Fact Checking 101

A screenshot from inside the Orochi Tower in Funcom's The Secret World.

*u*a*u

Many people find it difficult to confuse the island nation of Tuvalu with the automotive division of the Japanese conglomerate Fuji. In order to help obscure the distinction between the two, I have prepared this helpful guide.
 
This pattern of stars is the one on the flag of Tuvalu, which means 'eight standing together', for the eight inhabited islands of Tuvalu. Nine stars are shown, symbolising the nine inhabited islands of Tuvalu.
 

This pattern of stars is the one on the logo of Subaru, Fuji's automotive manufacturing division, which is named after the Pleiades; their name in Japansese means 'unite', I am reliably told by Wikipedia. They show the Pleiades, with one extra big one to symbolise unity I guess. The Pleiades are known in English as the 'Seven Sisters', and their older name in Japanese is 'Mutsuraboshi', which means 'Six Stars'. In the logo, the Pleiades are shown with five stars.

Thus:

1. Tuvalu and Subaru are the ones whose name has something to do with things being united.

2. Tuvalu and Subaru are the ones which are symbolised by a pattern of stars.

3. Tuvalu and Subaru are the ones where the number of stars in the pattern of stars don't match the number of stars suggested by the name.

Hopefully this will go some way towards confusing these two things for you.

A Reason to Live

On the Ridiculously Fast Train (KTX) from Seoul to Busan, the 'in-flight' television shows - among many other things - cartoons featuring the characters below.

In one of them, they take the train to Paris. I have no idea of what the story is, but standard cartoon shorthand images for China and Russia flash by in the background, and then these guys are doing something cartoony in front of the Eifel Tower.

So I have a goal now.

That goal is to hang on until I can take the Ridiculously Fast Train from Seoul to Paris. It will be awesome. I have mentally pencilled it in for the first northern summer of my retirement, in July 2041.

Chesterton's Fence

“In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.” – Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I think I know why the fence was put there. It is explained rather clearly by Ibn Khaldun in the Muqaddimat, and the reasons that it is there make a great deal of sense in historical context. 

 But underpopulation is not a serious threat to the human species today. Few women die in childbirth in the developed world. And given that much more morally dubious forms are birth control are rife everywhere nowadays, is there still any reason for the fence to be there? I don’t know. Is there another subtler reason than Ibn Khaldun’s, a reason I don’t quite grasp? I am still reluctant to take the fence down. Is it only ingrained Catholicism, or ingrained contrariness? Or is it not so much that this particular fence is a problem, but that the spirit of fence removal blows so fast and hard in these times? The mob has become a tyrant, ruthlessly attacking freedom of speech and freedom of association, and I am (in principle) dedicated to casting down tyrants from their thrones. That is just a fancier way of expressing ingrained contrariness, I suppose. Anyhow, I am resigned to the fact that sooner or later I will incur the wrath of the mob for saying the wrong thing, refuse to apologise, and be sacked.

I should add, while I am here – and I speak as someone who has been very happily married for more than twenty years – that marriage is in its essence a punitive institution. It is not in the interests of any society not described by Aldous Huxley in ‘Brave New World’ for its members to go trolloping off like flibbertigibbets all the time, abandoning offspring and dividing collective property. It is all dressed up very prettily, of course, but in essence its historical function is to force people to stay together when they would rather not. When you are lobbying for the ‘right to marry’, you are really lobbying to be ostracised should you fail to be monogamous.   

People should be free to declare their love for each other in whichever way they like; but if governments are not going to hold them to the terms of the contracts they’ve made with penalties with real teeth, they have no business being involved. I would vote happily for legislation to abolish civil marriage. Whatever legal benefits and responsibilities it has have already been extended piecemeal to de facto relationships, and ‘no fault’ divorce has made it a contractual agreement uniquely lacking in legal penalties.

