Denial and Other Intellectual Sins

How should we believe? Notice, not "what", but "how". One answer, justificationism, is that we should only believe things for which we have good evidence. What counts as "good evidence" is, of course, a far from simple question, especially since there are hefty legal textbooks devoted to the Law of Evidence, which is about what may and may not be given in Court as evidence and how much weight it should be given. Justificationist sins are things like speculation, excessive theorising, superstition, gossip, ignorance and jumping to conclusions. Justificationism can be finessed if you stretch the concept of evidence way past its intended observational / empirical interpretation. 

Another answer comes from fallibalism, the creation of Sir Karl Popper. According to this, we can believe pretty much what we like, as long as we specify the conditions under which we would give up that belief. And then do give it up when those conditions are met (though faute de mieux we may have to carry on using it in practice). Fallibalist sins are things like dogmatism, faith, commitment, stubbornness, lack of imagination and blind acceptance. Fallibalism cannot be finessed because it's binary: you're either willing to give up your beliefs or not.

Does it matter if someone commits one of these intellectual sins? If the sinners are bringing their children up believing nonsense, that matters to the kids and the parents if the nonsense puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the job or marriage market, and to the rest of us if we have to deal with the kids. If the sinners are widely-read (e.g. Daily Mail columnists) we may have to listen to their nonsense second-hand. There's a pollution factor, in other words. If the sinners are at the Policy Table, they may well get in the way of a better compromise, or if the rest of the people at the Table are spineless, the bigots may prevail. So we get bad policies - which may ruin a lot of people's lives.

Both fallibalism and justificationism assume that people will accept the facts as given, even if they don't accept the alleged consequences of those facts. There is a sin against this assumption, and that's denial. Epistemologists have not written much about denial, and for about the same reason they haven't written much about propaganda and advertising: it's an activity based on the very reverse of knowledge-gathering. There are two kinds of denial: the classic psychoanalytical denial of the addict, drunk, abuser and generalised screw-up, and the denial of the politician and corporate manager. Managerial denial is knowing that something is not true, but behaving publicly as if it is true and requiring everyone else to go along with that lie. Classic denial is either refusing to accept the truth or refusing to accept its importance and forcing everyone else to go along with that refusal. Classic denial is that Daddy doesn't have a drinking problem while hefting him upstairs after he's passed out: managerial denial is pretending that a few online courses constitute valuable training. If you're considering denial as a choice, remember that your staff may prefer to think you're dumb rather than devious.

Denial is a sin because it prevents other people from understanding a chunk (usually an important one, like family, or employing organisation) of their world correctly. Usually it distorts not only our view of our world, but worse, our view of ourselves ("Now look what you did, he's drinking again" - you know what? It was nothing to do with you.) It takes up huge amounts of energy - just think of how much effort goes into all that corporate internal PR / HR bullshit - and thus prevents other useful things being done (when you're in some company denial-fest, you're not doing something useful). 

Sadly, as I've remarked before and will do again, the English consider denial to be a desirable state of mind - if the English weren't in denial about the quality of life in England they would go on the rampage in a week. They will make any excuse for those who foist their denial on those around them - presumably as a fellow courtesy. Those of use whose lives have been truly screwed by the denial of ourselves and others know it is the worst of all intellectual sins. That's why I get so het up when I'm on the receiving end of it.

You're An Artist If You Say You Are

When can you claim to be a writer, or a philosopher or a lawyer? Well, the last one is easy: pass your LLB and then either join the Law Society (Solicitors) or get called to the Bar (Barristers). How about philosophers? Well, when I was a lad, some people called themselves "professional philosophers", but they were professional teachers of philosophy (many of whom got their start in it as a reward for working at Bletchley during WW2, but nobody talked about that for a long time). Most of the big name philosophers had day jobs - Descartes as a gambler, Spinoza as a watchmaker, Locke and Hume as private secretaries, Berkeley was a Bishop, Wittgenstein was only an academic for the second half of his life, and so on. I'm a philosopher and always have been, but it's not my day job. How about writers?

Well, the Society of Authors requires you to have had one full-length work published or performed not at your expense or a dozen occasional articles published. Seems minimal enough. So what's the status of someone who is writing and working hard to get their first commercial publication or performance? Are they a delusional wannabe, deserving only of secret sniggers until blessed by publication? I used to think so, but then I was a very fucked-up young man. To adapt a remark of George V Higgins',  you have more opportunities of making a living as an MP than as a writer of fiction. Most writers have day jobs, usually as journalists or academics. Are they "Sunday writers", mere dilettantes, compared to John Le Carre or John Grisham? I say no.

