After the potato experiment, Ollie was a little apprehensive.
But he soon....
got more....
courageous....
Then he asked Ruffles if he could smell it.
Oh. Not very nice.
My most accurate jug wasn't big enough...
Sunday, 25 November 2007
The yeast experiment
S154 - the yeast experiment,which observes what happens to yeast at different temperatures. This is at 37°C, or roughly body temperature.
After the potato experiment, Ollie was a little apprehensive.
But he soon....
got more....
courageous....
Then he asked Ruffles if he could smell it.
Oh. Not very nice.
My most accurate jug wasn't big enough...
After the potato experiment, Ollie was a little apprehensive.
But he soon....
got more....
courageous....
Then he asked Ruffles if he could smell it.
Oh. Not very nice.
My most accurate jug wasn't big enough...
This week in the humanities - short one
In line with my first post about the humanities, what have I been up to?
Art history - no.
Music - Nightwish and Eliza Gylkison, mostly while preparing a really big nut roast because we had friends coming round.
Religion, philosophy, history of science, classical studies - no.
But the big one this week is history, which is reviewed in the previous post on this blog, on "The Relief of Belsen" and David Irving on the Holocaust.
And, under literature, I'll put The Relief of Belsen, which I saw on More4 last night, which reminded me about one of the great strands of thinking about the humanities. It's the Matthew Arnold, Leavis view that great literature, great art, great music etc have an improving effect on those who are exposed to them, and that western civilisation is therefore moving ever upwards towards greater and greater nobility. Among the British, American and Russian troops who liberated the death camps, there were men and officers who had been brought up in this tradition, indeed with fine degrees in literature, music and so on, who believed heart and soul in the improving effects of the humanities. And they had to confront the fact that the atrocities whose effects they witnessed were commanded by German officers who committed the most unspeakable acts during the working day and then went home to read Goethe and Schiller over their schnapps. It is no longer possible to believe, simplistically, that the humanities unproblematically improve us. So why do we study them?
Art history - no.
Music - Nightwish and Eliza Gylkison, mostly while preparing a really big nut roast because we had friends coming round.
Religion, philosophy, history of science, classical studies - no.
But the big one this week is history, which is reviewed in the previous post on this blog, on "The Relief of Belsen" and David Irving on the Holocaust.
And, under literature, I'll put The Relief of Belsen, which I saw on More4 last night, which reminded me about one of the great strands of thinking about the humanities. It's the Matthew Arnold, Leavis view that great literature, great art, great music etc have an improving effect on those who are exposed to them, and that western civilisation is therefore moving ever upwards towards greater and greater nobility. Among the British, American and Russian troops who liberated the death camps, there were men and officers who had been brought up in this tradition, indeed with fine degrees in literature, music and so on, who believed heart and soul in the improving effects of the humanities. And they had to confront the fact that the atrocities whose effects they witnessed were commanded by German officers who committed the most unspeakable acts during the working day and then went home to read Goethe and Schiller over their schnapps. It is no longer possible to believe, simplistically, that the humanities unproblematically improve us. So why do we study them?
I feel sorry for David Irving
This is sparked by the news that David Irving is to speak at the Oxford Union, together with watching "The relief of Belsen" on TV last night.
When it comes to giving freedom of speech to those whose words are poison to my ears, I find I have to think carefully about each case. I have always been uneasy about the speech implications of race relations legislation. But I'm not an absolute libertarian. I believe the freedom of movement of your fist ends some way short of my nose, because a swinging fist carries threat as well as physical force. The problem is where to draw the line in each case. I believe that preventing racists from speaking is justified if the pernicious results of their speaking outweighs the pernicious results of denying them freedom of speech. Having said that, I think that, on balance, the Oxford Union has taken a justifiable decision.
In my view, the world became a different place after 1945, when the full scale and style of the Holocaust became public. The human race had to confront the issue of evil in a way that had never been brought home to us before. The Holocaust was a unique event in human history. It was not unique because of the cold bloodedness or the scale of the act. There have been plenty of calculated and large scale massacres both before and since. Though, in many cases, the actual killing is not done nearly as cold bloodedly as it is often portrayed to be.
The uniqueness of the Holocaust lies in the way in which it was done. It took the pinnacle of capitalist development, the rational bureaucracy of the process of capital accumulation, and it turned it into an instrument for the killing of people and the removal of an entire race from the face of the earth. They turned genocide into an industrial process. And then, because rational bureaucrats in pursuit of growing and ordered prosperity record what they do, they kept meticulous records of their achievements - numbers of shoes, spectacles, sets of false teeth, and so on and so on and so on. If you read the records, you see how, in the relentless, rationalistic, bureaucratic pursuit of efficiency, they lose sight of what they are processing - human bodies and human lives.
Thus we had to confront the fact that what some thought of as the most civilised people on earth - western, rational, sophisticated, capitalistic Europeans, with all their development through history, with all the civilising influence of classical art, literature, music - were capable of unspeakable evil.
