What Would Jesus Buy?

Before you engross yourself in this month's entry, I want to make you aware of two things. The first is that, in the wake of my lengthy tirade against the Catholic Church last month, I endeavoured to limit this entry to a modest 800 words. Excluding the complimentary italicised paragraph I furnish my entries with, I think I did quite well, and intend to persevere with this goal in the coming months. The second is that, seeing as it is almost Christmas AND we are about to enter the second decade of the 21st century (a truly momentous occasion), I have provided a second, light-hearted piece, to take your weary minds off the subject of exams/financial difficulties/crippling loneliness (delete as appropriate). Anywhat, without further ado...

I find myself surprised, if not a little frightened, by the clarity with which I recall writing my last December entry. It may have been almost twelve months ago, but it retains a firm grip on my oft sieve-like recollection. I had written it a few days after Christmas, and had relocated to my own room to avoid as best as possible the testosterone laced roar of the new Colin McRae X-Box 360 rally game. Suffice it to say that mere load-bearing walls provided less than ample soundproofing, and I had to resort to further measures, namely listening to the Hold Steady at volumes which would have shattered the vertebrae of a lesser man. Writing that particular entry, I was in the midst of the festive period, with a substantial number of pub visits behind me, and the much anticipated Comrie New Year celebrations approaching. This year, I write to you from Edinburgh, a few weeks prior to the big day, on the commercialisation of Christmas . . .

Personally, I love Christmas, and I would marry New Year’s Eve, and consummate our union in the most lurid fashion, if such perversions were legally or physically possible. I understand the widespread condemnation of Christmas as having been whored out to corporations, or hijacked by supermarkets and television networks for the purpose of vast profits. One would struggle, perhaps, to argue that the traditional values of the holiday have not been eclipsed by materialism and commercial gluttony. Every year, the well-meaning piety of little old ladies from quaint country parishes rails ineffectually against the unstoppable money-machine that is capitalist holiday mirth and revelry as facades of yuletide humility crack under the weight of heathen materialism. I know all this and I agree that it is the contemporary reality, but acknowledgement of this does not place me in the “we-must-uphold-the-traditional-principles-of-Christmas” lobby. I, personally, don’t mind the commercialisation of Christmas, at least not as it is defined by those who denounce it.

The basis for the contempt shown by many towards Christmas in the twenty-first century is that the celebration of love, charity, peace and global brotherhood, which Christmas propagates, is dying. The multi-national corporations, those fiscal vampires, have Christmas held firmly in their vice-like jaws, and every year their razor-edged canines increase the pressure on the jugular of human generosity and kindness. I’m not certain this is true. I am certain that these corporations monopolise on the holiday season, heaving great tides of cash into advertising and the development of jazzy new gadgets, but I’m not sure this has destroyed Christmas. I like to think we, the public, are rather more intelligent than to allow our concepts of love and giving to decay under the attrition of Coca-Cola adverts. And I think I’m correct in that assumption.

So, what, exactly, is wrong with buying a loved one an iPod for Christmas? Why shouldn’t you buy your dad a Rolex? What moral incentive could you have for deciding that you probably shouldn’t buy your ten year old son a bike, or your teenage daughter a designer handbag? I’m being appallingly sexist here, of course; ten year old boys can also like handbags . . . I saw it on Channel 4 . . .

Some people would, genuinely, have you feel guilty for going shopping and buying lots of expensive gifts for your friends and family. Having quickly Googled the subject to discover what the internet-using world thinks, I discovered that an American journalist by the name of David Lawrence Dewey, believes that those who enjoy such gift-buying experiences have “somehow lost what Christmas is truly about.” This was in response to the views of a certain twenty-four year old Becky, from Florida. Becky writes: “I really love going shopping through the malls. With so many things that you can choose from, I sometimes have a hard time deciding what to buy. I just love Christmas because of the gift buying.” The image in your own head most likely echoes the image in my own. Becky is probably unnaturally slim, has been spoiled from the moment of her conception, has artificially blonde hair of blinding hue, and could quite possibly construct a revolutionary and ironic piece of sky-scraping architecture literally using her vast horde of credit cards. Such is the stereotypical, materialistic American woman. It would be quite understandable, even predictable, if you, being British, thought this woman rather a tasteless hussy. Indeed, the only representative from our fair isle of Albion, is forty-two year old Rochelle. Her views resound thusly: "Christmas used to be a very special time in England, however, the American corporate commercialization of Christmas hit England about five years ago, how sad that we have relinquished our spirit of tradition to the way of commercialization.” A Daily Mail reader if ever there was one.