There's a lovely line in one of my favourite movies, Dinner Rush: the obnoxious art critic tells Summer Phoenix's portrait-painting waitress "You're an artist if you say you are, you're a successful artist..." "If he says you are" chimes in someone in the party. I thought a lot about that line and finally decided it's true. No-one out there gets to decide who or what you are - with the exception of a handful of occupations which are legislatively-controlled (policeman, accountant, truck driver etc). They do get to decide if you can make a living doing what you want to do, because that's the market. You're a writer because you write stories or articles, you consciously develop your technique and research, you have a vision of what kind of work you want to do and from time to time you venture out into the world to get published or produced. It's that last bit I need to work on.

Which is an improvement. I used to ask other people if they "thought I could write". Well, now I know I can. I know hack writing when I read it or see it and I know I'm not a hack. If you don't like what I write about, well, there's a lot of stuff I wouldn't read either, but that doesn't mean the people who produce it aren't writers. I don't need someone else to tell me I can write. What I do need is someone to help produce my work.

First Anniversary Thoughts

When I started this blog, it was going to be about all the things about working and life in the UK that drove me crazy or irritated me. I was going through a very uncertain period at The Bank, when I and many others thought we would be out of work by the end of June. I thought I would have significant things to say about... well, something.

Well, I don't. The older I get, the less I know and the less advice I have for anyone about anything. (Except: always use Dulux Trade paint and a roller for that professional look and one-coat cover.) Writing this has made me look around the blogosphere and that has made me realise just how little I have to say about anything. There are guys with Fields Medals writing blogs with real research mathematics in them. There are guys discussing Hollywood scripts before they are produced, and girls writing fashion blogs with larger readerships than some magazines. Check out the links: this time round I had a hard look for the best of the best in the subjects I like.

I don't have a cute style either, and that's an important part of making a popular blog. With a few exceptions (The Art of the State, Style Bubble), the best blogs are written by Americans: the British tend to be too involved with politics or too intent on documenting exactly how some aspect of life in Britain really sucks. Which was where I started and soon veered off. Americans get what's needed for a good personal blog: choose a subject you like that other people want to know about and write about it usually in an upbeat, and always in a confident, way. I'm still trying to get there.

Heck, it took me some time to find the right title - that is, one I didn't want to change a couple of weeks after I thought it was cute. The idea for this title came from the titles Rumi Neely gives her postings and from the way I feel about communicating with people. I have a lot of clutter going round in my head. About what I'm reading, the movies I watch, the news I hear, what happens to me at work, what I feel about my life. Most of it is transient, like the weather. I need to say it like the clouds need to rain, but I don't always need anyone to hear it. I'm a man, and outside work men only communicate with other people under two circumstances: 1) when shooting the breeze, 2) when they need advice or help on some practical matter.

Writing that clutter down gets it out of my head and onto the page where it can stay. Writing it in a reasonably concise, snappy style makes me think about what I'm really trying to say, which means, what I'm really trying to think. Writing stuff down is one of the most important parts of an AA recovery: put it on the page and it won't trouble you anymore. Writing down whatever is taking space in my head lets me move on. In Meetings, we share for ourselves, not to invite comment and help. If anyone listening finds what we say useful, so much the better. This is the same.

Thoughts Approaching My Next Birthday

I am approaching my fifty-sixth birthday. I think I'm in some kind of denial, except since I know what the denial is about, it isn't really. I'm just not letting myself feel the fear. One friend is on a course of chemotherapy for secondary cancer - you know what that means. He has a thirteen year-old son and with luck may see his boy get to university. Another took early retirement from the Civil Service a few years ago and has let his marbles slip a little. Every now and again I get drunken phone calls from him that are remarkably like the last drunken phone call. Another friend has a permanent struggle to earn consistently as a freelance and a fourth has a headhunting business which has gone through periods of no distributable profits. No-one I know is happy and successful, or even just happy. This is why older people don't stay in touch with each other: the news is rarely good.

I think I'm ashamed of my life, of living in a terraced house in a working-class suburb of Middlesex and working as an analyst in The Bank (the money doesn't suck, but it ain't City salaries either) in a job that's below my personal grade, so that I have to leave in the next couple of years or take a nasty pay cut. I don't have a partner, it's been a very long time since I had sex with an actual woman - the LTR that ended a couple of years ago stopped being intimate way before that. I'm not even sure I want a relationship right now, that the rewards would be worth the effort. I have to watch my weight or my blood sugar will go up again and I don't want to feel or look like that again: so I am constantly worrying about what I eat. I weigh myself and get a body fat reading two or three times a day. I've quit drinking, smoking and I shouldn't even be thinking of eating chocolate, cakes or even bread. Have I mentioned how much I like bread? If I don't eat enough, I get painful constipation: if I overdo it, I get high blood sugar. It's a narrow line I'm eating along here.

