more equal, he would argue that true greatness is diminished.

This holds some truth when applied to elitism within education, as genius should be allowed to flourish. Nonetheless, as a socialist, I disagree with his conclusion, if applied blindly – it seems to assert that power should be sought on a individualistic level, with little regard to the consequences of society. Nietzsche’s philosophy is far from sentimental or empathetic – he cares little for plight of human beings.

To be clear: what society calls ‘good’ and ‘bad’, Nietzsche does not. He doesn’t believe that morality originates from God, but that it evolved to value what religion told it to (which is very distant from what the guiding principles of the Aryans).

“In this area, that is, in the laws of obligation, the world of the moral concepts “guilt,” “conscience,” “duty,” and “sanctity of obligation” has its origin—its beginning, like the beginning of everything great on earth, was drenched thoroughly and for a long time with blood.”  Second essay, section 6.

Nietzsche’s second essay, as previously mentioned, deals with the origin of bad conscience, and guilt. If one is an atheist, you may think that you can guess where this portion of human morality evolved from. However, Nietzsche does as a point of fact go much further back than the blood sacrifice of Christ, he examines the very idea of blood sacrifice in itself. He claims that sacrifice was used for archaic savage man to create memory for himself; Nietzsche goes on to claim that a painful memory will never be forgotten.

The sacrifice of the first-born and castration are cemented in religious practice. First-borns were sacrificed to appease the wrath of the gods, and castration was practised to prevent high born women from having sex – yet both practices are barbaric. Nietzsche feels compelled to comment “all religions are in essence nothing but systematic cruelty”, but he understands that what was once physically practised is now internalised as part of the human condition by the followers of Christianity.

It is this which he cannot stand. After all, bad conscience, based on false premises, will only lead to tragedy. A further tragedy is the fact I wasn’t able to condense the analysis of all the essays into one piece, but I shall finish this hat trick in a fortnight. 

Solidarity is dead

Solidarity is dead:

by Samuel Mack-Poole

It will not have missed anyone’s attention that the recent strike amongst workers from Transport for London brought the economy in the capital to a crashing halt last week. I, for one, was extremely pleased at the result, as the true value and muscularity of a workforce is demonstrated by a strike. A lot of people, usually readers of The Sun newspaper, are against strike action, and they would challenge me as to why I fully support the strike.

So, let me elaborate.

Have you ever worked with someone whom was very good at their job? I’m sure we all have. However, when that person is absent from their work, be it through sickness or holiday, you notice their absence tremendously; it’s almost like there’s a human shaped hole in the workplace. I always feel that if someone is an efficient colleague, it’s when they’re not in that you realise their true worth. This self-same logic applies with regard to the strike dispute.

When the tube doesn’t run, there is chaos on the streets of London.  People find it impossible, or nearly impossible, to get to work on time – or at all. Therefore, it should be recognised that the true value of the workers for Transport for London far exceeds the remuneration they acquire. They are worth billions to the economy, so you would think that as they perform such a vital role, they would be valued by society. Sadly, the very opposite is true.

When Transport for London workers go on strike, we invariably see that their pay is compared to teachers, nurses, and policemen/women.  This, in itself, is startlingly odd. Right-wing commentators, and their slavish drones, suddenly maintain that they now care about the pay of the public services. However, when teachers went on strike last year, I saw the self-same people bemoaning the teachers’ holidays, rather than supporting their pay demands. It really is hypocrisy of the highest order from the right-wing gutter press.

Nevertheless, what I have addressed is merely an argument of envy and distraction. I mention envy because many on the right like to throw that argument about in debates, but it is the right which envies legitimate workers’ rights more than the left envies the corrupt bankers’ bonuses. Also, I mention distraction due to the fact that pay is not the root cause of the strike, but the unfair working conditions which the management of Transport for London is trying to foist upon its workers. Yet, instead of this argument prevailing, all we see is the right-wing media dominating the agenda with their faulty reporting of the truth.

The consequences of this for society are dire. Solidarity is now dead. We have the now late Margaret Thatcher to thank for this, since she destroyed the printers’ unions in the 1980s. It was a momentous blow from which the British left never recovered, and it’s not likely that in 2015 that with such a well-oiled propaganda machine that a truly left-wing Labour party will be able to be elected.