Conflicting views, then, from both sides of the Atlantic puddle, but I must say I find myself more affected by the simple, naive delight of Becky than the gaseous shroud of ignorant national pride oozing from the nauseatingly sentimental Rochelle. Becky may be materialistic, but she appreciates the fun of Christmas. Rochelle seems to think we live in “A Christmas Carol”. The joy, the satisfaction, of purchasing for someone, something you know they will enjoy, what is wrong with that? Who am I; who is Mr. Dewey, or Rochelle, to criticise her? To reject her enjoyment of the season based on some presumption of a selfish incentive, that is pompous, self-serving and not in the least generous and loving.

Consider, gentle reader, the concept that Christmas is a time for fun. It may be a season of love, kindness, and giving, of family, friends and loved ones, but that makes it a celebration, above all, of life, and what is life without fun? What is life without unnecessary furnishings of pleasure? Superfluous spending once a year does not necessarily equate to mindless, corrupted consumerism. Did not the man himself, in honour of whom mankind established this celebration, say “Judge not, lest ye be judged”? This Christmas, then, do not criticise the man who gorges his ample form on turkey, wine and chocolate, and who falls asleep during the queen’s speech. Spare the hardworking mother of two your disdain as she sets about trying to locate a Nintendo Wii for her thrilled children to unwrap on Christmas morning. Withhold your scorn for myself and my friends, who will, doubtless, venture into the warmth of a pub rather than a Help the Aged fundraiser. We are, none of us, bad people. We merely desire a short period once every twelve months when we can enjoy ourselves with friends and family, and when we students can receive much-needed financial cushioning in the form of cheques from obscure relatives.


I shall conclude by wishing one, all, and some, an appropriately merry Christmas.

Jamie

A Glimpse of the Future...

The following is taken from an article in The Times, Monday 30th November 2089...

"Here follows the obituary of Jamie Lamb Esq., composed lamentably early by the hand of his self-proclaimed illegitimate son, Frederick Archibald James Lamb, who never met the man in person, yet considers the lasting intensity of his father’s spiritual imprint source enough from which to draw the following:

* The fields of literature, micro-blogging, social criticism, woolly liberalism and, most acutely, basket weaving, have each been shaken to their very foundations and robbed of an inestimably bright spark by the recent passing of the much renowned, revered, and reproached Jamie Lamb. Above and beyond his ample collection of academic suffixes, are to be found his other, lesser known, titles, Reverend Father (the result of a colourful misunderstanding upon visiting an east-African village of less than lenient Catholicism), and Duchess of Gloucester, which aptly explains itself.

Lamb’s years at Crieff High School, professed in his best-selling autobiography to have been some of the most enjoyable of his life, were marked by scandalous social indecencies of Wildian proportions. His many enemies and critics have claimed that more than one young man left Crieff High School with the deepest of emotional scars resulting from Lamb’s ruthlessly domineering persona and heavy-handed authoritarianism, and one needn’t excavate the well publicised incident of September 2006, when a promising fifth-year girl was quite literally blinded by the man’s proficiency at Scrabble. The suspicions of supernatural, even diabolic, assistance voiced by local Parishioners were irreversibly muted by the tragic series of gas explosions which ripped through the otherwise sleepy tourist town a mere twenty-four hours before the conclusion of the official enquiry, any testimony of Lamb’s nether-worldly dealings perishing in the resultant flames.

Leaving Crieff in a dust-cloud of teenage pregnancy two years later, Lamb made the move to Edinburgh, which he was to consider his home even when spending much of the year in Oslo. Reading English Literature, he absorbed many of the greatest works in the English language. However, his extraordinary metabolism, the much speculated secret to his trim, muscular physique, was not limited to the processes of his more base organs, and the accumulated repository of knowledge which should have served him well in future life, in fact slipped through his desperately clenched academic buttocks and passed down the u-bend of inescapable memory loss. A life of bluffing, ad-libbing and sexual favours was therefore the only one which would ensure him success, and he monopolised on his late-blooming physical beauty as shamelessly as any back-street whore-biscuit.

Having been instructed by his father in the ways of hard work and honesty in his formative years, he was disowned by his immediate family for a dubious act of trade-unionism at the age of twenty-four. He was to spend the next three years travelling Europe undertaking research on behalf of the British Government. The resultant treatise, "E.U. Subsidies and their Effects on Sustainable Agriculture in Hungary and Romania", was to be his first, but certainly not his last, academic paper to receive global infamy for its border-line satanic undertones.

His health irreparably damaged by the twin rigours of national scandal and a gruelling four year divorce, Lamb executed an ignoble retreat into the life of a Daily Mail theatre critic, an embarrassment of such towering severity that, within two weeks of accepting the post, he had lost all those among his former friends who had remained loyal through his previous troubles.

