Black N' White World

WARNING: This post is not intended for people who get easily offended.

As you may have noticed by now, I get annoyed with many things in life but the one thing that works every time is human stupidity. Stupidity does not capture the full essence of what I mean here but feel free to substitute with your own preferences. Under stupidity I usually include the following amongst other:

•          Lack of self-awareness
•          Selective narrow-mindedness
•          Lack of intellectual properties/processes
•          Herd-like approaches to opinion
•          Lack of knowledge
•          Ignorance by choice
•          Self-righteousness
•          Hypocrisy

One such manifestation of human stupidity (who I have the good luck of not knowing personally) managed to make my blood boil and the veins in my forehead stick out. This being, which from now on I’ll refer to as the thing posted a picture capturing the various stages of (surgical) abortion. Then underneath that picture there comes the flock.

Opinions were unified under a general hateful theme:

“shame to those who do it”, “horrendous”, “disgusting”, “how can people do it”, “murderers”, “crime”, “I would never do such a thing”, “wrong”, “innocent soul”, “whores those who do it” and my personal favourites “religion says it’s wrong” & “babies are godsend gifts”!

If you are amongst people who have such opinions, then you might want to look away and not read any further. The thing that posted that picture claims to be an educated person and from a discipline where such black and white opinions are not encouraged or promoted. But anyway I will not focus on the stupidity of just one person, it would be rather unfair!

First of all, there are two types of people who see the world in black and white:

1. Genuinely narrow-minded: The type of person, who refuses any alternatives offered to them, despite the provision of good arguments.
   
           Example: “There is a god, and he is watching us. Darwin was just another nutter who sailed around the world and collected birds for a hobby."
2. Ignorant: This is the type of person, who refuses to use the few brain cells that kind Nature offered to them and prefers to go along with the flow or the masses.
   Example: “Religion and society teaches us that women are inferior to men; shame on those who go out there and follow their dreams.”

To be frank, I don’t know which is worse. But, I am shocked that 99% of the comments published under the picture that the thing posted came from women and from people that grew up in an era where issues of morality and ethics are relative. I am not getting into the whole abortion debate as we all know the arguments for and against, and really, that’s not the issue here. I will focus more on the stupidity involved in “thinking” of such sensitive subjects.

As I read through the comments I realised that I was more pissed off with not what they were writing per se, but the way all of them agreed with one another like they were members of some sort of secret society of grand virtue, intelligence, morality, and court-like standards. I wouldn’t be surprised if these people turned out to be the same ones that argue for the idea of an Aryan race, exhibit Hitler-like characteristics, believe that the Earth is only 2,000 years old, or believe that there is a white-bearded white man sitting on a cloud holding a lighting and waiting to strike someone that did something “wrong”.

On the other hand, these same (hypocritical) people may engage in morally questionable actions during their everyday lives. But who cares about all these when you have in front of you a “baby murderer” right? That is the ultimate sin, they say, because you choose to “kill”, or let a human being die. Well, I’ve got news for you: people die every day, in Africa 60 babies per day do so.

People, the world is not black and white. If it is, then you are probably a dog (that’s a myth by the way). As I argued before, we are all hypocritical in nature. But at least some of us have the ability to keep our mouths shut when appropriate, or at least try and express our opinion in a civilised, educated way.

Oh, and just to clarify, babies are not godsend; they come from a blind date between an eager sperm and a very popular egg.

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Heavy Metal Under Study

The days of court battles, PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center), and accusations of satanic lyrics (and other “evils”) by Heavy Metal bands from religious fundamentalists and journalists alike may be long gone but that era has definitely left its mark on our favourite musical genre. You assume that a well-educated person, meaning a person with rich life experiences and the ability for critical thinking (rather than actual degrees – what I would call “reservoir toilet paper of the highest quality”), will be in a position to look back and laugh at the naive and ignorant society of the 80s. And most do.

But the stigma that Heavy Metal carried through to the 00s has become such mainstream that it attracted the attention of the higher levels of the academic and scientific communities.  Along come academic research and the New wave of “Metal Studies” (NWOMS – my own abbreviation!). After the ridiculous attack from the even more ridiculous ignorant PMRC in the early 80s, psychologists and other scientists decided to look into this social phenomenon in more detail.

