A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching

Here's another amazing man pontificating on education. I'm proud to call myself as a liberal. The traditional liberal. Not the idiotic thing that the Americans have made it into. And we come from a long line of teachers kannu. Your father is a Professor. Your grandparents are professors. My grandfather was a professor. And so it goes back generations. Who knows you may also become one. It's one of the most rewarding of professions son. Not only you get paid to learn, you are constantly on a journey of exploration. 

But even if you become a corporate member or setup your own business, you will still need to teach. These principles are worth knowing and following. 

Love

Baba

A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell's 10 Commandments of Teaching | Brain Pickings
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/05/02/a-liberal-decalogue-bertrand-russell/

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by Maria Popova

“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”

British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and social critic Bertrand Russell endures as one of the most intellectually diverse and influential thinkers in modern history, his philosophy of religion in particular having shaped the work of such modern atheism champions as Christopher Hitchens,Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. From the third volume of The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1944-1969 comes this remarkable micro-manifesto, entitled A Liberal Decalogue — a vision for responsibilities of a teacher, in which Russell touches on a number of recurring themes from pickings past — the purpose of education, the value of uncertainty, the importance of critical thinking, the gift of intelligent criticism, and more.

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize – Voltaire

Not much to say beyond saying that this is a great quote, cuts straight to the core of human behaviour and society. As a libertarian and freedom of speech absolutist, this is clearly very important.

Two US bloggers were banned from entering UK. This is clearly a failure of the Sharansky test. The book is very good, and the test is simple:

If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society, not a free society. We cannot rest until every person living in a "fear society" has finally won their freedom.

I saw so many people wittering on along two lines, “i support freedom of speech but…” that but means you are not a freedom of speech supporter.

Second was, what kind of a society are we producing if we allow people like these guys in? Well, as the Sharansky test says, we are living in a fear society. USA is happy to have freedom of speech, but here in the UK?

ESPHOKS on the Home Office Minister, bah

A tale of two gay hate circumstances

Two incidents caught my eye, both on the same day.

First

Christian street preacher who allegedly told gay couple they would 'burn in hell' in High Street rant is cleared of wrongdoing. Religious Michael Overd, 47, pictured, was accused of using threatening or abusive language against Craig Manning and Craig Nichol in Taunton, Somerset.

Second.

Muslim fanatics who called for execution of gays and wanted to set up a 'medieval state' under Sharia law in Derby are jailed for up to two years
Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed handed out the pamphlet, called The Death Penalty?, which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts.

Hmmm, see the differences? Or see the commonalities? or both?

First of all, they shouldn't be arrested for their opinions. Voltaire will be spinning in his grave.

But here is the condemnation which is fine, because my opinion is that between these Abrahamic religion fundo’s, life is tough. The only silver lining is that they are slowly becoming extinct. Morons

Criminalise lack of Kindness and Helpfulness

This news story bewildered me. I quote:

The report on a so-called civil courage (duty to rescue) law contains the recommendation that those who passively stand by in a situation of acute danger could land themselves in prison for up to two years or incur fines.
Olle Abrahamsson, who led the inquiry at the justice ministry and will hand over the report to the minister Beatrice Ask on Friday, however advised against following the report's recommendations to introduce the law.
"It would be even harder then to get people to stand witness," he said to the Dagens Nyheter daily.
A "Good Samaritan" law exists in several other countries, including Sweden's Nordic neighbours. The report is the result of an inquiry into whether Sweden should follow suit and adopt a similar legal praxis.
Abrahamsson argued that the law had little effect in many of the countries, arguing that those disinclined to assist would not change their behaviour just because they could be held to account in the courts.
He furthermore more pointed out that US studies indicate that more die while helping out those in need, than are actually saved.
France's good Samaritan law is perhaps one of the most well-known in a European context.
While the law requires bystanders to assist those falling victim to crime or accident, the law generally excludes assistance that would endanger the person who is offering it.
Good Samaritan laws take their name from a parable told by Jesus commonly referred to as the Parable of the Good Samaritan contained in Luke 10:25-37. The parable tells the tale of aid given by one traveller to another traveler of a different religious and ethnic background who had been robbed and beaten by bandits.