The average man (or woman) on the street no longer empathises with his brothers or sisters as he (or she) has been totally indoctrinated by neo-conservative ideals which has led to individualistic thinking to become paramount. It really is a tragedy, as no man is an island, after all.

To return to an earlier idea, I believe the culture of right-wing envy is imbued in negative individualism. Let me elaborate: any public sector which has above average pay or working conditions is treated  with a haughty, supercilious eye by those in the private sector. The right-wing individual is immured in a sense of toxic befuddlement – it is not due to the fact that teachers have long holidays that he (or she) is time poor. In the same way, it is not due to the fact that Transport for London workers are paid well that that he (or she) is remunerated poorly. Instead of being mean-spirited, perhaps workers in the private sector should celebrate workers’ rights (as few and as far between as they are) and campaign for their own, too.

The rationale should not be My pay and working conditions are extremely poor, so your working conditions and pay should be, too. We should not attack each other, as this is exactly what the fat cats in big business desire. A divided working class and middle class, and a divided private and public sector,  is exactly what the richest 1% of society wants. There’s a reason that many socialists have a fist as their banner, and that’s due to the fact that a united work force is undefeatable. Nevertheless, if one finger is removed from that fist then it immediately loses its vitality and very quickly diminishes into a lethargic nothingness.

The tragedy is that fewer and fewer people think along these lines. The average individual is no longer able to see further than their naval, and despite the fact that wages have fallen in real terms over the last five years,  they cannot awake from their slumber. Yet, to carry this somnolent metaphor on, they represent the sleeping giant in this country.

Let’s just take one example, that of shop workers in the retail sector. It is not exactly a secret that workers in that industry suffer the poorest levels of pay and conditions in the country. It is no coincidence that they are the least unionised workforce in the country. Nonetheless, I would argue, quite passionately, that they perform a crucial function within society. Without your Sainsbury’s worker, you wouldn’t have milk in your fridge or toilet paper in your bathroom.  Thus, if the retail workforce unionised itself and went on strike, we would soon see their wages rise and conditions improve.

We would also see how important their work truly is.

To conclude, I would recommend anyone to support a strike. Although I dislike binary logic, if you don’t support a strike, you are implicitly supporting a system which does not give a damn about you, which seeks to exploit you, and then wishes to get rid of you as soon as you are no longer useful. A good colleague of mine once said to me, “You may be in love with the institution, but the institution will never be in love with you.”

Let those salient words resonate within your psyche.

The selective outrage of the white, western media:

The selective outrage of the white, western media:

by Samuel Mack-Poole

It really has been a strange couple of weeks with regard to the western media’s agenda. It has, to borrow a phrase from Lewis Carroll, gotten curiouser and curiouser. It seems that there is a most eccentric hierarchy of western empathy, whereby Cecil the lion inhabits the highest status and Sandra Bland the least. Also, let us not forget the children of Gaza, the victims of American drones, those murdered in churches by white supremacist terrorists and the migrants at the Calais border are all lower in the hierarchy of empathy than a poached wild cat.

What is fascinating about participating on social media is the way in which one can adopt a cause through changing one’s profile picture to popularise a cause. I noticed something quite startling when I conducted a not so scientific experiment. I went through my Facebook Friend’s list and identified that every single person whom had changed their profile picture was a white woman.  Conversely, when I did a similar search for Sandra Bland profile pictures, only three of my friends whom had changed their profile picture to her were white women.

Interestingly, no one whom had changed their profile pictures to either were white men. I guess you can read into that what you will.

When I commented on this sense of white outrage, an awesome debate commenced. If this debate had a title, I would coin it Privileged and Prejudiced.  My reasons for this is that the debate, somewhat sadly – but also predictably -- was divided pretty much along racial lines (with myself being a notable exception). Those criticising the very selective sense of white outrage at Cecil the lion’s killing were black, and those commenting upon the animal right’s outrage were white.

A number of my white friends and family were making comments such as, “Both events are equally bad.”  I have to admit that whilst I didn’t agree with Cecil the lion’s untimely death, I certainly didn’t feel that it was commensurate to Sandra Bland’s most suspicious death in police custody.  I gave a hypothetical example:

You are locked in a room with an explosive device around your neck. This explosive device will be detonated unless you pick up a gun and kill either a lion or a human being, both of which have been tethered to the wall.