I don't feel like going on holiday. Why would I? When I get there, I'm still the same person, and when I get back it's still the same situation. Why would I go away when I can't escape and don't want to come back?

I don't have a pension worth a damn and I have a serious chance of reaching the end of my active life without ever having done anything I really wanted to do. All I would be able to say was that I never gave up the fight. For some time now I've felt like I've stopped living but haven't stopped fighting and I'm not sure what I'm fighting for or why.

The Wonderful Tina Dico

Enough of profound waffling. For the last six months or since whenever I found this track, I play this at least once a week via You Tube. Ms Dico is Danish- no jokes please - has made a stack of CD's and this track is outstanding. There's a slight hint of Amoureuse, which Kiki Dee had a hit with back when I was at university, but that only makes it resonate the more.




I'm guessing of the choices she faces in the song, she chose the second - as any artist must. Give it a listen and watch a few more of her videos.

Step Eight

I've always had a problem identifying with a chunk of the alcoholic image. I have no problem with the "one is too many and a hundred are too few" bit - you should see me with a Diam Milka bar right now: it's open and it's going to get finished in this sitting. I have a problem with the rampant ego bit, where the alcoholic needs to reduce the size of their ego and seek humility. I simply never reached the point where I got physically tired of booze, I'm not even sure I had a rock-bottom. Those involve a loss of dignity and control, and a while of sordid and revolting behaviour that I never quite reached. I'm not a primary alcoholic, I wound up with a drinking problem because a lot of ACoA's do, on account of inheriting the gene.

Step Eight was for me an exercise in acquiring some self-respect. I discovered, not without a lot of psychological turmoil so intense it left me unable to see for a moment or two, that I was not a bad person, had ruined no-one's life, though at times I had been a bit of a jerk and may have pissed some people off now and again. Let's get this clear: Step Eight-sized sins are not about upsetting people, but about paying back the money you stole and apologising for the black eyes you gave them. I may have spoiled a couple of evenings, but I didn't ruin anyone's life.

If you want to make your way in this world, you are going to step on a few toes and if you want your snout in the trough, someone else won't have their's in it. I didn't always have to make way for other people or feel guilty if I didn't. (I was a very fucked-up not so young man.) There is nothing wrong with ambition and material well-being and even a little luxury: what is wrong is trampling on, using and discarding, lying to and exploiting, other people to get those things.

For many alkies Step Eight is a big shock, as they discover just who they have to be ready to make amends to. Step Nine isn't about saying "sorry", it's about making amends, and apologies are not always enough of an amend. A parent in recovery can never apologise enough to their spouse or children, but they can make amends - by staying sober and being the parent they should have been in the past. A noisy former flatmate can apologise but isn't really in a position to make amends. My Step Eight was not about amends or apologies, it was about learning to stand up and start behaving like a mensch. I'm still working on that.

The Silence of the Volcano

What I do know is that from the afternoon of Wednesday 14th April to last night it has never been so quiet where I live. Heathrow produces a permanent low-level lower-frequency noise - in the right conditions you can stand in Bushy Park and hear the sudden roar of engines going into reverse thrust on landing. It is never completely quiet in west London. Until the last few days. The loudest thing was bird-song. And those old men flying their gnat-noisy model planes in the local park on Sunday morning.

What I don't know is whether the bureaucrats made the "right" call, first in stopping the flights and then in the time they chose to let flights start again. What I do know is that not one of them said the right thing at the start, which would have been: "We're talking with Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and the other major engine manufacturers about the conditions in which it would not be safe to fly at the usual daily frequencies through volcanic ash. 'Unsafe' here is defined as meaning that damage would be caused to the engines that would with reasonable probability lead to loss of thrust from which a pilot could not recover. We should remember that aircraft have lost thrust from all four engines in similar circumstances and their pilots have recovered control and flown safely afterwards. If the airlines wish to continue to fly, that is their decision, and if passengers wish to board, that is also their decision. Any aircraft which does fly though the cloud must have a thorough inspection of its engines afterwards. The usual liabilities and responsibilities remain in place, and we are advising insurance companies that this is not an act of god or natural disaster in the terms of their agreements. It is exactly what people buy insurance against."

Sadly we don't live in a world where we treat people like adults, who make their own decisions about the risks they take. So the usual "precautionary principle" crowd crawled out of their cotton-wool lined Volvos and muttered about "passengers' safety being paramount." There was even an idiot who said that any amount of ash was a potential hazard. Which would mean that no aircraft would fly ever, as some ash from every eruption will remain in the atmosphere, just as Ceaser's last breath is shared by us all and for the same reason.