What great insights to these classic works of literature did I have at the ripe old age of 17? I haven’t got a clue. If I was so inspired (and at 5 am I am rarely functionally {see, that makes no sense}, never mind inspired) I’d dig through the trunk containing my unusable records that for some reason I’ve saved from the 80s (and probably should just toss in the garbage in a massive purging around here) and see if I still have this essay. I’m nowhere near as bad as my sister in the packrat department, but there are some things I’ve kept over the years, although I suspect this isn't one of them. My grade 13 essay on Hamlet is more likely, but that's another story, one that’s not important for the purpose of this blog post. I wasn’t sure if I’d blog today. I haven’t been in a wonderful mood the past few days, and the main thought that I kept coming back to is that I just don’t belong in this community. Now, don’t presume you understand what I mean by that – if I can sort it with enough clarity I’ll explain tomorrow. Or I might never explain this one.
But the feeling of detachment - of not belonging - goes to the heart of what is significant about these two classic works of literature. What is it these books share in common? One is about mutants facing persecution by religious zealots. The other envisions a future where firemen don’t put out fires – they start them, to burn books. An underlying theme they both share has to do with control.
The other day news broke that a man was burning books. It was hours before I waded in with a firm opinion on it, and when I did it was an indictment. This goes back to the history of the printing press and the first Bible reproduced for the common folk to read: What threatens people about the written word is that they lose control. Control of information, the ability to mislead, brainwash, to influence thought. It makes me think of Nazi Germany, and of religious fundamentalists burning Harry Potter. No matter what the reason, burning books bothers me. (Whatever his real intent - protest, publicity stunt, stupidity, boredom - the message this guy sent is that books aren't very important, because he's certainly saying they don't need to be cherished and appreciated. If he wanted to just get rid of them and didn't care how he'd donate them to street people for their fires so they could stay warm at night, at least.)
It’s really the bit about control that gets me. In The Chrysalids the mutants are sent away after being sterilized, so that they can’t reproduce. Because they aren’t allowed to stay in “society” children grow up hearing they’re evil, that they aren’t created in the image of God as the scriptures say, and they have no information to suggest otherwise.
It’s a lot easier to brainwash people who are, by default, ignorant.
That’s the great threat of books. A program is on television. It is easy for someone to share the experience with you, to monitor the information you’ve been exposed to. Books, by their very nature, must be read alone. Hours of time spent digesting information that (unless they have their own copy) others don’t have access to. Hell, some kids might get some ideas reading a book on their own. They might learn something their parents don’t know.
Scary.
I’m familiar with this line of thinking from some religious communities. Don’t let the common folk handle the scriptures because they aren’t enlightened. They don’t know enough to get it right. This is where cults are born. Although it’s certainly true that people misinterpret books (the Bible being a biggie when it comes to this) due to a lack of understanding that may be corrected through further study, or deliberately to suit their own purposes, taking away a person’s access to information is a way of handing over mental control to those who profess to know more. One only needs to read some medieval history – about indulgences and the crusades and witch trials – to imagine the rant I could go on here about the abuse of religious authority over the history of time.
Yesterday I read one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read in my life. The gist was that spam couldn’t be made illegal because that would violate a person’s right to free speech. I suppose the next time JWs come to my door I have to listen to them to respect their right to free speech? I think not. I have the right to kick them off my property – they do not have the right to impose their philosophy on me, but let’s not get me started on this today.
I believe in free speech. I don’t always like the bi-product, but I figure at the very least it allows us to see who the real freaks in our society are. That’s what people find so frightening about secret societies. Any time you can’t gain access to information about a group right upfront and have to pass through a number of rituals while receiving their ‘code’ in little bits and pieces you are yielding mental control to a group you actually don’t understand. I mean, evil incarnate as he was, Hitler had brains. He didn’t get elected and then start killing people the next day. He didn’t even start a war the next day. What did he do? He started disseminating false information. He started youth programs geared at giving kids things they otherwise wouldn’t have had, inflating them with pride in their country. He muddied the waters so much that when he started his atrocious acts, the thinking was already compromised. (How did this get dropped off in the cut and paste process? Geesh.)
But free speech allows us to know who the people worth staying away from are.
Now, what on earth has prompted this rambling bit of nonsense from me this morning? Do They Deserve To Be Born?
Yes: No civilized society considers expense and practicality to be more important than goodness and humanity
By MICHAEL COREN
Tatiana and Krista Hogan-Simms appear to be on the wanted posters of every euthanasia advocate in Canada.
Because the little girls were born as conjoined twins there is some bloody, vulgar rush to argue that they should not have been allowed to be born or, in some cases, that they should now be exterminated.
Instead of relishing life and praying and hoping that the girls will survive and even be surgically separated, the foot soldiers of the eugenics movement shout for death. But it should not really come as much of a surprise.
The eugenics movement in question became immensely popular in the early 1900s. It was embraced by the socialist left, with famous authors such as Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells advocating all sorts of extermination policies.
Humanity had to be purified and improved, they argued, and this meant emulating the animal kingdom and removing the weaker of the species. The ideology became intensely racist under Hitler, but was at heart no different even from what many Canadian "progressives" were saying at the time.
The list of undesirables included homosexuals, Africans, the "slow and simple" and, according to Wells, the author of the Time Machine and the Invisible Man, "anybody who doesn't fit into the demands of the modern age."
Which quite clearly these little girls do not. They'll never appear on American Idol, never take illegal drugs and be promiscuous, never scream and swear at anybody who challenges them. Never be typical stars of the contemporary mess in which we live. Even worse, they'll be different!
Yet I meet people every day who are not very clever, not very attractive, not very entertaining. They ostensibly contribute very little and may appear to make society less compelling than it could otherwise be. Thing is, according to whom?
