The bottle and the genie

After all, everything must pass through the senses, and life, whatever its complexity, remains always primarily a feeling.

George Santayana - The Life of Reason (1905/1906)

When Johannes Gutenberg introduced printing with movable type he let a hugely influential genie out of an ancient bottle. The elites have been trying to put it back ever since, but they are not succeeding. If anything they appear to have given up an unequal struggle.

The genie Gutenberg released may be called many things, but we may as well call it the Genie because in some ways it resembles the personification of a force of nature. What is it though, this Genie, this universal force pervading the human condition?

The Genie is merely the laws of human behaviour. Stimulus, response, reinforcement and the path of least effort. In particular the Genie reflects the power of reward over punishment. Punishment triggers escape behaviour, reward doesn’t and therein lies a significant clue to the human condition. With steady inevitability, rewarded behaviour becomes the path of least resistance for everyone - the leaders and the led. Thus reward extends its power and influence while punishment fades into the history of failed systems.

In the end and in the long run we get what we want and nothing the elite classes do will stop that inexorable force for change. To promote reward as the prime motive of human behaviour the Genie requires everyone to have money in their pocket. It requires everyone to work, spend and enjoy themselves without too much introspection.

Which is why the Genie is so vulgar, so fond of fun, entertainment and good living in the shallowest sense. Which is also why bread and circuses work and why elites are in the end forced to offer more and better bread and circuses rather than the lash.

This is also why political correctness is so shallow and so strangely vulgar in its prim righteousness. Political correctness is primarily a punishment strategy with few rewards apart from the thin and vulgar satisfactions of virtue signalling. It doesn’t work though. Priggishness never works – normal folk just snigger behind its back.

All this is not meant to suggest that the Genie is opposed to cultural pursuits, but culture must have as wide an appeal as possible and must involve money because money is essential to rewarding behaviour. Cultural pursuits must not too be intellectual or exclusive, not too deep, not to difficult, not too challenging. We follow the path of least effort.

There have been numerous disasters for the Genie, but it is patient, willing to learn in its slow but steady conquest of the human condition. Sadly the Genie is not your friend. It is not the friend of anyone and neither is it liberating in any deeper sense than the freedom to be rewarded for as little as possible - the path of least effort.

Q&A

Questions and answers concerning the ThermoCafe by Thermos 0.5 Litre Flask as sold by Argos


Q from what hight [sic] can it be thrown from before it breaks? Just asking for a friend here.

A from staff member. Hi there. Thanks for using Q and A. The flask is described as virtually unbreakable but if thrown from any height, it's functionality cannot be guaranteed. Hope this helps.


Q how many people can drink from it before it wears out?

A Hi Rose! I can confirm that this 0.5 litre flask can provide a 250ml drink for two people or 500ml for one. How long the flask lasts will depend on usage and general wear and tear. However, looked after properly it can last for years. Thanks for using Argos Q&A.

Burning Ping Pong Balls

Cursed with celebrity principles

That she was “advanced” you could also postulate, but “advanced” in a strange way that would make her all the more dangerous, if only to small circles;. You would know, if you happened to know the type, that she would have “principles” that at odd moments would wreck enterprises, homes, or the lives of friends — always for the purest of motives.

Ford Madox Ford - The Marsden Case (1923)

This morning found this humble blogger sitting in the dentist’s waiting room reading a Daily Mail piece about celebrities who are in favour of immigration but highly unlikely to experience any of its negative impacts. People such as Stephen Fry and Helena Bonham Carter who live in the most agreeable surroundings and proclaim political principles with no possible impact on their own lives. Unfortunately those same principles may well have an impact on the lives of other, lesser mortals.

Oddly enough I’m in what could just about be called a similar situation. Here in former coal mining areas there has been very little local immigration. I’m not sure why, houses are cheap, but whatever the reason it would be mildly dishonest of me to demand mass immigration or make a case against it. Immigration has barely affected me in any direct sense.