***

“Among the things that corrupt sedentary culture, there is the disposition toward pleasures and indulgence in them, because of the great luxury (that prevails). It leads to diversification of the desires of the belly for pleasurable food and drink. This is followed by diversification of the pleasures of sex through various ways of sexual intercourse, such as adultery and homosexuality. This leads to destruction of the (human) species. It may come about indirectly, through the confusion concerning one's descent caused by adultery. Nobody knows his own son, since he is illegitimate and since the sperm (of different men) got mixed up in the womb. The natural compassion a man feels for his children and his feeling of responsibility for them is lost. Thus, they perish, and this leads to the end of the (human) species. Or, the destruction of the (human) species may come about directly, as is the case with homosexuality, which leads directly to the non-existence of offspring. It contributes more to the destruction of the (human) species (than adultery), since it leads to (the result) that no human beings are brought into existence, while adultery only leads to the (social) non-existence of those who are in existence.” - Abd-ar-Rahman bin Muhammad ibn Khaldun

***

 

Update March 28th 2016: The Catholicism has turned out to be ingrained closer to the surface than I thought when I wrote this. And I can now confidently assert that the fence ought to remain, on the basis of  'A Canticle for Leibowitz'. These conditions of overpopulation and contraception are novel and contingent and likely to be temporary, and a society or ideology that is in the game for the long term ought to reject innovations that rely upon them.

26 Years and Counting

I just thought I should take this opportunity to double down on my prediction that the tyrannical oppressors of the renegade mainland provinces of the Republic of China will be toppled sometime in the interval 2017-2021. My new bonus prediction is that Da'ish will outlast them.

Apropos of nothing in particular, I recently found a notebook dating from c.1997-2000 containing the first draft of the Pike, notes from a conference in New Zealand, and assorted other scribbles, including the following two fragments.

***

He was doing something truly astonishing when I first saw him - something that made me love him at once, and resolve to have him for my enterprise at all costs. Yes, he was a marvel rare indeed among the people of my country: someone minding his own business.

***

I'll tell you about the man, died at his bench at seventy-four, he wasn't making anything special, just keeping his hands moving, keeping the feel of the adze.

The war he saw it coming long before, but it broke his heart.

He'd had his innings, trying to change the world. Standing on street corners, muttering revolution in darkened rooms, teaching, praying, working miracles for the cause -

One of his mates had a falling out, ideological purity, reported him to the authorities. They stripped him for death when the word came - governor's pardon. If something like that won't wise a man up, nothing will.

He was always the first to turn the other cheek - they laughed about it in the end, him and Judas. 'Remember the night you betrayed me to the High Priests?' He'd come over and they'd drink wine together and talk about the old times - nearly blind at the end, old Ish-Kerioth, but never lost the fire in his belly. Poor man, fell down an embankment on his way home one night, broke his neck.

Scott McIntyre's Tweets

It is difficult to make nuanced arguments in a tweet. In 140 characters one can certainly display a witty epigram, and aspire to a greeting-card platitude level of wisdom, but it is impossible to carry on a proper discussion. Klaus Rohde, by getting in first, has prompted me to do what I have been meaning to do since the story broke - and not just to be even-handed after writing a defence of Andrew Bolt - which was to write something about Scott McIntyre's treatment. If I were tweeting, I would just say: It is appalling that someone can be sacked for expressing perfectly reasonable opinions and stating facts that are true.

I am not unfavourably disposed towards imperialism, especially of the British variety. So I do not consider 'imperialist invasion' to be a slur. It is a statement of fact. We only participated in the landings at the Dardanelles because we were part of the imperialist system. We had no quarrel with Turkey. A few generations before, as part of the imperialist system, we had fought with Turkey against Russia, leading to place names in country Australia like Balaklava and Inkerman. I think Scott McIntyre's opinion here is perfectly justifiable and reasonable, if contested; the commemoration was over the top, and (though maybe it is just my perception) ANZAC day has grown more nationalistic and less reflective in tone since I first arrived here in the 1980s. If someone can be sacked for disrupting a ceremony, that ceremony certainly has a cultic character. And the opinion that this cultification is against all ideals of modern society is not an opinion that should be beyond the pale. I would quarrel with it only on the basis that 'modern society' has so many conflicting ideals that it can hardly be against all of them. But the ideals expressed in the charter of the United Nations, in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, in the speeches of Barry Goldwater or Barack Obama - such a cultification is certainly against those ideals.