I left it to them to elect which option they would choose, but I was pretty certain that the vast majority of human beings would elect to kill the lion rather than the human. There are different reasons for this inherent human bias, but I think we’re more likely to save our own species as humans possess the most developed sense of consciousness and because of selfishness at the evolutionary level with regard to species preservation.

So, what interests me is the fact that this inherent bias we are born with seems to have been eradicated by the insidious tentacles of the western media machine.With regard to the human mind, it is not the best kept secret that it is extremely sensitive to its environment, or, in other words, propaganda.  As such, we have to face up to the fact that the right-wing press has an agenda. Now, when I talk of agenda, I talk of social values which the media promotes.

Again, it is not exactly a secret that the right-wing press is dominant in the UK:  The Sun is the best-selling newspaper. The Daily Mail is the second best-selling, and the Daily Telegraph is the most popular broadsheet.

All of the papers espouse similar values: blind patriotism, vilification of immigrants, hatred of the under-class, anti-union rhetoric, Zionism, and a lack of social consciousness.  Thus, when papers such as these run stories in such a way which provokes outrage, my dubious eyebrow raises to an Everest-like height. I honestly feel as if we deal with the politics of distraction with the media agenda, without sounding like too much of a conspiracy theorist.

With all the tragedy in the world, why is that the plight of a singular lion trumps that of human suffering? How telling it is that most of the people reading this know the name of the lion which was poached, but couldn’t tell me a single name of one of Dylann Storm’s terror shooting?

The central issue is that of coverage, and also of prominence. Do we see the victims of American drone attacks on the front of The Sun? We never have, and I would state that we never will. As a consequence, the average westerner lives in an odd bubble where the very real problems faced by other human beings just don’t reach us. It is as if we inhabit a luxurious space habitat, like that in the film Elysium where a decadent, privileged class are so far removed from war-ravaged Earth that they couldn’t possibly empathise with the poverty faced on the ground.

If the average citizen of the UK doesn’t know of the suffering faced by black people in America, and they’ve never humanised the plight of someone whom has suffered, the result is depressing; there is a systemic lack of empathy for the victims of geo-politics, and not only is there a lack of empathy, there is outright revulsion.

If we take the latest fiasco at Calais, with David Cameron describing human beings who are most likely trying to escape war torn countries and make a better life for themselves as a ‘swarm’, and the Daily Telegraph reporting the cost of transporting of the lucky few whom make it through at up to ‘£150 a day not being unusual’, it’s easy to see the reduction of the plight of fellow human beings to mere economic cost. For if it’s one thing the British immigration-phobic public detests, it is impoverished human beings trying to make a better life for themselves.

We are also behoved to remember that the most serious problem the UK faces isn’t a corrupt taxation system, a suspected paedophile ring in parliament or the semi-privatisation of the NHS, but a trickle of asylum seekers.

Empathy and fraternity are words which have vanished from the British lexicon.

To conclude, I will argue, as I have always done, for the rights of the oppressed, rather than in bourgeois causes which soothe the feelings of selective outrage for white, middle-class England. I shall always humanise those whom have been forgotten or buried by the machinations of the media, because if I can make an iota of difference, then it’s a life well lived.

Jeremy Corbyn – guilty of conviction:

The right-wing press in the UK have character-assassinated, criticised and utterly ridiculed Jeremy Corbyn over the last couple of weeks. His appearance and choice of casual clothing when socialising have been mocked, and his views on a myriad of political issues have been derided. The question which you should be asking is this: what is the right-wing media so scared of?

The answer can be complex, but it also can be very simple: Jeremy Corbyn is a genuine socialist with a genuine anti-austerity agenda.  Nothing could induce more fear into the heart of neo-conservative institutions, and, of course, the press – which plays a critical function in upholding exploitative capitalist values through indoctrinating the masses – is in no way immune from this sense of fear.

The right-wing press is epitomised by The Sun ‘news’ paper, a tabloid which is the best selling in the UK; the tabloid which has a requires its readers to have a literacy age which equates to 8 years old. For sporting a short, trimmed beard, he has been called “pognomaniacal” by Borys Jonson. Evidently, as we live in an age of beard-phobia, all men must conform to an unnatural shaven consensus, otherwise the electorate shall panic!