So now I am going to be prosecuted for minding my own business? oh! goody, this just follows this news story. I quote:

MORE than a dozen emergency workers refused to pull a man from a waist-deep boating lake because of ‘health and safety’ fears.

For half-an-hour charity shop worker Simon Burgess, 41, was left face down in the shallow water as they waited for a specialist rescue crew.

Mr Burgess, who had gone to the lake to feed the swans, was pronounced dead at the scene but friends claim that if rescuers had waded straight into the water he could have been saved.

The crews of two fire engines, two police cars, two ambulances and an air ambulance were told not to enter the lake, which is no more than three feet (one metre) at its deepest point, in case they ‘compromised their safety’.

Europe is becoming moronic and stupid, the state is seriously become stupid. What the hell is this? where is the reliance on individual rights, liberalism and self responsibility? Somebody has to legislate to tell you to be nice and kind and helpful? This is shameful indeed.

An Israeli looks at India

Let me put this up right up ahead. A uniform civil law is a must in any land. I would say that it forms the basis of nationhood. This does not mean that it tramples over individual rights, far from it. Individual rights are sacrosanct but civil laws come into the picture when another person gets impacted by what your circumstances and actions. Talking about inheritance, adoption, marriage, divorce and the like. This has to have national applicability. You can get married under a tree, in front of a bus or in a church, does not matter. But if your marriage has to be dissolved, then other things being equal, the property division between you and your wife should not be impacted by where you got married, who married you and which deity you prayed to at that time. If you want to create a nation and a shared values society, then this kind of equality of treatment is important.

I have written many times on this topic here. This is specially evident when it comes to minorities. Yes, I understand that there is a problem with the tyranny of the majority, but that’s where your nationhood comes from. Every country and nation has to decide what their minimum common rules should be. If you want to live in a liberal democracy, then minimum common civil laws will apply. And when you dont, then problems occur, like with the Baha'i in Egypt, the Arabs in Israel, the Hindu’s and Christians in Pakistan, the Muslims in India, etc.

This paper by an Israeli academic was interesting. First the abstract:

This article focuses on the ambivalent effect of religious autonomy in India and the outcome for democracy in the country. The Indian constitution guarantees autonomy to its religious minorities, and promises the minorities the freedom independently to manage their religious affairs in addition to a proportional share of the budget. At the same time, the constitution emphasizes the aspiration to legislate 'uniform personal laws' for all the citizens of India in accordance with the principles of secularism, equality and with India's self-definition as a civic nation. This recommendation has however remained a 'dead letter' until today. In this domain, the state has constituted a civic law for Hindus, which adjusts Hinduism to democratic principles. In this sense, the state has nationalized Hinduism, and the government has assumed authority and reformed Hindu civic and marriage laws. However, although they have tried, the state's legal and political institutions have not interfered thus far with Muslim marriage and religious laws. Muslims are committed to the Sharia while Hindus must obey the state's civic laws. By avoiding enforcement of affirmative action for Muslims in the spheres of political representation or public employment, while simultaneously prohibiting Hindus' group rights, and providing religious autonomy to the Muslim minority, the Constitution, which stresses so-called secularism as well as minority protection, intensifies the conflict between these two governance principles. The conclusion is that this situation not only leads to ideological conflicts and resource competition but also, overall, threatens the stability of India's democracy.

This Shah Bano case was a blot on Indian democracy as it made sure that it hit the worst, the Muslim Woman, right in the solar plexus. All religions are patriarchal and there are many items in the Indian version of Islam which are decidedly anti women. And then the Indian state went and slept with the obscurantists and mullahs. See the wiki site mentioned above. This lack of a uniform civil code direction by the politicians is venal but judicial attempts have tried to make sure that the patriarchal stupidity and pandering to religious obscurantists is obviated to a certain degree.