 This is just a question. And it is a question that is valid to ask. It is not saying that all people participating in commemorative activities are poorly-read, white, nationalist, drinkers, or gamblers. But it really could apply to all of us. When we remember the tens of thousands of Australian dead, do we remember Russia, where almost three million died? Do we remember East Africa, where a hundred thousand conscripted Africans died? Do we think about the manifold horrors that were unleashed by the World War - the Armenian Genocide that almost certainly would not have happened without it, the Russian Revolution that almost certainly would not have happened without it, the destruction of civilisational trust and confidence that the West is still reeling from? Did the drinkers and gamblers - who are mostly poorly-read, white, and nationalist - pause to consider those things? It is a fair question to ask, I think.

Yes, summary executions, widespread rape and theft in Egypt and Palestine. And elsewhere. We should remember these things. This is not to say that the ANZACs were unusually bad: human beings are human beings, and this is what will always happen when you take a bunch of young men and place them under extreme stress without also placing them under extreme discipline.

As far as I am concerned, this is a simple unvarnished statement of historical truth. We were part of a coalition that carried out these attacks. I define 'terrorism' as 'the deliberate use of lethal force against civilians for political ends'. There were larger acts of terrorism - Stalin's deliberate famines, for instance, but for a single-day terrorist attack, the only rival to the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was also carried out by our coalition, and also against the civilians of Japan: the Operation Meetinghouse bombing of Tokyo. These terrorist attacks may have been justified to end the war sooner, or to avoid Communist occupation of a larger fraction of the Japanese Empire; I would almost certainly have supported them at that time, for those reasons.  There is no easy answer. But this does not mean the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Tokyo were not terrorist attacks. And we should not forget.

The Condor and the Cows

I'm still hoping to get winstoninabox to answer the question posed by Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor.

In the meantime, here is a quote from Christopher Isherwood, in 'The Condor and the Cows', that asks a similar question.

"As for the militant atheists of the Left Wing, their smug stupidity appalls me. It is all very well to brand certain cults and legends as superstitious, and to attack the political crimes of the historic sects, but have they never stopped to ask themselves what religion itself is for? How in the world do they imagine they can make their free democratic community function when they have removed the whole spiritual basis of consent? Don't they know anything about human nature? Do they really think that justice and public ethics can operate in a vacuum? No- they are too busy getting on with their revolution. They take it for granted, with an optimism that is mystical in the worst sense of the word, that the fundamental problem will somehow solve itself."

19-22, All the Others

Number Six in a Series on Countries Named after Peeps

Well, it has been a long time. Here are the last four peeps who have given their names to current countries:

19. Saud ibn Muhammad ibn Migrin c.1680-1740?

Emir of Al-Diriyah and father of Muhammad ibn Saud, who was the founder of the first Saudi state.

 

20. Thomas Gilbert c.1750-1820?

21. John Marshall 1748-1819

These gentlemen were the captains of two vessels belonging to the East India Company that were chartered to bring convicts to Australia in the First Fleet. Gilbert was captain of the Charlotte and Marshall of the Scarborough. Once they had gotten rid of their cargo of ne’erdowells, they sailed off for Canton to pick up some tea for the journey back to England. And I guess because no one had ever had any particular reason to sail as quickly as they could manage from Australia to China before, they ended up cutting through an expanse of ocean that no European vessel had been recorded going through before. This expanse of ocean had some previously undiscovered islands, which they humbly named the ‘Kingsmill Islands’ and ‘Lord Mulgrove’s Range’, but they ended up being called, respectively, the Gilbert Islands and the Marshall Islands. Apparently thanks to the enthusiastic renaming efforts of the Russian explorer Adam Johann von Krusenstern (see below).

