Moving Home

My blog has now packed its bags and moved to a new web address:  https://journeytodisbelief.wordpress.com/

There is no "But"

I overheard a customer today say, "What happened in France is terrible, but..."  As soon as she said 'but' I knew whatever came out of her mouth was going to be ignorant.
"But, you should expect trouble if you mock someone's religion.  You should never take the Micky out of someone's religion."

My jaw physically dropped at this.  Her comment had no concept of proportion.  It seemed reasonable in her mind that if you write satire about Islam then you should expect a bullet in your brain.

Fucking ridiculous.  Her comment nearly made me want to go and tell her that her custom was no longer welcome here.

The victim is not to blame when atrocities happen.  Her view is unfortunately expressed too often in many arenas.  A satirist drawing controversial cartoons is not to blame for psychopaths shooting him to death.  A woman wearing a short skirt is not to blame for being brutally raped.  A black man being shot dead is not to blame because he looked like he was carrying a weapon.  The person being violently mugged is not to blame for wearing a nice watch.

It's a shitty world we live in when explain away a person's actions and then vilify the victims and, in turn, their grieving families.

Yes Charlie Hebdo writers and cartoonists did publish controversial pieces and yes some were pretty harsh, but that never justifies what happened.  It shouldn't even have crossed their minds that by doing their job they were at risk of two people storming their offices and shooting them.  Anyone who says, "Well they should have expected it," is basically a moron.

It's a terrible path to take when surviving victims are made to feel guilty for what happened to them. When we make a girl blame herself for being raped it makes me wonder what happened to the world.  Please, let's stop justifying evil acts with victim blaming.

Peace.  x

Je suis Charlie

“The world has become so serious that humour is a risky profession.”

'In ancient Greece the term parrhesia was used to describe a practice which stipulated that a citizen should not only exercise free speech but should also speak the truth even at personal risk... in the
manner, for example, of Socrates who famously paid with his life for being outspoken.'  The Development of Free Speech by John Roberts PHD

Free speech has been a hard won fight in many countries and it was introduced as a vehicle of truth. The satire regularly expressed in Charlie Hebdo bitingly illustrates this right and tragically also highlights the fear and hatred also associated with free speech.  The massacre of those 10 journalists and two police officers solidifies my belief that the human race is not as 'evolved' as we like to believe.  The primitive fear which breeds the need to control and silence is far too pervasive in most of society, no matter how 'civilised' we pretend to be.  When humour is seen as a threat to be snuffed out we truly are living in a world that is too broken and too scared of its own shadow.

It is so, so sad that people who were intellectually challenging the hypocrisies of governments, religions and royalties had to be targeted so brutally.

We must always cherish our right to free speech because we haven't actually had the right for very long, even though it is an ancient idea.  To cherish it though means we have to understand it and not abuse it.  Free speech was fought with blood to enable truth to be spoken; free speech empowered the vulnerable; free speech challenged the powerful and corrupt.  Free speech is not a vehicle of hate and ignorance but should be a carrier of thoughtful truths and ideas.

Let us not, in the smoke of sadness and disgust, believe free speech can now be a means to spout racist, xenophobic, ignorant and hateful vitriol.  Free speech is not a right to spit lies and disdain but rather a right to express enlightened concepts.  Saying or writing lies and ignorance because that's my right isn't what many people died for.

Let's honour those at Charlie Hebdo by condemning those foul 'humans' who murdered them because surely the gunman are actually the caricatures the journalists regularly drew in their cartoons.  It is utterly devastating the caricatures came to life.

Peace. x

No Regrets

"What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?"
-Friedrich Nietzsche

If that quote is rather depressing to you then you probably know the answer to the question.  I wonder how many of us find regret as an uncomfortable weight on our shoulders?  

Regret can cause irrational decisions and unwise actions; regret ignites the cold, aching sense of fear in the pit of your stomach; regret whispers in your ear that there will be more regret.  I'm not sure it's possible not to have any regrets but I don't believe we need to live where we are controlled by even just one.  

I try to look at my life through the lens of hope and dreams rather than the murky window of 'what if?'  That question leads down a path to nowhere and, ironically, a mindset of caution rather than daring.  It's important to gaze upon the life you are living and breathe in all the little and big blessings.  As you do you suddenly begin to appreciate instead of moan.  As I write this I have a cat and a dog cuddled up next to me, fast asleep and cozy, a soothing folk album is playing in the background, a gently steaming mug of tea is by me, a new Stephen King novel is ready on my Kindle and I have a fiancé soon to be on her way home from work.  A lovely combination.

I could focus on a list of things worrying me or issues that have made me mad recently but, if that Nietzsche demon were to visit me I would not want to re-live my life consumed by resentment and worry but rather optimism and love.  None of us have a perfect existence but, if you're reading this on a computer/phone in a warm building, then you have a pretty good foundation for a fairly decent existence and therefore a choice of hope over nihilism, love over hate, productiveness over procrastination and grace over selfishness.  

Peace.  x