BOILED ALIVE OR SLOW COOKED, SIR?

Atheists are often very moral – and indeed admirable – people.  In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins’ book on the process by which human beings evolved into the marvellous creatures we have become, he writes several comments ins which he makes his ethical beliefs clear.  One of these stood out in particular – and I have never forgotten it.  Near the beginning of the book he points out that some chefs prefer to boil lobster alive because this gives the flesh a more tender taste than if they were to dispatch it with quick bash of the mallet and cook it after killing it rather than by killing it.   Dawkins writes that he strongly disapproves of the practice of slow-boiling the poor creatures to death in order to gain a slight margin in tenderness and taste.

According to Dawkins and other admirable atheists like Dan Dennett, who was the subject of a profile I read recently in The New Yorker, we humans are the result of a gradual but relentless process as life became established on the planet and humans very slowly developed.  We were not created but rather we evolved and part of this evolution was the development of morality which helps to bind society together and make life more tolerable for us by treating other humans with a modicum of decency.  You definitely do not have to believe in a higher being who gave us this sense of decency to live your life by it.

That sense of decency is now extending to other species.  Indeed, the word ‘speciesism’ has been coined to stand alongside sexism and racism to denote those who do not treat all species as equal.  I think that treating species as equal in the way we at least try to treat genders and races as equal is hopelessly unrealistic and actually disguises an evolutionary process by which humans are increasing their domination of the planet at the expense of other species - but that is a subject for a different essay.  Even though I continue to eat other creatures I believe that we should treat them with compassion.  Hit the poor buggers over the head before cooking them and then eat them with a reasonably clear conscience.

Dawkins, presumably Dennett, and I all agree that we should treat other species well even – especially - if we are not vegetarian.  Our moral systems have developed over thousands of years to the extent that we now feel bad if we treat other people (or species) badly.  The atheist would say that this comes from a series of electro-chemical impulses which are working in our brains to give us a consciousness and to guide our way of living.

However, sometimes explaining something can explain it away.  Another set of electro-chemical impulses has developed in these same brains which leads some people to spend large sums of money on expensive bottles of wine and indulgent items of food.  Personally, I think most of the pleasure gained from a good meal comes by way of the people sitting around the table rather than the food on the plates or the liquid in the glasses, but there is nothing inherently wrong with indulging yourself occasionally and, if you want the best of everything, go ahead and order the slow-boiled rather than quick-killed lobster when you go out for dinner.

Two impulses have developed inside the eighty plus billion neurons and two and a half pounds of matter which make up the modern human brain.  One tells us that it is wrong to boil lobsters alive slowly. The other tells us that the resulting dish tastes better if prepared in this way. Most of us who consider ourselves moral people obey the first impulse. A few sophisticated gastronomes obey the second.  We are good, they are bad, we like to think.

But why?  If these are purely scientific processes taking place inside our brains, one set of impulses according priority to the action we consider ‘good’, the other preferring to give in to our taste buds, why on earth should we obey one set and not the other?   Society will still continue to function if we order boiled-alive rather than quick-killed lobster.  Indeed, lobsters will continue to breed and thrive as long as there are people who want to eat them, however they are prepared.  It is only if we stop eating lobsters or other creatures because of our scruples that their continued survival might come under threat.  

I am utterly clear that I ought not to prepare or order the slow-boiled version, no matter how much better it tastes (not much, I suspect).  I certainly do not reject Darwinism and theories of evolution.  It is just that they are not enough in themselves for me to lead my life by.  I do not envy people who choose the slow-boiled dish rather than the quick-killed one just as I do not envy people who think sex is more important than love (well, maybe a little if they are getting a lot more than me).  This may make me a wimp but I will embrace my wimphood and sleep better at night as a result.

If I could dispense with these scruples and still sleep well without living my life in some kind of moral way, I might do so, but I cannot so there is no point in trying.  My brain has given priority to the electro-chemical impulses whizzing around it which choose the moral options rather than the taste preferences and I – whoever ‘I’ am in this scenario – will not/cannot override this process.  But what, in the end, is the point of morality – of leading the good life – if it is merely one set of electro-chemical impulses working in competition with another? This is why I still think that there must be some force or power which is outside of me that is making me a moral being.  This is where we find God – or god, if you prefer.

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com which is posted every Monday.

Due to other commitments I will now be posting on Man Friday on the last day of each month (not weekly).

SCARLETT WOMEN

Scarlett Johannson
(picture from Wikipedia)

Scarlett Johansson has just split up with her husband.  Movie star gets divorced - big deal, I hear you say.  So what, it happens all the time.  I have nothing against Scarlett, who I think is a very good actress and a pretty good egg, supporting a lot of worthwhile causes.  I hope she sorts out her personal life, although this divorce (her second) was not entirely unexpected - she has said that she finds monogamy difficult and even unnatural.  Maybe she just needs the right bloke, but she is way out of my league so there is no point in getting my hopes up.