Then eventually, when we were ready, we had to confront the fact that the people who did this were just like us. They didn't do it because they were Nazis and therefore different from the rest of us. They didn't do it because they were Germans and therefore different from the rest of us. They did it because they were human, and just the same as the rest of us.
And then we have to confront the implication of that, which is that we all carry within us the capacity for that level of evil. We have to acknowledge that if we were put in that situation, some of us would resist, but many of us would acquiesce, and some of us would carry out, possibly with greater and greater enthusiasm, the orders we are given.
We have to accept that knowledge, that truth about ourselves, and somehow accommodate that into our own self images - we like ourselves (most of us), we think we are basically nice people. Our view of ourselves has to stretch to accommodate the knowledge that there is such a dark side, and then it has to maintain that while continuing to believe that we are worth something. That's quite a tall order, but most of us manage it. That, ultimately, is why I feel sorry for David Irving. He may have a political or personal agenda, I don't know, and I won't comment on that. But I think that he has become what he is because his own self image, his own hold on his own personality, is so tenuous that he cannot accept the implication of the Holocaust - that he, just like the rest of us, is capable of that. So he has to try to rewrite history to get rid of it. The history that is written in hundreds of thousands of letters, diaries, accounts, factory ledgers, documents, even photos and newsreels like those we saw in "Relief of Belsen" has to be written out because the implications of accepting the truth are too great for him to deal with. I teach history because I want people to know about these things. I do not want to rub their noses in it, but I do want them to *know*, so that they will never shrink from the truth the way David Irving does.
When it comes to giving freedom of speech to those whose words are poison to my ears, I find I have to think carefully about each case. I have always been uneasy about the speech implications of race relations legislation. But I'm not an absolute libertarian. I believe the freedom of movement of your fist ends some way short of my nose, because a swinging fist carries threat as well as physical force. The problem is where to draw the line in each case. I believe that preventing racists from speaking is justified if the pernicious results of their speaking outweighs the pernicious results of denying them freedom of speech. Having said that, I think that, on balance, the Oxford Union has taken a justifiable decision.
In my view, the world became a different place after 1945, when the full scale and style of the Holocaust became public. The human race had to confront the issue of evil in a way that had never been brought home to us before. The Holocaust was a unique event in human history. It was not unique because of the cold bloodedness or the scale of the act. There have been plenty of calculated and large scale massacres both before and since. Though, in many cases, the actual killing is not done nearly as cold bloodedly as it is often portrayed to be.
The uniqueness of the Holocaust lies in the way in which it was done. It took the pinnacle of capitalist development, the rational bureaucracy of the process of capital accumulation, and it turned it into an instrument for the killing of people and the removal of an entire race from the face of the earth. They turned genocide into an industrial process. And then, because rational bureaucrats in pursuit of growing and ordered prosperity record what they do, they kept meticulous records of their achievements - numbers of shoes, spectacles, sets of false teeth, and so on and so on and so on. If you read the records, you see how, in the relentless, rationalistic, bureaucratic pursuit of efficiency, they lose sight of what they are processing - human bodies and human lives.
Thus we had to confront the fact that what some thought of as the most civilised people on earth - western, rational, sophisticated, capitalistic Europeans, with all their development through history, with all the civilising influence of classical art, literature, music - were capable of unspeakable evil.
Then eventually, when we were ready, we had to confront the fact that the people who did this were just like us. They didn't do it because they were Nazis and therefore different from the rest of us. They didn't do it because they were Germans and therefore different from the rest of us. They did it because they were human, and just the same as the rest of us.
And then we have to confront the implication of that, which is that we all carry within us the capacity for that level of evil. We have to acknowledge that if we were put in that situation, some of us would resist, but many of us would acquiesce, and some of us would carry out, possibly with greater and greater enthusiasm, the orders we are given.
We have to accept that knowledge, that truth about ourselves, and somehow accommodate that into our own self images - we like ourselves (most of us), we think we are basically nice people. Our view of ourselves has to stretch to accommodate the knowledge that there is such a dark side, and then it has to maintain that while continuing to believe that we are worth something. That's quite a tall order, but most of us manage it. That, ultimately, is why I feel sorry for David Irving. He may have a political or personal agenda, I don't know, and I won't comment on that. But I think that he has become what he is because his own self image, his own hold on his own personality, is so tenuous that he cannot accept the implication of the Holocaust - that he, just like the rest of us, is capable of that. So he has to try to rewrite history to get rid of it. The history that is written in hundreds of thousands of letters, diaries, accounts, factory ledgers, documents, even photos and newsreels like those we saw in "Relief of Belsen" has to be written out because the implications of accepting the truth are too great for him to deal with. I teach history because I want people to know about these things. I do not want to rub their noses in it, but I do want them to *know*, so that they will never shrink from the truth the way David Irving does.
Wednesday, 21 November 2007
Those Iraqi interpreters
The ones we ought to be taking some responsibility for, and aren't. Full marks to Richard Colebourne for continuing to highlight the issue.
He notes that, according to the Washington Post, the same thing seems to be happening to those who helped the Americans.