It's easy to see that someone like Stephen Hawking expands our knowledge and imagination to an enormous degree, but may well have been killed if the social engineers had their way. Yet even if he'd only sat in a chair for his entire life his life would still have possessed an objective quality.
And this surely is the point. Objective quality. If we are subjective and make our own value judgments we might as well wipe out all sorts of people. Or we could simply grow up, develop our compassion and intelligence and realize that existence is a sufficient contribution in itself.
There is an absolute that we have to tackle. Life is either sacred or it is not. If it is, preserve it at all costs. If it is not, we might as well destroy it at will. It is terribly expensive to keep the sick alive and wholly impractical to prolong the life of an ill person who will die anyway.
No civilized person or society, however, considers expense and practicality to be more important than goodness and humanity. If it did, it would immediately wipe out, for example, drug addicts, the homeless and people with AIDS.
Tatiana and Krista will be loved and, important this, will love back. They will smile, laugh, cry, be sad and happy, sometimes frightened, sometimes excited. Just be. Which is quite enough. And God forgive anyone who awards themselves the right to decide who may be and who may not.
No: This should be a wakeup call for us to prevent unimaginable future cruelty of this kind
By DR. GIFFORD-JONES
Six months ago Tatiana and Krista Hogan-Simms entered this world in British Columbia as conjoined twins. Now they and their parents have become international celebrities appearing on major television shows. In the press the conjoined twins are described as "little angels." But every time I see their pictures I wonder why anyone would allow this cruelty to happen.
The tragedy of conjoined twins occurs in the early stages of pregnancy when the fertilized egg fails to divide completely. Few such tragic newborns live long enough to be considered for surgery.
Reports claim that Felicia Hogan-Simms was advised by doctors that her pregnancy could be terminated, but she refused. I assume that she considers life of any kind sacred, and abortion never an option.
What a tragic life awaits the twins. For as long as they live they will be unable to care for themselves or lead a normal active life.
It's hard to comprehend a parent who would want such a tragic pregnancy to continue. Nature in this case has created a catastrophe. Why compound the mistake by subjecting these twins to this fate?
Hogan-Simms is quoted as saying, "At least they will never be alone." How correct she is! It may be their greatest misfortune, never having the option of being separated. No chance of ever enjoying one pleasant moment to do their own thing, imprisoned together on their backs.
Hogan-Simms also believes "the girls were born for a purpose to teach people about tolerance; that it's OK to be different." But the point is, how much different? Unless there's a cataclysmic change in human nature, she has destined her girls to be stared at as a freak of nature as long as they live.
They will never walk, joined at the head in such an abnormal position. Physically they are destined for ill health, lying on their backs forever. They will become obese and develop the myriad of diseases that accompany this problem. Their lives will be a living hell.
This should be a wakeup call for us to prevent unimaginable future cruelty of this kind. We are a compassionate nation and we routinely remove children from parents who abuse them. I would ask this question. Is there anyone among us who would want to be born this way or willing to trade places with these conjoined twins?
Hogan-Simms should not have been allowed to make the ultimate decision. I have in the past always cast a jaundiced eye on committee decisions, but I like to believe in this instance an ethics committee would have seen the logic of terminating this pregnancy.
Hogan-Simms may be a caring mother, but not a rational one. After all, she has stated publicly she believes in a magical life and says, "I do believe in fairies. I always have. They're magical and mischievous creatures like a mystery to life."
These unfortunate conjoined twins will need more than magical fairies to help them face the misery that awaits them in years ahead.
Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, believes that children with major deformities of this kind should have life terminated within 28 days of their birth. But in my opinion it would have been a greater kindness to terminate this pregnancy in the early weeks of gestation.
Well Dr. Gifford-Jones, if the argument that because I wouldn’t have wanted to be born that way is justification for killing these children, the doors are wide open. I wouldn’t want to be born into a family where there’s abuse. I think most people wouldn’t choose to be born into a family that’s poor, or born with cancer, or with dna that makes them prone to genetic illnesses. Why not kill them all? Hell, just take a look at your life and decide that it’s not stacked up as favourably as you like and check out. No biggie.
I don’t really need to write a commentary here, do I? Reading this, it made me think of The Chrysalids automatically. Little Sophie is a threat because she has an extra toe (or toes, I can’t remember if it was six on each foot).
It made me think of the gift of every child I’ve worked with who was considered “different” but knew how to laugh and love and had a beautiful heart. I would certainly wish that no one, least of all a child, had to suffer if it was possible, but to say they should be exterminated? Thrown out like trash?
Michael Coren has already said it, and so, so well, so I won’t try to do it justice. That’s why I included the whole thing here. I think the ultimate tragedy is that supposedly educated individuals have and do support such things like extermination policies. It ties in with The Last King of Scotland as well (a movie my good friend Ken Bruen repeatedly told me to watch, and I forgot to give him his due in my recent blog post about it and thank him for the recommendation) and every political regime we’ve condemned in the history of time. Dictators control information, and they annihilate the threats.
When we kill what we don’t understand, we open the doors to justifying all the atrocities since the dawn of time. We allow what is different about us to become the dividing line and use it as a justification. Black, white. Male, female. Short, tall. Blonde, brunette. Where does it end?
As much as I’m repulsed by the extreme of the belief – that anyone endorses that children who don’t fit a certain “image” be exterminated – I can thank free speech for making me aware this morning that man is not nearly as civilized as we think. He’s one small step away from Sparta, Carthage, from the thugs of the past.
And finally, thanks to Anne of the haunted flat and vibrating bed I bring you the answer to which tarot card I am, because I’m sure you’ve always wanted to know.
You are The Lovers
Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.
The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.
Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