What concerns me is the effect on her young daughter.  Most kids like their parents to stay together but are reasonably accepting of a divorce once it is settled and arrangements made so that they spend time with them both, occasionally even as a family unit.  This is what happened with me and there are no big issues, although I did feel that I coulda/shoulda/woulda spent more time with them when they young and I was more or less forced out.  Rather than have a big legal battle I chose to go quietly and do the best I could under the circumstances, making up for lost time later on.  If two people have loved each other and formed a family, then gone their separate ways, no-one looks - or feels - good if they start pouring acid over each other. 

Scarlett's (ex)husband may not go quietly, however.  She is an in demand film actress who has to be on set for long periods of time, while he works as a journalist which probably gives him more time to spend with his children.  Yet, almost certainly, she will expect the child they produced to live with her as the caring parent.  Commuting between two countries thousands of miles apart (France and the USA) is simply not practical for a kid of two or so.

In my more cynical moments I say that the three tenets of feminism are - equal pay and opportunities for women, abortion on demand and no fault divorce.  Oh, and there is a number four: motherhood is sacred.  We all know that.  Women have children inside their bodies for nine months so naturally they should continue to care for them for eighteen years afterwards and, if the relationship with the father goes sour, he can move on and see them at weekends if he is lucky, if he behaves himself and if he pays up.  

Actually I do not fundamentally challenge that assumption.  I just find that it sits uneasily with the fifty-fifty feminism espoused by women who say that, because they make up half the population, they should land half of the important jobs (like film directing) and always expect equal pay across the board.  They complain about the pay gap, which is around fifteen per cent between women and men, yet do nothing about the far greater and more obvious divide in time children spend with their fathers and mothers.

You can almost hear the explosion of outrage which this remark brings from women who feel overburdened with housework and childcare while their men are off pursuing careers and they are stuck at home.  Yet, as I said in a previous post, I have no problem with doing housework, most of which is just one step up from falling off a log, but am still expected to move on if (when) things go wrong in a relationship.  The childcare gap is wider and more pervasive than the pay gap and feminism is doing nothing to close it.  In fact, it often seems as if it is determined to widen it even further.  Feminism has nothing for fathers, it seems, and this is why it is deemed the enemy by many of them who might otherwise be sympathetic towards the cause.

I have avoided using the word 'custody' in this essay, which I dislike.  Custody is for criminals not for children and until we feminism stops treating fathers as criminals, we will continue to doubt its value.  Even if we still fancy Scarlett.

A DAY FOR WOMEN

So what did I do on Wednesday, International Women’s Day?   I watched a game of football, of course – Barcelona against Paris St Germain, a game I had no interest in as far as the result was concerned and which did not feature anyone from Britain on either side or even as referees.  I also contributed to a charity that works against FGM and fixed up my house, doing things like mending an extractor fan which gave me a great sense of masculine pride. 

Do women still need a special day?  Yes, if they still face problems arising from inequality and violence.  No, if they have achieved equality and freedom from violence.  Obviously they have not reached full equality and still face violence so we cannot begrudge them a day in which they celebrate their achIEvements and identity.    They even have an hour every day on Radio Four for their own programme which men do not – although they often dominate the other twenty three.

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, the wife of the sexy young Prime Minister of Canada, caused a minor stir when she said that women should celebrate the men who support women in their drive for selfhood and equity.  We are supposed to be bigging up ourselves not our blokes, was the gist of these complaints, which were probably pretty mild in truth.  Not a lot happens in Canada, which is an eminently sensible and civilised country, so they need to make a fuss when they have the chance. 

This does raise the question of how much women see feminism as a women-only movement and how much as a a co-operation with men.  Men who whinge about feministas and feminazis like to portray women who hate men.  There is a lot of fear in these portrayals, the fear of exclusion of being rendered irrelevant and superfluous. 

Men probably need women more than women need men.   They need them if they want children, as they cannot do that bit on their own.  They need them if they want sex.  (They can do that on their own but it is not so much fun.)   They need them if they want love, which they can get from other men (becoming more common) - or from dogs (also surprisingly common).  Yet most men, when they think of their ideal lives, imagine a woman next to them with whom they can have children and share a home, a future, a bed.  As Percy Sledge sang in It’s a Man’s World, ‘… it would nothing without a woman or a girl’.   

The old contract was that men supported women financially, while women supported men emotionally – or sexually, if you prefer.  The system worked reasonably well for thousands of years but when western women became dissatisfied with their part of the bargain, which made them economically dependent as well as intellectually subservient, they began to throw off the shackles.  (I would certainly have done so.)  You cannot change biology, however, and women still have a monopoly on childbirth and generally have a closer relationship with their children when they are young.  If they are earning and achieving as much as their male partners – or, even more frightening, taking female partners – then those men are often left feeling redundant and without purpose.

This may have led to a growth in male homosexuality.  It is difficult to get accurate figures but it seems that gay men outnumber gay women by roughly two to one in the UK at the moment.  (Hence the complaints by women that it is so hard to find a straight bloke these days.)   It has also led to a widespread scepticism or hostility towards feminism from men who like women but feel excluded from the women’s movement.  As I said in the first of these essays, it feels like the party I am not invited to. 