Its the women who get hit all the time as usual.

Freeloaders versus good citizens around the world

A question that is so frequently asked in the third world countries relates to the comparison between Singapore and Country XXX about litter. See here for an example. In other words, when you would not dream of littering in a country like Singapore, why would you do so in India, Nigeria or what have you?.

But I am still not sure that littering is avoided in Singapore because their citizens are very heavily brought into the civic sense and have a sense of community or is it the threat of draconian corporal punishment if you spit or litter. My feeling is that it is a mixture with a bit more of the latter than the former, but I am happy to be corrected.

In other countries, public goods are not considered to belong to one self, they do not identify with civic society and thus are very happy to go about littering or spitting. I remember Mish, one of girls I worked with at Solly's, she went to Nepal to teach English to orphans, I spoke to her and she said in an outraged indignant tone after praising them to high heaven, but they all spit so much. As it so happens and what I found out, one does not spit in Brazil, I am afraid. But I digress. Anyway, these people who do not believe in civic society and exhibit littering behaviour are called as free loaders.

For example, if you were not involved or engaged in local government or society, then you would have no hesitation in chucking a stone at the local electronic traffic information board or destroy a bus shelter or throw litter on the ground. Leaving aside the issue of upbringing or culture or what have you, the assumption is that it is somebody else's problem and somebody else will handle it. In other words, free loaders.

But these freeloaders are punished by the law, such as in Singapore, and their behaviour changes. But one interesting question is, what is the reaction of the freeloaders to this punishment and would they retaliate against them? I read about this in the FT recently. I quote:

Students in 16 cities around the world played a "public goods" game, in which everyone is given monetary tokens. They could either keep the tokens for themselves, or put them into a common pot that yields extra interest to be shared between all the players, whether or not they contributed to the pot. After one round, everyone's contribution is revealed and players can "punish" each other by taking tokens away.

Now this was the interesting part where the national differences came through (beware of generalisations, I hate Paris but I love France, I love France but hate them frogs... :)). In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey and South Korea where you have strong authoritarian institutions (either on the governmental or patriarchal society level), the freeloaders took revenge and hit back at their punishers with the sad outcome that the overall pot was reduced for everybody.

In countries of Western Europe, US, Australia and surprisingly China, there was much less freeloading and more social behaviour, less punishment was observed and the earnings actually increased over time. I think its worthwhile to quote the full conclusion by the study leader:

"The findings suggest that in societies where public co-operation is ingrained and people trust their law enforcement institutions, revenge is generally shunned. But in societies where the modern ethic of co-operation with unrelated strangers is less familiar and the rule of law is weak, revenge is more common."

Curious, no? specially the anomaly around China? But more broadly, trust in the law is crucial for civic society and that will require less authoritarianism, less patriachal behaviour and more individual freedom. For the society to be trusting, you have to trust the individual, to trust the individual, you have to have respect for individual rights. But as long as you have this idea that the government knows best or some weird religion knows best, you will end up with a bunch of anti-social freeloaders who drag down the entire society. But this, this was just an experiment and the results have to be taken with a grain of salt!

Technorati Tags: Autocracy,Democracy,Legal System,Liberalism,Singapore

Is this why the Saudi Clerics are to be re-trained?

Sarva Dharma Sambhav, or all paths lead to God, is one of the guiding principles of modern life, or  at least of Hinduism. But when I read this, I figured, we have a long way to go before we believe in this principle. Given that people mistakenly believe that Hinduism has Idol Worship, this hits close to home, I quote:

Riyadh: A resolution calling for the enactment of an international pact to forbid religions from being defamed or insulted as well as their symbols, leaders and prophets, has been voted out by the Saudi Shoura (Consultative Council).
A total of 77 members opposed the recommendation while 33 voted in favour. Those who opposed it argued that such a pact would force people to recognise religions, which advocate idol worship, and that "would be unacceptable."