We'll use you for what we can get, and do as little as we can afterwards. That seems to be the message. One comment on Richard Colebourne's article says "all I can say is that I'm ashamed to be British". Yes, exactly.
If you do nothing else, at least sign the petition at http://ourcampaign.org.uk/interpreters
He notes that, according to the Washington Post, the same thing seems to be happening to those who helped the Americans.
We'll use you for what we can get, and do as little as we can afterwards. That seems to be the message. One comment on Richard Colebourne's article says "all I can say is that I'm ashamed to be British". Yes, exactly.
If you do nothing else, at least sign the petition at http://ourcampaign.org.uk/interpreters
Couldn't happen to a better bunch of people
I mean the Child Benefit details fiasco. I won't go into the details which have been well covered elsewhere, but just make the point that this gross lapse of management affects all classes of people. So I hope that a tide of opinion will hold the government well and truly to account, and I also hope that many of those affected, who have been sleepwalking towards ID cards, will realise that they are in more danger of government incompetence than of terrorist attack.
The key issue of management is very well covered in Nick Robinson's blog.
Negative point to the BBC, however, for its reporting of the reaction. The front page of their website this morning says "The government's "basic competence" is questioned by the Conservatives after the loss of 25m people's details." The inside story is only slightly different "The government's "basic competence" has been questioned by the Tories". Er, guys, I think you'll find the LibDems, and indeed all the other parties are doing a fair bit of questioning.
Vince Cable gets one grudging sentence right at the end, no other non Tory does, and Ross Anderson, who was very impressive on Newsnight last night, also gets only a sentence at the end. (The Newsnight website hasn't caught up with last night yet, but Ross Anderson is informatively nutshelled in Wikipedia.)
That's just sloppy reporting, BBC, reinforcing a completely two dimensional view of politics.
The key issue of management is very well covered in Nick Robinson's blog.
Negative point to the BBC, however, for its reporting of the reaction. The front page of their website this morning says "The government's "basic competence" is questioned by the Conservatives after the loss of 25m people's details." The inside story is only slightly different "The government's "basic competence" has been questioned by the Tories". Er, guys, I think you'll find the LibDems, and indeed all the other parties are doing a fair bit of questioning.
Vince Cable gets one grudging sentence right at the end, no other non Tory does, and Ross Anderson, who was very impressive on Newsnight last night, also gets only a sentence at the end. (The Newsnight website hasn't caught up with last night yet, but Ross Anderson is informatively nutshelled in Wikipedia.)
That's just sloppy reporting, BBC, reinforcing a completely two dimensional view of politics.
Tuesday, 20 November 2007
This week in the humanities
In line with my first post about the humanities, what have I been up to:
Art history: no, had a week off this week as well.
Music: Nightwish, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pretenders. I really like Mary Chapin Carpenter. She has a long standing capacity to write lyrics other song writers would kill for.
Religion: nope. Though having some vague thoughts about the similarltiy between football and religion. You know where I'lll be on Wednesday evening.
Philosophy: no. What have I been doing this week? Tons of making web pages to meet a deadline.
History – errr... no
Literature – no
History of science – aha. Yes. I've been learning, while studying S154, about water, particularly about the condition of the Thames in the nineteenth century and the gradual growth of scientific undertanding that enabled Parliament and the authorities in London to bring cholera under control by improving the quality of the water supply. The key point was the realisation by Dr John Snow that cholera was water borne, not as had previously been thought, air borne, a"miasma". That was in 1854,whcih was not soon enough to prevent the year of the Great Stink,1858, during which the Thames became so polluted that it was rendered completely lifeless.
Classical studies – nope. But Gladiator's on - sometime - can't remember when. I still think the best thing in it is the opening battle in the forest (pure Tacitus), closely followed by Oliver Reed.
Art history: no, had a week off this week as well.
Music: Nightwish, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pretenders. I really like Mary Chapin Carpenter. She has a long standing capacity to write lyrics other song writers would kill for.
Religion: nope. Though having some vague thoughts about the similarltiy between football and religion. You know where I'lll be on Wednesday evening.
Philosophy: no. What have I been doing this week? Tons of making web pages to meet a deadline.
History – errr... no
Literature – no
History of science – aha. Yes. I've been learning, while studying S154, about water, particularly about the condition of the Thames in the nineteenth century and the gradual growth of scientific undertanding that enabled Parliament and the authorities in London to bring cholera under control by improving the quality of the water supply. The key point was the realisation by Dr John Snow that cholera was water borne, not as had previously been thought, air borne, a"miasma". That was in 1854,whcih was not soon enough to prevent the year of the Great Stink,1858, during which the Thames became so polluted that it was rendered completely lifeless.
Classical studies – nope. But Gladiator's on - sometime - can't remember when. I still think the best thing in it is the opening battle in the forest (pure Tacitus), closely followed by Oliver Reed.
Saturday, 17 November 2007
Bimbling and skithering
Two new words I heard this week from different OU colleagues. Same sort of meaning, a combination of bumbling and slithering. Is this a reflection of current perceptions of social trends I wonder? The world bimbling and skithering towards complete social entropy?
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