He’s also been accused of being a “dangerous Marxist throwback” and every photo of him isn’t glamorous – he’s never shown smiling, but in mid-expression. These cheap shot tactics are depressingly simple, and always the same. After all, how you eat a bacon sandwich is vitally important with regard to your ability to govern, just ask Ed Miliband.

Put simply, The Sun dumbs down politics so that the working classes echo its opinions to maintain an unhealthy class divide in society. The tragedy is the fact that British society allows itself to be hoodwinked by such crass tactics, again and again.

What we are witnessing in politics is a much of a muchness. What the right-wing press wants is to dictate the rules of the political game in the UK.  Only slick, soundbite politicians, educated within the narrow confines of Eton, Harrow, Oxford and Cambridge, cleanly shaved, wearing tailor-made suits and with dull, non-descript haircuts can become leaders of the Conservative or Labour Party. These forms of social control are then perpetuated by the tiny area of consensus politics which the Labour Party, to its detriment, shares with the Tories at the present.

Fundamentally, the choices have been full fat austerity with the Tories, and semi-skimmed austerity with Labour. How this makes for a democratic system is beyond me. The public deserves a genuine choice, not this dull ideological stalemate.

The right-wing media believe that they can win and lose elections with their strident propaganda. The sad, sombre truth is that they can, and that they will – unless the political consciousness miraculously ascends a few chakras soon, this seems highly unlikely.

Consequently, this takes as full circle to Jeremy Corbyn. He is anti-austerity. For that alone, he would win my vote. After all, should the IMF dictate economic policy in the UK, or should our freely elected Prime Minister? Democracy has become a farce in the UK, and it shall remain so as long as a few powerful rich men dictate the state of play due to their accumulation of fiat currency.

Other issues which Jeremy Corbyn has been ridiculed for is trying to start a dialogue with ISIS. The comical thing about this is the fact he was similarly criticised for suggesting the exact same thing with the IRA during the troubles in Northern Ireland. Whilst he was criticised for the unoriginal notion of a dialogue with the UK’s enemies, he has been vindicated by the success of the Northern Ireland peace process. With Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness both serving in Stormont, Jeremy Corbyn’s opinions have been greeted with acclaim.

Conversley, when he suggests this with ISIS, he is called a traitor, a weak lefty and a coward.  These disparaging remarks are a mere cover for the truth. I do not doubt, and I would stake my house on this, that the US government has a channel of communication with the leaders of ISIS. The fact is that ISIS, whilst idealogically extreme, must have genuine aims aside from an Islamic caliphate. For instance, as they are locked in a sectarian conflict with the Shia dominated government, I think greater autonomy, and security, for the Sunnis of Iraq would go a long way to satisfying their adherents.

Now, I want to clarify something: negotiating with your enemy does not equate to accepting, or enabling, their heinous acts. I am not an apologist for Islamic extremism, and the resulting violence it causes.  And nor is Jeremy Corbyn. It is a brave move to talk to your enemy. If we don’t understand our enemies, how can we possibly defeat them?

Away from foreign policy, Jeremy Corbyn also proposes renationalising the railways. Again, this is something which would be for the embetterment of society as a whole. A ghastly fact which the mainstream right-wing media has never confessed is the fact that capitalism is hugely inefficient. A private company will always want to charge as much as they possibly can, as well as cut costs to as low as possible. This is why train fares increase in line with inflation every year, but the salaries of TFL do not. This is why trains are hideously packed during rush hour, despite the fact more carriages could be attached for consumer comfort.

These arguments are never presented by the right-wing media, and it is why issues such as immigration dominate the concerns of the electorate. Whilst the immigration system is worthy of criticism, it is one of many factors which impact on the lives of British working people. Please also note that immigration is one of the most important tools of capitalism, and that the reason the UK has such high levels of immigration is due the dominance of big business, and not due to culturally Marxist attitudes, however prevalent they may be.

It is these arguments which Jeremy Corbyn will bring to light. He will bring these to light because he is authentic. He has conviction. His opinions are solid in the face of criticism, and I, for one, endorse his leadership bid. Part of being in a healthy democracy is having a clear electoral choice – not having (for all intents and purposes) a two party system where both parties straddle for the mediocre middle-ground.

