Quotes

On closets

The metaphor of “coming out of the closet” is a good one. The image of the closet as the place where socially unacceptable secrets are hidden is very apt. In a discussion on religion in Sweden with my Greek flatmate in Lund I used the term “closet Christian” without really reflecting over its meaning. He questioned the term and I began to expand what I meant. The more I spoke the more the term struck me as odd – but suitable.

The metaphor of the closet, and in particular the idea of coming out of the closet, refers mainly to homosexuality. But the content of the closet is naturally dependent upon the social setting. Sweden is a very secular society, it is not radical, but rather a form of absolute indifference.

It is not really a disbelief based upon the questioning of the existence of god in the manner of Epicurus

Is god willing to prevent evil but not able – then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing – then he is malevolent.
Is god both able and willing – then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing – then why call him god?
Epicurus (341-271 BCE)

But it is a more casual, detached form. It has become such an accepted position that there is little or no need to argue the position. Most people do not even feel the need to explain the lack of belief. It is a simple fact, disbelief is the ruling norm.

Sweden is also extremely accepting of homosexuality. So much so that it is easier to be a homosexual than a Christian. What I mean by this is that, in Sweden, it is easier to shock your surroundings by admitting to believing in god than admitting to a non-heterosexual lifestyle. So I guess that there must be groups of Christians who prefer to keep their faith hidden so that they will not be stigmatized (however lightly) by the groups in which they mix.

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Believe Nothing

While thinking about the way in which students (and some researchers) tend to trust what they read in books, newspapers and online I came across this wonderful quote from the Buddha

Believe nothing,
no matter where you read it,
or who said it,
no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Buddha

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Doris Lessing on the power of books

Last night Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Read her Nobel lecture online, it was delivered on Friday 7 December at the Swedish Academy by Nicholas Pearson, Doris Lessing’s publisher in the UK. In her speech she points to the importance of books and reading for the creation of literature and she also takes a swipe at the banality of the Internet compared with the depth of literature. But the part I enjoyed the best came towards the end…

The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise … but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us – for good and for ill. It is our stories, the storyteller, that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, what we are at our best, when we are our most creative.

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The markets bent

My father always said “there’s no free lunch”. My father was right. There’s no free lunch and there’s no free market. The market is rigged, the market is always rigged, and the rigging is in favour of the people who run the market. That’s what the market is. It’s a bent casino. The house always wins.

David Hare – The Permanent Way

 

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Catching deadlines in flight

Today has been spent in a focused daze staring at the screen editing words and writing. The reason for this flurry of academic activity was that it was a conference deadline which I just had to keep. Usually I like to follow Douglas Adams advice on dates and deadlines:

 I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by…

But today was important and there was no chance for an extension. So after pouring my brain out over my keyboard and ruining my eyes by staring intently at the screen I managed to make the deadline.

Now its officially the weekend and I am going out to drink wine. Hope you all enjoy yourselves this weekend, wherever you are.

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Does anyone read Latin?


How shall I break this to you all gently? Probably best to be quick and not beat around the bush. A bit like pulling off a band-aid in one swift movement. I have a life outside this blog! Yes, besides being a blogger I am also active on Flickr 🙂

Anyway a recent picture I took was of a Latin inscription at the base of a lamppost in Lund – unfortunately I cannot figure out what it means. So if anyone knows any Latin please help out.

Click on the picture to get a bigger image.

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Scientific Pizza

A team of scientists at the University of Maryland have “discovered” a way of making healthier pizza. The scientists have:

developed a way of baking and fermenting dough which can increase levels of antioxidants, which protect against cell and tissue damage.

It may not be the cure for cancer nor the common cold but it is apparently a scientific approach to the pizza. It brings to mind the funniest science quote ever made on film:

Back off man, I am a scientist! (Bill Murray in Ghostbusters)

Why would anyone want to create a healthier pizza? Do you think they have applied for, and received, government funding for this breakthrough in science?

(via BBC Health)

Posted on by mklang

Never complain, never explain

The title of this post comes from the 19th century English prime minister. It is a very macho kind of sentiment and I sometime attempt to adhere to it. Not becuase of it’s tedious macho overtones but more becuase of the fact that complaining and explaining are rarely of any use since nobody really wants to hear about it.

On the other hand I believe that there is a real theraputic function in both complaining and explaining. Right now I have just finished what may be called a week of teaching hell. Not that the workload has been excessively heavy (even if it has been a lot) but I have been stuck in some kind of ennui, boredom, tristess – a blue funk which has been difficult or hard to shake off.

The result is that the pointlessness of work and life have become all too apparent. Usually the pointlessness  should not be enough to make life less important. In fact the pointlessness can be seen as being its own reward. Or to follow the words of Camus who writes at the end of his magnificent essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” that “The struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” The task of life should not be valued by the rewards.

On the other hand maybe it is just the fact that its cold, snowing and windy outside. I want less students, more sunshine, more distractions, a better mind, more original ideas, time to explore these ideas and the artfulness to express them well.

The good news is that it’s the weekend soon and the fact that I am complaining should indicate that I am heading in the right direction…

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Ideology of the cancer cell

The dream of economic growth is an overpowering myth, despite the fact that constant growth on a planet of limited resources is impossible. I came across this quote a couple of days ago:

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Edward Abbey

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Blackwhite

“The keyword here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.”

George Orwell 1984

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