"Some consider Buddhism, Qadianism and Baha'ism as religions. Can we make it obligatory for Muslims to respect these faiths and avoid criticising them?" he asked.

The answer is YES, it does not matter what you believe in, as long as it is personal to you and you do not infringe on the rights of others (I know this is a generalisation, but you know what I mean. If your religion means that you get to cut off my ear and offer it roasted to your goddess, then no, not allowed, but if you want to worship my ear as a goddess and you do not insist in sitting on my shoulder to worship it, then by all means you can go for it).

Is this why this happened? In other words, would the training to be given to the Saudi Clerics train them on how to be liberal? and how to be more accepting of other religions and sects? I am a bit doubtful about this for many reasons (see one here), I quote from the end of the article

But critics are sceptical about whether such initiatives would work as long as the powerful, and ultraconservative, religious establishment in Saudi Arabia continues to exert enormous influence over society.

Only last week, a prominent cleric called for the beheading of two liberal writers who had questioned the orthodox view that Muslims can not change their religion.

The problem is, if you want, you can find evidence either way in the Quran, e.g. either by looking at the no-compulsion in Islam sure or for the verses's looking for the unbelievers. But it does not need to be like that. Islam as a religion is a great way to reach God, to be good people and citizens. Just as Hinduism is as well. We do not need arguments and fights. But bear in mind,that  this kind of medieval thinking has no place in the modern liberal and secular world. If you wish to be with the Neanderthals, then fine, but don't expect others to fjoin you! It should be promising to find out what the training produces! :)

Technorati Tags: Islam,Reform,Liberalism

Freeloaders versus good citizens around the world

A question that is so frequently asked in the third world countries relates to the comparison between Singapore and Country XXX about litter. See here for an example. In other words, when you would not dream of littering in a country like Singapore, why would you do so in India, Nigeria or what have you?.

But I am still not sure that littering is avoided in Singapore because their citizens are very heavily brought into the civic sense and have a sense of community or is it the threat of draconian corporal punishment if you spit or litter. My feeling is that it is a mixture with a bit more of the latter than the former, but I am happy to be corrected.

In other countries, public goods are not considered to belong to one self, they do not identify with civic society and thus are very happy to go about littering or spitting. I remember Mish, one of girls I worked with at Solly's, she went to Nepal to teach English to orphans, I spoke to her and she said in an outraged indignant tone after praising them to high heaven, but they all spit so much. As it so happens and what I found out, one does not spit in Brazil, I am afraid. But I digress. Anyway, these people who do not believe in civic society and exhibit littering behaviour are called as free loaders.

For example, if you were not involved or engaged in local government or society, then you would have no hesitation in chucking a stone at the local electronic traffic information board or destroy a bus shelter or throw litter on the ground. Leaving aside the issue of upbringing or culture or what have you, the assumption is that it is somebody else's problem and somebody else will handle it. In other words, free loaders.

But these freeloaders are punished by the law, such as in Singapore, and their behaviour changes. But one interesting question is, what is the reaction of the freeloaders to this punishment and would they retaliate against them? I read about this in the FT recently. I quote:

Students in 16 cities around the world played a "public goods" game, in which everyone is given monetary tokens. They could either keep the tokens for themselves, or put them into a common pot that yields extra interest to be shared between all the players, whether or not they contributed to the pot. After one round, everyone's contribution is revealed and players can "punish" each other by taking tokens away.

Now this was the interesting part where the national differences came through (beware of generalisations, I hate Paris but I love France, I love France but hate them frogs... :)). In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey and South Korea where you have strong authoritarian institutions (either on the governmental or patriarchal society level), the freeloaders took revenge and hit back at their punishers with the sad outcome that the overall pot was reduced for everybody.