My Sombre Goodbye to Terry Pratchett

My Sombre Goodbye to Terry Pratchett:

Having been an avid reader since my childhood, and having been born in the United Kingdom, it can be of little surprise that I am a keen fan of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. However, I am not only an ardent admirer of his work (which I feel has been somewhat under-appreciated amongst the highest echelons of the literati), I became highly appreciative of the man behind the books.  With his death much on mind since he sadly passed away in March 2015, I would like to dedicate a humble article to his memory. I do not doubt his memory will live on until the crack of doom, but if I can play a tiny part in that, I would only be too happy to do so.

I can remember being at primary school when I first came across one of his books. I took Only You Can Save Mankind home and read it within a couple of days. My maternal grandmother, also a keen reader, was pleased that I was reading a Pratchett novel. She told me, “There is an entire section dedicated to him at WH Smith’s.” If you are British, you will know that is the epitome of popular success for a writer.

Within a couple of years, I had started reading the Discworld series. Most memorably, I liked the Death sequence, and they remain my favourites (sorry, Rincewind). For those of you who have not read Terry Prathett’s Discworld series, Death is a major character in them. He cameos in many, and is the protagonist in a few. On a personal note, I think that Pratchett’s writing is hugely successful for that reason; he takes concepts and truths which humans fear and turns them into something humorous.

The beauty of the Discworld, at least for me, is how very human it is. It’s hugely satirical, and it’s easy to spot the institutions which Pratchett dissects, not with a stinging critique, but with a wry quip. Although it does help to be British to fully understand his work, he utilises Hindu, Buddhist and ancient Egyptian culture in his fantasy series (not to mention the rich tapestry of European folk tales which are parodied, too).

If you haven’t read his books, I would advise you to give them a try. Although it is advised to read them in chronological order, like any writer, he improves with time. I prefer his later works, but it is ultimately up to you when and if you do.

Away from his books, Pratchett was a man whom actively used his status as a celebrated writer to raise awareness about a variety of issues. Like myself, Pratchett was a member of the British Humanist Association (I do believe that he donated far more to their cause than I ever could, however).  His most famous quote to mind is that he would rather be a rising ape than a falling angel – something which resonated so strongly with me that I bought the poster and put it up in my classroom.

As well as being a famous skeptic and rationalist, Pratchett also raised awareness about early-onset Alzheimer’s as he suffered from a rare form of the disease, posterior cortical atrophy, in which the areas at the back of the brain begin to shrivel up and shrink. Not only did Pratchett suffer from this, he was brave enough to go public and show the world how the disease had significant consequences for his daily life. I truly admired his courage, but I felt genuine pangs of sadness to see such a great man, a man dependent on his rich intellect, perversely brought down by a truly cruel disease.

He donated one million pounds of his personal fortune to Alzheimer’s research , knowing that any cure developed would surely come too late for himself.

Nonetheless, Pratchett didn’t only raise awareness for issues which impacted on his life; he was also instrumental in bringing to light the near extinction of the Orangutang. He was a trustee for the Orangutang Foundation UK.  He even went so far as to create a character in his books to further draw attention to this issue: a wizard at the Unseen University was accidentally turned into a Orangutang, but chooses to remain as one as it suits the nature of his work (as he is a librarian). However, the only word he can say is ook, yet all the wizards can understand what this word means – well, they are magic, after all.

Pratchett released two documentaries on the plight of the Orangutang, one in 1994, and the other in 2013. Having followed one male ape through the humid jungles of Borneo, named Kusasi, Pratchett decided to see if he can find him, but also to witness the legacy Kusasi has created. The intertwining of the fate of the Orangutang and Pratchett himself, just two years before his death, was unmistakable, and added to the sense of tragedy in the excellent documentary.

The first and only time I saw Sir Terry Pratchett was in 2011 at a one man stage show – aptly titled An Evening with Terry Pratchett – which was more a less a plug for his latest book release, Snuff. He was full of his wry humour, self-deprecating to the last, and it just felt great to meet a man I greatly admired.

I am not one for hero worship, or making god out of mere human mammals. Yet, if there ever was a man to admire, it is Sir Terry Pratchett. Humble, intelligent, rational, pro-science, brave, witty, bizarre, fantastical, brave – this man’s death is a loss to humanity. 