This is Adam Johann von Krusenstern, in a break between renaming islands

Who also, it seems, renamed the Hervey Islands after Captain James Cook.

The language of the Gilbert Islands, like Hawaiian, doesn’t have an ‘L’ sound or a ‘G’ sound, so ‘Gilberts’ is written ‘Kiribati’.

You might remember it as the country that used to straddle the international date line, which was shifted so that the whole country could be the same day at the same time. It has 100,000 people spread over three time zones and is all atolls no more than a few metres above sea level.

Then there are the Marshall Islands, which also have a great flag – it was one of my son’s favourites when he was very small and very keen on flags - and the unenviable distinction of being the site of all kinds of nuclear weapons tests.

So those are the only two countries named after Englishmen. There isn’t much information about Thomas Gilbert on the interwebz, but John Marshall would be a good subject for a series of historical novels. He was born in Ramsgate on the 15^th of February, 1748, and was sent to sea as an apprentice at the age of 10, spending most of the next sixty years at sea. As well as taking part in the First and Second Fleets, he fought the dastardly rebel colonists of North America in their rebellion and was severely wounded fighting a French privateer in the Napoleonic wars.

When I was born, both of these countries would not have counted on this list, being colonies, but there was a much more populous country named after a third Englishman, which has since taken its place in the dustbin of history.

22. Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco (24 July 1783 – 17 December 1830)

Who started this series. Bolivia is named after him, and of course the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. I have just ended up linking to Wikipedia mostly, anyways, so you can use your own initiative to look him up.

I don't know who these people are. But they are looking very festively Bolivarian.

Accept No Substitutes

I finally got around to reading Milton’s Comus the other night, through the simple expedient of spending all night reading at Sydney airport so as to save money on accommodation before my flight home. I have been meaning to read Comus because of the mentions of it in Alex Waugh’s ‘Loom of Youth’, which I read because I read Evelyn Waugh’s autobiography. 

Near the end of Comus I suddenly had a feeling a deja vu.

The song is being sung to Sabrina, incarnation of the river Severn:

May thy lofty head be crowned

With many a tower and terrace round

And here and there thy banks upon

With groves of myrrh and cinnamon

(lines 934-937)

And there echoed in my head these other four lines about the vicinity of Alph, the sacred river:

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree

In form and content that is just too close to be coincidence, methinks.

Line 926 of Comus ends with ‘rills’, by the way. And line 990 contains the word ‘cedarn’, which the notes to the poem say is a uniquely Miltonic word that the blind poet made up, but I had only ever met in Kubla Khan. A few lines down (941) is ‘With some other new device’,  which is echoed by ‘It was a miracle of rare device’. Line 1002 of Comus has an Assyrian queen, which is echoed in Kubla Khan by an Abyssinian maid. Wikipedia tells me Mount Abora was originally Mount Amara, which is mentioned in Paradise Lost. We can safely assume Coleridge, like any educated Englishman of his time, to be thoroughly steeped in Milton.

Here’s my theory.

Coleridge didn’t dream any old poem. He dreamt an alternate ending to Comus. Which of course, being a paean to the glory of chastity, suggests a very obvious alternate ending. Instead of the virgin Sabrina, we have Alph, the sacred river (which is probably a reference to the lecherous Alpheus of the Pellopennese). You will remember how it was ‘flung up momently’ in a ‘mighty fountain’ ‘with ceaseless turmoil seething, as if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing.’

Here's the corollary to my theory. 

Any analysis of Kubla Khan that does not mention Comus (which is all of them that I can find so far) is a load of toss.

Ending 1, Sabrina:

Mortals, that would follow me,

Love virtue; she alone is free.

She can teach ye how to climb

Higher than the sphery chime;

Or, if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

Ending 2, Alpheus:

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.