In countries of Western Europe, US, Australia and surprisingly China, there was much less freeloading and more social behaviour, less punishment was observed and the earnings actually increased over time. I think its worthwhile to quote the full conclusion by the study leader:

"The findings suggest that in societies where public co-operation is ingrained and people trust their law enforcement institutions, revenge is generally shunned. But in societies where the modern ethic of co-operation with unrelated strangers is less familiar and the rule of law is weak, revenge is more common."

Curious, no? specially the anomaly around China? But more broadly, trust in the law is crucial for civic society and that will require less authoritarianism, less patriachal behaviour and more individual freedom. For the society to be trusting, you have to trust the individual, to trust the individual, you have to have respect for individual rights. But as long as you have this idea that the government knows best or some weird religion knows best, you will end up with a bunch of anti-social freeloaders who drag down the entire society. But this, this was just an experiment and the results have to be taken with a grain of salt!

Technorati Tags: Autocracy,Democracy,Legal System,Liberalism,Singapore

Swedes versus Kurdistan!

I had a bit of a discussion online with a gentleman of the Swedish persuasion who did not like what I had written here. I told him that moral equivalence has its limits. Here's one example of a limit:

 

You say," said Lord Napier (confronted as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in India by locals protesting against the suppression of suttee) "that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Technorati Tags: Hinduism,History,Liberalism

Banning Quran is bad, yes? How about the Bible?

Rather sad commentary here. I quote:

Yet the question remains: If Muslims can get so worked up by the fact that some right-wing Dutch politician hungering for publicity can stir up a debate by demeaning the Quran, why is it that so many Muslims remain indifferent to how their fellow Muslims treat the holy texts of other faiths and belief-systems?

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Now the Catholic Church is moaning about another film!

First of all, the name itself is silly, The Catholic Secular Forum. What on earth is Catholic Secular Forum? It is like saying Muslim Secular Forum or a Hindu Secular Forum. I presume it means Catholics who are Secular, yes? So why on earth would you complain about Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth I movie? I quote:

MUMBAI (ICNS): The Catholic Secular Forum has condemned Shekhar Kapur's magnum opus movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age, for its anti-Catholic stance, criticised as such world-wide by film critics.

The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) Mumbai-based, activist community NGO said the sequel is a misinterpretation of history and presents the Pope, the Jesuits and loyal Roman Catholics in bad light. The CSF, an independent Christian laity and clergy partnership initiative has held successful protests in the past against Hollywood  and Bollywood movies such as Da Vinci Code, Tickle My Funny Bone, Sacred Evil, Sins among others.

So it is quite clear that these Catholics have no idea about liberal principles of free speech. But that's fine, not that they know anything about Secularism either. Mind you, they don't seem to know much about Catholicism either (given the fact that they do not know much about the history of dissent and debate in Catholicism), but that's fine, it is clear that they are medieval ignoramuses.

Look at the reasons that they have given and laugh at them. Mocking is bad. Demonising is bad. So I presume that demonising idol worship is bad as well, by that account? Oh! I am sorry, it is only bad when somebody demonises the Catholic Church, but its perfectly all right when the Catholic Church demonises other religions. Yes?

Number 2 is not clear as to what is the problem. Nor is Number 3. Nor is number 4. It is also not clear what they are moaning about in Number 5. And number 6 seems to be complaining about Mr. Kapur making money. I think these idiots need to be told that it is a MOVIE. It is NOT a DOCUMENTARY. But given their sheer ignorance and illiberality, I rather doubt that these sad gits will know the difference. But hey, they are fun to watch, no? I just wish we can throw peanuts at them :P And before I forget, yes, it is their right to protest. And it is my right to call them illiberal and ignorant! happy? :)

Technorati Tags: Christianity , India , Freedom of Speech

Do Homar's understand Kefaya?