Studies stripped down Heavy Metal; from song lyrics and MTV videos to stage presence. They looked for subliminal messages in songs of bands like Judas Priest and Twister Sister, the promotion of sex, drugs, and self-destructive behaviours and many more. Below are some scientifically derived (?) yet really hilarious conclusions about the Heavy Metal fans:

“. . .a mass following of youth, their denim clothes covered in studs and appliqué, their hair long and wild so as to swing freely when they shook their heads in time with the music – what they called head-banging”

Cashmore (1984, p. 37)

“Contingents of longhaired, denimed males . . . consuming large quantities of beer and playing imaginary guitar runs in sycophant homage to their alter egos performing on the stage”

Chambers (1985, p. 123) on the Reading and Knebworth festival goers

Now I am not saying these scientists were crazy for researching the relationship between Heavy Metal music preference and anti-social behaviours, suicide, anxiety, and depression. But as expected of poor and highly biased methodologies, studies offered conflicting evidence in all areas, be it psychological, social, or cultural and not many reliable conclusions. Brown (2011), from which the above quotations were extracted, reports that research has now shifted its focus from looking at Heavy Metal as a social problem to a more cultural and musicological approach (i.e. NWOMS).

This sort of research may not appeal or even be known to the average Heavy Metal fan and really, who cares what happens within the scientific/academic community, right? Well, it may sound boring but truth is that proper research approaches and methodologies undertaken by serious researchers who understand the Heavy Metal music and its “culture”, will manage to catch the attention of fans and educate them about the important aspects of their favourite genre.

My new found respect for the NWOMS derives mainly from people like Sam Dunn a Canadian musician, film director, and anthropologist (you probably know him as the director of Metal: A Headbangers Journey, Global Metal, and Iron Maiden: Flight 666) as well as Keith Kahn Harris a writer, sociologist, and music critic.

Heavy Metal music intrigues scientists and inspires research that may even lead to joke-like quotations like the above-mentioned, benefit to our own amusement. It might have given birth to strange phenomena such as head-banging, air guitar and provocative attire but at least it’s not responsible for plague-like phenomena such as women who want to be called “Lady”, have a weird fond of umbrellas or wish for you to hit them one more time!

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Article reference:

Brown, AR (2011). Heavy Genealogy: Mapping the Currents, Contraflows and Conflicts of the Emergent Field of Metal Studies, 1978-2010. Journal for Cultural Research, 15 (3), 213-242.

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Image credits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/

http://www.examiner.com

http://www.imdb.com

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Pretentious Apologies

Greetings humans.
I am back from what it was a holiday full of booze and annoying friendly interactions. To get into the subject, I first want to "apologise" for not writing for a while. Truth is my creative juices were running low, probably due to excessive drinking (not recommended). I write mostly out of annoyance. I found it hard to get annoyed while on holiday in my home country, probably due to the short stay. Good times....

Back in London now though and here I am annoyed again. And my annoyance is caused by pretentious apologies from pretentious or even kind in nature people. Both of these are equally annoying, pretentious or not. And I explain: You know when you walk in the chaos that it is Oxford Street and somebody-obviously in a great rush-nearly walks on you to get through? Or when you stand at the edge of the train holding a boiling hot coffee in your hands and as the doors close someone jumps in, pushes you with full force as you visualise the 3rd degree burns on your hands? Or when somebody next to you is listening to their favourite pop music with those £300 noise cancelling headphones which obviously don't work that well? Or when you stand in a packed tube carriage and someone's penis is dangerously close to your bum?

All the above are valid situations for someone, i.e. the above-mentioned idiots, to apologise for. I know I would be really pissed off if they didn't. There are times though where an apology is not necessary or even appropriate. Come on, we all pushed, ever so slightly, while overtaking a hopelessly slow wanderer in front of us. Similarly, we all grabbed someone's hand or even stepped on them while trying not to die as the tube driver brakes relentlessly. And there are times when we only have £20 notes when buying a £1 bottle of water. Why should we apologise for that?

Still, we apologise for major things, we apologise for minor things, we apologise to someone pushing us, we apologise for breathing, we even apologise for existing. And most do it instinctively without even realising it. No need for a friendly pat in the back, hell no need for eye contact! No apologetic body language. This phenomenon is evident all over Britain. Especially amongst Londoners (of various ethnicities- this is for the sensitive ones). Why this fake apologetic culture? I personally don't understand and refuse to believe is common courtesy. There are some deeper issues here.

On the other hand, [and to avoid the decorative name calling i.e. impolite, ignorant, racist] I came back from a country where "sorry", "pardon me" etc are not used that often. You will not find many of the Greeks apologising for anything. They don't feel that urge to not be misunderstood. They are as loud and as arrogant as you could possibly imagine. They will push you to get ahead, they will step on you, they will call you names as they do, and they will not feel sorry about it. Ok, maybe I am going too far but I want to make a point.

Can't there be a middle ground for that? Can't we just take the British politeness and combine it with some of the Greek laid back attitude? Do we really need to commercialise the art of apologising? It's not too much to request a genuine apology for something substantial now is it? So next time you accidentally push me, there is no need to apologise for it. But if your armpit is in my face or your penis is anywhere near my bum, you better beg for forgiveness!  
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Image credits:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/

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