I suppose the difference is that over time it could affect this area and another difference is that I’m not a wealthy celebrity, not in that enviable position where it doesn’t matter either way. The point to be made is not so much about immigration, but about proclaiming principles which are really virtue signals emitted simply because they can be emitted without any personal risk of negative repercussions. Those repercussions are left for others to deal with. To my mind it is one of the more loathsome aspects of celebrity culture.

Seeds planted by dead men

I am paying old debts. Old thoughts and beliefs—seeds planted by dead men—spring up in my soul and choke me.

Sherwood Anderson - Seeds (1921)

As a tiny baby, what was your most cherished belief? Something to do with the delightful flavour of your big toe? We are not born with beliefs so where do they come from, how are they induced? Ah – that’s the key word though isn’t it? Induced. Creepy word. Say it slowly - i n d u c e d.

Beliefs are induced and the induction begins from day one. As we also know but prefer not to know, we don’t do our own induction. Not all the seeds are planted by dead men either. We know that too. Just read the comments in online newspapers...

You already do? Of course you do - it's just too delicious.

Belief is another of those misleading words we are stuck with because language is essentially manipulative and the vast majority of us are not the manipulators. It is just one aspect of our tendency to focus on the individual rather than controlling environments. Those are the environments we grew into, those which induced our beliefs, where the levers are in other hands.

Belief is socially induced verbal and mental behaviour. It is controlled behaviour and once we are controlled by a belief it is not easy to escape. Neither is it easy to see the point of escaping because we don’t control beliefs but are controlled by them. Having a belief is rather like joining a club with club rules and constraints which members must accept on pain of expulsion. As with a club, belief exacts a fee for its services; the fee being our independence, our freedom to think alternative thoughts.

As with a club, the control implicit in all beliefs is usually beneficial. It is a social allegiance conferring benefits we may or may not care to identify explicitly. The nature of belief is that we rarely see the control it exerts over our thinking simply because it exerts control over our thinking. Belief has to be internalised or it might be questioned. There are things we cannot allow ourselves to know except in that strangely oblique sense where we could know but dare not know.

Belief lies somewhere on a continuum between assent and support, between active and affirmative behaviour, particularly verbal behaviour. The distinction is well illustrated by political debates which are best analysed by clarifying what each side supports.

The important point seems to be somewhat subtle but it isn’t. Instead of being adopted by a belief, we could observe allegiances and their causes. In other words we could tease out the causes of the debate, the behaviour and the history of its causes rather than the airy abstractions we so often use to hide what is essentially allegiance behaviour. But usually we don't do that. Usually we are adopted by allegiances, infected by beliefs. Or we stand on the sidelines and sneer. Neither is satisfactory... well... I suppose sneering does have its satisfactions.

Aldous Huxley’s ideal of non-attachment is essentially an ideal of unbelief but one cannot easily believe in unbelief. We are not independent, not autonomous and there is nothing to be gained in expecting mass behaviour to be a kind of rational search for the truth. It isn’t and can’t be any such thing.

Belief is what dolts and charlatans make use of to worm their way into the public arena, why they always have and always will.

Eco Talibans

From a comment at Bishop Hill

Sharapova and sexism

The Independent has been quick off the mark in turning the latest sporting drugs debacle into one of its favourite memes.

Brands have been quick to drop Maria Sharapova without trial - but they aren't so hasty with their male athletes

This brand dump is a strange move for Nike, considering the sportswear giant let Gatlin off the hook and stood by Armstrong, Woods, Michael Vick and even Oscar Pistorius during ‘troubled times’

Nothing to do with Sharapova's fading attractions as a tennis star worth sponsoring?

Let's see.

Maria Sharapova is 28 years old and currently ranked 7 in the WTA rankings. She has had a fine if injury-prone career, but her best days were probably behind her even without this latest problem. Sponsoring brands will have had replacements lined up for some time.

The meldonium episode has merely triggered what was probably coming anyway. It isn't likely to be sexism.