Five years old

My dearest daughter, only five years old, 
You are, quite truly, the rarest beauty.
With your caramel locks, which are tipped with gold --
They bounce as you run, ever so cutely.
If only you could know how much I care,
Because I love you with my entire heart,
My fatherly love is without compare,
It has grown from the day your life did start,
To see you so full of vigour and wit,
Laughing and joking so innocently,
Pushing the boundaries your mother permits,
Our true love of you grows infinitely!
I will make you a rare solemn oath:
To protect you until my death parts us both.

Milo Yiannopoulos – self-hating misogynist?

Milo Yiannopoulos – self-hating misogynist?

By Samuel Mack-Poole

“Come not between a dragon and his wrath.” William Shakespeare, King Lear ACT 1 Scene 1.

“I’m talking about men, darling.” Milo Yiannopoulos, The Big Questions Sunday 15^th March 2015

Although I am an avid follower of current events, and despite being a fan of the blogosphere, it was only recently that I had the misfortune to come across Miles Yiannopoulos. In spite of being a straight white male, I am proud to be a LGBT advocate. Moreover, it is an ethical stance I am honoured to campaign for, as it goes to show that humans can actually care about the rights of others, even one is not part of a disadvantaged group.

And then we have Milo Yiannopoulos.

Yes, old Milo is not content with being a self-hating homosexual, he feels forced¹ to deny equal rights to gay teachers, too. If his loathing for homosexual rights was merely self-applied, I would find it in my heart to empathise with him. After all, one could rationalise gay self-loathing as a symptom of wanting to belong to a homophobic society. However, Yiannopoulos is not content with his absurd cognitive dissonance; he is somewhat evangelistic about it, too. 

Whilst watching Newsnight, I saw Yiannopoulos propose that gay teachers should refrain from talking about their private lives to their students.  One must add a caveat here, however, for the sake of objectivity, as I am a teacher. Thus, whilst my blog may be polemical but evidence based, in this instance it is more credible (as I am speaking from a perspective of relative expertise) but also quite anecdotal in what I write in response to his lazy, imprecise and inhumane point.

Yiannopoulos’ exact words were “a teacher’s job is to be a fairly impartial conveyer of knowledge”. He also stated that he was “confused” about the “need” for teachers to “out themselves”.  He also stated that he wished to be a parent one day, and that he was “uncomfortable” with the idea that his hypothetical future children would one day find out about their teacher’s homosexuality.  This is not only illogical, it’s also extremely puzzling. Surely, if he does have children, as a self professed gay man, he shall be behoved to have that conversation prior to his children entering school?

My daughter, a beautiful and rambunctious young girl, asked me before starting school if two men could marry. My answer was yes. I wasn’t embarrassed at all. However, if she had asked her primary school teacher about this, I would hope that she would echo what I had said. Bizarrely, this shouldn’t upset Milo Yiannopoulos, as gay men and women have the legal right to marry in the UK, and by informing my daughter about this, the teacher would merely be a fairly impartial conveyer of knowledge.

He is guilty of ignoratio elenchi with regard to his opinions on teaching. Teachers are behoved to make children reflect about their ethical values, and part of this is embedded in family values. Most secondary school teachers are form tutors, and students will usually have a head of year. It is the role of the form tutor and the head of year to cater for a student’s spiritual**, moral, social, and cultural education. Every country in the world embeds their cultural DNA within the ethos of education.  As the UK is a country which has legalised gay marriage, and as gay rights are embedded in British law, every single school in the country, and I include faith schools in this, are obliged to reflect clear levels of respect for homosexuals.

Implicit within this acceptance is the human right a gay teacher has to speak of their love for their partner, or their children. I have talked to my students about my wife and my daughter, so why would it be remiss of gay teachers to do the same? By feeling forced to be absurdly reticent about their sexuality, gay teachers must feel that they are denying the essence of who they are to their students, and they must, as a consequence, feel that their lives are not equal to that of heterosexuals. Now, if Milo Yiannopolous wants to, set the record (dare I say it) straight on this topic, that is more than fine with me.

Now, to tackle the other part of the title of this piece, is Milo Yiannopoulos a misogynist? His attitude in conversation with women on the panel of The Big Questions wasn’t helpful, that’s for sure. The quote in reference to his comment at the top of this essay doesn’t, and can’t by its very nature as it is merely the written word, reflect his sneering tone when speaking. His comments were so inflammatory that Kate Smurthwaite felt incensed enough to comment that she was “tempted” to leave the show.