Read this and weep. How liberalism is simply impossible to take root in the Middle East at this moment. There is much to talk about how liberalism does not live comfortably with religion, nationalism or autocracy!, and given the fact that the local populace is quite happy with anything that does not require them to think, well, perhaps they are homar's indeed. I quote:

If you want to understand the Middle East's path over the last decade and why the
area is stagnating, at best, or entering an era of radical Islamist upheaval, at
worst, consider the tale of Egypt's Kifaya movement. This is the kind of thing
Western politicians, officials, academics, and journalists must comprehend to
know how things really work.

Misunderstanding the Middle East is based on two bad ideas. First,
when people try to graft Western history onto the region to think the advance of
progress unstoppable; and second, accepting radical Arab nationalist and
Islamist doctrine that everything wrong is the fault of the West and Israel.
Put the two together and you get: The expected progress doesn't happen due
to bad Western policy and Israel's existence.
....
On an al-Jazeera television program, Masiri debated against secularism.
In a November 2004 interview, he accused America of using ideas like democracy
and human rights to seek world hegemony, interfere in other countries' affairs,
and force them to follow its policy. But if Masiri sees democracy as a front for
imperialism, what is he doing heading the main political organization in Egypt
supposedly battling for democracy?

The bottom line is that Kifaya has largely fallen apart, focuses on fighting the Arab-Israeli conflict, and embraces Islamism. Its leader is anti-democratic, anti-Western and anti-Semitic. How could its fate better illustrate the power of the Arabic-speaking world's dominant ideas and politics, or the difficulty of escaping them?
Anti-Semitism, it has been said, is the socialism of fools, and patriotism is the last refuge of
scoundrels. Kifaya has fulfilled both of these maxims. Ultimately Kifaya, instead of really saying "Enough!," ended up merely giving Egypt more of the same.

Sad or what? homar's or what?

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Turkish military expels officers

Now here's an interesting situation. Turkey's army does not like islamists. And calls any form of islamist behaviour as treasonous and reactionary. And chucks them out with no further ado. On the other hand, we see a strange sort of similar behaviour in the US Army.

See what the Washington Post has to say about this and I quote, "A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military." Will these chaps be court martialled and chucked out for being reactionary? :) Same thing in Pakistan as well. That army's lead by people who dont really like islamists, the islamists have this sad tendency to try to knock off the Army leadership. But then people call the Pakistani Army leaders as liberals, which is at variance to what I think Liberalism is all about.

But here's a question for all who want to keep their armies firmly secular and rid of any of this religious nonsense. In USA, Pakistan and Turkey, the incidence of religious thought and fevrour is rabidly rising. So just HOW in the name of all that's holy do they expect their new soldiers and officers to be secular? Import them from Mars? This is a tough call and something that will keep on making waves in the future.

=================

Turkey's secular military expelled 10 officers for being "reactionary" — a euphemism for Islamist activities — along with 13 others accused of lack of discipline, an official said Sunday.

The military, a strong supporter of Turkey's secular standing, ousted the 10 officers for "reactionary activities," the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

The phrase "reactionary activities," usually refers to alleged ties to religious groups or a religious agenda seen as a threat to the nation's secularist tradition.

It was the first time the Higher Military Council disclosed the number of those expelled on that specific allegation. In the past, it only released the total number of dismissed officers and gave no other details, the Milliyet newspaper said.

The Zaman newspaper, known for its religious readership, reported that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul signed the council decision, but that they disagreed with it.

Erdogan's Justice and Development Party — which the opposition says has a secret Islamic agenda to scrap secularism — won more than 46 percent of votes in the July 22 elections.

Erdogan and other party officials have repeatedly denied the allegations made against them, pointing to entry talks with the European Union as proof.

The military dismissed 13 other officers because of behavior disrupting discipline which harms the military's prestige, newspapers reported.

The military has expelled hundreds of officers for alleged ties to leftist or Islamist groups since 1996.