Which brings us back to football.  Nothing could be a more male activity than dressing up in uniform and slugging it out on a patch of grass for a couple of hours, then shaking hands with the other lot and jumping into the bath together.  Football has done a lot to promote racial equality but nothing to encoureage acceptance of gays – and no successful soccer player has yet come out as gay.  Interestingly some rugby players have, even though they like to think of themselves as tougher than those who play the roundball game.

There is a lot of near gay stuff in male sport, football especially – hugging and kissing, jumping naked into the bath with other men, etc – and so maybe this subliminates the need for more obvious gay activity.  Women can watch footy but they do so in male terms, identifying with the team more than the sport, being absurdly partial, wearing the colours, abusing the referee and being plunged into despair or transported to ecstasy depending on the number of time eleven blokes wearing the same shirts kick the ball into the net.  George Orwell described sport as a modern substitute for war, a once male activity which is now being invaded by female soldiers in the front line.

Women do play football, of course, but not in the same teams as men and not with such great rewards or followings.  Those temperamental and talented young men with their enormous salaries, beards and tattoos might be the last real men on the planet.  Maybe that is why I wanted to watch them on International Women’s Day.

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com

TWO WOMEN, TWO COLOURS

Simone Biles

Rachael Dolzeal - then and now

Simone Biles is still a teenager but has already written an autobiography and has achieved more than most us will manage in a lifetime despite being effectively abandoned by her parents.   She never knew her father and her mother’s addictions prevented – and were a poor substitute for – everyday parenting.  Her mother’s father and his wife brought Simone and her sister up and she regards them as her parents.  They encouraged her to develop her talents as a gymnast and the medals followed.    I have little of interest to add to the praise heaped on her already except that those medals show what can be achieved with the help of effective and committed parenting, whether by your mother and father or others, whether you are born into an ethnic minority or a white Anglo-Saxon majority.  The fact that she is black is possibly ways the least important thing about Simone Biles.

For Rachel Dolzeal, however,the fact that she is not is her tragedy.  It left her feeling she lacked something.  She was brought up by highly religious parents but effectively abandoned them by assuming a non-white identity and passing herself off as a black woman.  A photograph of her as a young woman shows her as not just white but as the typical naïve and innocent all-American teenage girl smiling at the camera, tentatively entering adulthood but seemingly without a care in the world.

This was far from the case.  Feeling unwelcome in the white crowd at college Dolzeal latched on to an African-American one and gradually assumed a black identity she felt more comfortable with.  This trick was first tried over fifty years ago by an American writer called John Howard Griffin who temporarily disguised himself as black to experience racism (or racialism as it was then called) at first hand.  Griffin’s book Black Like Me showed that there was very little that was good in the experience and he was happy to re-assume his white identity although he did have to move his family to Mexico for a while to escape hostility which followed the publication of his book. 

This was in 1960 at a time when only a writer in search of a story would have assumed a black identity so entrenched was the second class citizenship of blacks in the USA (and here in the UK).  That has changed now – not enough admittedly, but the idea of there being a black man in the White House or accepting a Best Director Oscar would have laughable when the book was written, while it was a reality recently, even if the rebound from it gave us Donald Trump as Obama’s successor.

It was not only a reduction in racial disadvantage which prompted Rachael Dolzeal to assume a black identity but the fact that it still lingers on which appealed to her.  She wanted to embrace the victimhood which becoming black would grant her as she, in her own words, ‘finally found my place in the world’.  It was a place far better than Griffin’s temporary residence there could ever be but it was still one where she could identify herself as a victim of prejudice – without too much actual suffering.

I found myself feeling sorry for Rachael.  Most of us, if we are honest, like the idea of being victims occasionally so we can fight against the world.  Yet those who, like me, have lived privileged, comfortable - and white - lives have precious little opportunity to assume victimhood.  This can lead people to embrace disadvantage even if they have no entitlement to it.  It can also lead to them reverting to the use of previously derogatory terms.  Some gay men have readopted  the once hated word ‘queer’ while African Americans men still refer to themselves as ‘niggers’ (apologies but there is no other way to say this). 

A term of disparagement becomes a badge of honour - but usable only by those in the community. As a straight white male I would never allow myself to use the infamous ‘n' word unless in quotation marks but I may be use the term ‘queer’ if only by adding a 'Q' onto LGBT. I asked a gay friend of mine why this once hated word was being reappropriated.  His answer indicated that it represented a rejection of acceptance from those who do not subscribe to conventional sexual identities and do not wish to be confined by them.  Give us equality but don't think we will be your friends. So not long after I exclude the word ‘queer’ from my vocabulary, I find it being re-adopted by those for whom it once represented hatred.   

I hate this - and I find it confusing.  I will continue to boycott ‘queer’ (except in quotation marks) when it comes to sexuality.  And I will maintain an identity that is white, male, straight and – yes – privileged.  This does not make me a bad person just someone who has to work harder at being good.

My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com  EDWIN LERNER