He was so rude, so vulgar to Christine Brown-Quinn, author of Step Aside Super Woman, that he fell into a fit of immature giggling – cue a super cringe from the audience – and Kate Smurthwaite was incensed, and quite rightly, too.

It is all a terrible shame, because within Milo Yiannopoulos’ contemptuous tone were some interesting points. His cited that there had been a feminisation of education, and that this had been harmful to boys. I would have to agree with this. I think gender balance is of the highest salience, and we do have a clear issue in society when the education of primary school aged children is deemed a woman’s job. What is more masculine than having a direct impact on the future? What a curious world we live in.

Nevertheless, Yiannopoulos’ point was countered by Smurthwaite most quickly – she stated that his point about boys being prescribed Ritalin was not the fault of women, but of big pharma. Personally, I see the issue as not one or the other as I don’t favour binary logic in complex matters, but as a synthesis of both; patriarchy leading to feminism leading to a dysfunctional consequence.

To personalise this experience a little further, I became embroiled in a twitter war between Milo Yiannopolous and Smurthwaite. Again, I must confess something... I am a humanist, as is Smurthwaite. I felt that her contribution to the show was great, within the debate mentioned her, as well as he contribution to apostasy, and I tweeted her as a consequence. What I wasn’t aware of was the fact that I had opened a Pandora’s Box of hatred by making such a gesture.

Twitter is a website I dislike, but it is effective as a news source, as well as networking with likeminded individuals. I dislike it because comments come out of nowhere and seem aggressive as a result. You can also be swarmed by a well-organised bunch of trolls, not keen on intelligent debate but “yah boo” politics worthy of the plebs in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. One user, claiming to be a Christian female, actually stated “Yay Patriarchy” whilst in a debate with me.

All I can conclude from my debates on twitter is that I shouldn’t debate on twitter.

Speaking of conclusions, I should refocus this piece as the end is nigh. Whilst Milo Yiannopoulos is unquestionably guilty of self-hatred in his ardent desire to make homosexual teachers deny themselves, his attitude to women is in question. I feel uncomfortable in calling him a misogynist, as I can’t state with total certainty that he sincerely hates women. Nonetheless, his manners are in question, but I think this is merely a pompous caricature. It is one he presents as he obviously has an insatiable desire for air time. Nevertheless, his attitude on The Big Questions certainly appeared sexist, and he should reflect good and hard upon this matter. Is this really the legacy he wants to leave behind?

¹I chose my vocabulary very carefully there: I feel the word choice is exact, as opinions seemed to have been forced into his mind by a society which still proposes that homophobia is acceptable.

²This part I am not comfortable with (obviously). Faith has no place in education, and although one can be spiritual without being religious, the word has a significant resonance with those who don’t value empiricism.

Good Atheist Reads – A Review of Hitch-22 by Samuel Mack-Poole

                                   

                                Good Atheist Reads – A Review of Hitch-22

                                                    by Samuel Mack-Poole

“You’re a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay.” – Galloway on Hitchens.

“Eloquent, witty, literate, intelligent, knowledgeable, brave, erudite, hard-working, honest (who could foget his skewering of Mother Teresa’s hypocrisy), arguably the most formidable debater alive today yet at the same time the most gentlemanly, Christopher Hitchens is a giant of the mind and a model of courage.” – Richard Dawkins, one year before Hitchens’ death, writing in The Guardian in 2010.

Although Hitch-22 is not his seminal piece, Hitchens’ memoirs are, quite simply, a must read for any atheist worth his or her salt. I must confess that Christopher Hitchens is my favourite of the four horsemen, so any objectivity regarding this piece shall be impossible to achieve. He is a master of the written word, and his predilection for all things literary necessitates that I have a greater commonality with his style of thinking than the other three esteemed members of the non-apocalypse.

Moving towards the work, rather than the man, I found Hitch-22 to be ruthlessly honest in some ways (he is extremely up front about his homosexual experiences in his youth during his time at private school, some which were with senior members of the Conservative Party) whilst he is positively avoidant about others (his failed marriages aren’t mentioned in any detail, if at all). It is this contradiction which best epitomises Christopher Hitchens, and this is by his own admission; this is very much the major theme of his memoirs, and it had an obvious influence on his title, too.

