Johnson on politics

The race of man may be divided in a political estimate between those who are practising fraud, and those who are repelling it.

Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

Crazies

This morning as I tootled along the dual carriageway, a Toyota Prius passed me doing at least 80mph. About ten feet from his tail was a Ford S-Max. Which of the two should take the prize for crazy guy of the day? The faux environmentalist or the nutter at the wheel of the Ford?

The hat given to the poet by Li-Chien

Long ago to a white-haired gentleman
You made the present of a black gauze hat.
The gauze hat still sits on my head;
But you already are gone to the Nether Springs.
The thing is old, but still fit to wear;
The man is gone and will never be seen again.
Out on the hills the moon is shining tonight
And the trees on your tomb are swayed by the autumn wind.

Po Chü-i (772 - 846). More here.
Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley.

Anacoluthon

The other day I was talking with Alice in the Red Lion. We were discussing the role of the anacoluthon in modern novels. As neither of us knew anything about the subject, we eventually moved on to another topic as even people in pubs occasionally do.

“What about this Large Hadron Collider then?” Alice asked as I collected our second gin and tonic from the bar.

“You mean the LHC?” I replied as I sat down, aiming to impress her with the sheer depth of my acronymical knowledge.”

“Yes – what about it?”

“Well what about it?” I poured a soupcon of tonic into my gin, then added more to make it last longer. It’s a dodge I usually try on myself, but it doesn’t work.

“Exactly,” Alice replied. “What about it?”

“Indeed.” At this point I realised the LHC wasn’t quite making it as a topic of conversation. It was turning out to be almost as sterile as the anacoluthon. I took a huge swig of gin and decided to be bold - once I’d finished coughing and spluttering.

“You’ve gone all red in the face again,” Alice said, "you drink too fast."

“I don’t think the protons can be going round with quite enough zip,” I replied, once I’d coughed as little gin as possible into my hankie.

“What protons? I hope you’re not going to suck that hankie.”

“Those protons that zoom round the LHC within a whisker of the speed of light. I still don’t think they go fast enough.” I shoved the hankie deep into my pocket. Alice can be so personal at times.

“How do you know?” Alice sipped her gin in a faux ladylike way.

“Well they haven’t found the Higgs boson, have they?” I replied, adroitly shifting my mind from gin-flavoured hankies to high energy physics.

“I never thought they would – not at those energy levels. They haven't even managed to create a black hole, not even a teeny-weeny one.”

“It must be disappointing for them though.”

“Who cares?” Alice drained her glass with a deft flourish. “Not me that’s for sure. They knew they might fail to find the Higgs, so I’ve no sympathy for them.”

“Nor me. I mean - what can you do with a Higgs boson if you find one?” I pushed my empty glass across the scarred table. “Your round.”

“You suck up gin like a black hole anyway,” said Alice, collecting our glasses.

Li Fu-jen

The sound of her silk skirt has stopped.
On the marble pavement dust grows.
The empty room is cold and still.
Fallen leaves are piled against doors.
Longing for that lovely lady
How can I bring my aching heart to rest?

Emperor Wu-ti (157-87 BC)
Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley.

Li Fu-jen was written by Wu-ti, sixth emperor of the Han dynasty, when his mistress, Li Fu-jen died.

It's Magical Me again

The previous two posts on the Milgram experiment and the Bystander Effect may suggest a number of conclusions. Maybe one of them is to wonder why we have apparently made so little moral progress since the parable of the Good Samaritan. Or maybe we don't pay enough attention to moral teaching?

The Milgram subjects were volunteers – so easy enough to back out one might think.

Bystander Effect subjects were passers-by. Maybe not quite so easy to break stride and take a look at those people on the ground apparently in distress. It wasn’t happening in a dark alley though, so no real risk in taking a look was there?

These two experiments tell us things we don't quite want to know, things we are happy to acknowledge as curiosities, but nothing to do with real life. We prefer to see ourselves as Magical Me who makes rational choices, adopts a rational lifestyle, makes decisions, sifts the evidence and acts accordingly. Yet these two clips are evidence against the very existence of Magical Me - evidence widely available on YouTube. So never mind the psychologists who conducted the experiments, what do you think? 

The Bystander Effect