Whilst he doesn’t write about his children or wives, Hitchens does delve into his mother’s suicide in delicate detail. I don’t doubt that the impact of a parental suicide would be extremely crushing, and Hitchens’ doting love for his mother, whom he calls ‘Yvonne’ throughout his memoirs, is obvious.  The sheer detail of information on Hicthens’ formative years is of pronounced interest to me. All the way through the earlier chapters of Hitch-22, I could imagine a handsome young chap, precocious of intellect, challenging his teachers and peers, courting controversy in a world which was remarkably different to that we live in now¹.

What was most challenging for me to read was Hicthen’s pro-war rhetoric. Personally, at the tender age of 18, I was aghast at (what I then thought to be) an imperial war. Prior to reading Hitch-22, I had watched a video on YouTube called The Mother Of All Debates, between ‘gorgeous’ George Galloway and Christopher Hitchens, and after viewing it,  the title seemed just.  What is most interesting is that Hitchens’ position is that of an anti-totalitarian socialist, and thus he supported regime change in Iraq. His arguments aren’t inspired by anything like what his detractors like to accuse him of (in essence, supporting a neo-conservative agenda).

Having visited Iraq numerous times, Hitchens was extremely coloured by his experiences in Saddam’s dictatorship. Having seen the eradication of human rights first hand, he creates an uncomfortable case for war which, whilst not leaving me absolutely convinced, certainly has led to me re-evaluating my once staunch stance on the topic.

The unavoidable topic of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses is another major theme of his memoirs, and he writes glowingly of the most vilified writer in the Islamic world. Whilst this can come as no surprise, as Hitchens was a titanic advocate for free speech, again it is his personal experience with the fatwa which makes his arguments against its vile attack on western values all the more convincing².  Given recent events, one should heed his ominous warnings on the subject of free speech, and it is a matter which I find myself in complete agreement with old Hitch.

Furthermore, his criticism of western leaders to stand by Salman Rushdie resonated with me to a great degree. When the fiasco occurred, I was but a young boy. Although I too was somewhat precocious, and I can remember watching Rushdie on Have I Got News For You on video link, and being told by my father that he had written something offensive to a religion. I was too young to fully cognise the situation, but I do remember thinking that those who had threatened him were basically simple and barbaric. My opinion, whilst now more informed, hasn’t changed at all.

On the topic of Islamic threats to western existence, Hicthens’ experience of 9/11 is also very intimate. Although he was an international reporter for much of his life, he had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time when it came to events of great consequence.  However, it was this event, more than any other, which cemented Hitchens’ thought that it was Islam, not Christianity, which was the dominant and major threat to Western free-thought. Consequently, Hitchens has no time for Western Islamic apologists, and he writes most scathingly of Chomsky on this matter.

If you watch Hitchens in many of his debates, he is never violently angry. I have watched him debate many great orators, and I have not seen him lose his cool once. Nevertheless, whilst reading Hitch-22, one can really feel his genuine rancour for the events which led to the deaths of 3000 innocent people in New York.  At risk of repeating myself, this isn’t altogether surprising. He knew people who died on that ill fated day. He lived in New York. This must have had an impact on his thought, and this really defines Hitchens as a writer, a philosopher and a human being; whilst he wasn’t always objective, he was always damned convincing.

I will conclude by stating that he wrote much of Hitch-22 whilst suffering from oesophageal cancer.  Although he was staring into the abyss, he carried on, whilst not quite as normal, but bravely and authentically. As such, I recommend this book whole-heartedly; it is touching and stimulating, emotional and logical, political and philosophical, polemical and balanced.  Whilst that last sentence seems to be very contradictory, it encapsulates the mind of a man who was a genius. What is more, much like the man, Hitch-22 is dripping in enigma. Will you take a tumble down the rabbit hole, too?

¹Just  think that when he was born, in 1949, Hitchens was to grow up a world where Britain was about to relinquish its power on the world stage, where mobile phones wouldn’t exist for another forty years, and where homosexuality was still illegal under UK law.

²I can imagine if Hitchens was still alive, he would be sipping a brandy and smoking cigarettes whilst delivering acerbic attacks on the religion of peace, and feeling completely vindicated in doing so.