One of Lamb’s less than generous reviews elicited some level of fury in the virgin breast of a practically pre-pubescent female playwright. The woman scorned him and, in an interview with the Daily Mail itself, berated him with the catalytic phrase: “Why don’t you have a go at writing a fucking play then if you’re so fucking clever?” At the behest of this disgruntled lesbian (as Lamb was to leak to the press), he was to compose his first dramatic work, entitled “The Archbishop of Canterbury: A Tale of Two Wardrobes”, for which he received extensive critical acclaim. His subsequent works, comprising six plays, four novels, an autobiography, two volumes of poetry and the script for a proposed Broadway adaptation of “Mein Kampf”, remained in print throughout his life, and contracts have been flown to the German embassy in New York to await inevitable signing.

A life, then, plagued by suspicions of devilish association, sexual and academic infamy, but illuminated by his latter day contributions to the arts, Jamie Lamb’s was one of drama from its humble beginnings to its untimely end, choked by a pair of soiled dungarees. The death is being treated as “suspicious”, and the rights to a Blockbuster biopic are presently being fought over by Universal Studios, Warner Brothers and New Line.

God speed, Jamie. God speed... *

The Duchess's belongings are to be sold at charity auction next Friday, at a time as yet unconfirmed by a rather perplexed King William."



The future, gentle reader... We never know, do we? My Wikipedia article is considerably worse...

Jamie

More left-wing Church bashing...

Today, by a happy accident, I stumbled upon the most recent Intelligence Squared debate, concerning whether or not the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world. If you would like to watch it, and I recommend it thoroughly, you can do so on YouTube or on the Intelligence Squared web site. Here you will also find a briefing for the event which makes for a very interesting read. It's a sizable document for casual reading, both as infuriating and illuminating as one would expect, and even as I type this I have not managed to marshal the required level of concentration for such an endeavour. A number of things attracted me to the debate and a timelessly heated dispute was not least among them, although I admit myself more prone to dedicating an hour of my life to it on the basis that, counted in the number of the participants, were Stephen Fry, Christopher Hitchins and the implacable, formidable and downright frightening Anne Widdecombe. Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchins, eerily intelligent men both, are no strangers to the medium of the televised debate and Anne Widdecombe is far from a virgin only as far as being an unaffected medusa is concerned. “Where are you headed with all this?”I hear you ask. “Surely, Jamie, you prefer to remain in your own temperate climate of frolicsome subjects in bountiful supply?” True, within what is soon to form into a pleasing aquatic simile, I am as a gentle manatee when compared to the gnashing swarms of Blog-hosting piranhas out there in the perilous waterways of the Internet. While they, with their limitless opinions and incessant howls of derision, bitterly thrashing about in obscurity, fall upon such topics with a bloodlust both fearsome and cringe-worthy, I remain, as ever, inquisitive, with a propensity for producing hot gas, but ultimately harmless and, by and large, the bigger man (atee). It pains me then, to have prepared for your enjoyment and intellectual stimulation (my criteria for “stimulation” being somewhat forgiving), an entry dealing with such a troublesome subject. Next month, expect a four thousand word investigation into the colourful, but bloody, world of NOVELTY ICE CUBES.

The Catholic Church, in the words of the Archbishop John Onaiyekan, “means a great many things to a great many people”. This, I think, is where we must begin, with a statement so simple and so vague that it can be certified as a truth. This is naturally a subject difficult to tackle unless we are firmly grounded in truth and this statement seems as irrefutable as we are likely to encounter when discussing the Catholic Church (Empiricism beginning to show...). However, despite whatever notions of benign universality this phrase may conjure, it is undeniable that it can be interpreted conversely. The Catholic Church means a great many good and wonderful things to a great many people but it means also a great number of flawed and inhumane things to many others. Where do we go from here? Well, in keeping with the theme and, indeed, the inspiration for this entry, I will refer to some of the points in the Intelligence Squared briefing, predominantly those not touched upon in the original discussion. I intend to try and maintain an air of jocular detachment, but I apologise in advance should I drift into what might be considered too serious a tone.

Readers, I warn you that now is the time to grasp your rosary beads between whitened knuckles or to wrench from its shelf your Bible, ready for page-by-page dismemberment. I warn you also that I am about to offend a great many people...

We can thank the Church for much European culture, knowledge and technology... Can we?

A great deal of Renaissance patronage came from the Catholic Church. Perhaps most famously, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Pope Julius II. All well and good, we might surmise, but what of the wider, and the deeper, circumstances? Julius II was known as “The Terrible Pope”. His reign was marked by exceptional levels of aggression and based largely on a forceful acquisition of Italian political control, under the Church and, consequently, under himself. He certainly had grand vision and was a great patron of the Renaissance, but remember that Julius’ reign falls in the very early sixteenth century; the situation in Europe is dire for many, their lives blighted by poverty, disease, poor harvests and famine. Where then was charitable Christian nature? It was smothered under the excess of a Church more concerned with the extent of its bejewelled grip than with any notion of shepherding mankind to spiritual peace and salvation. Michelangelo himself did not even want to paint the Sistine Chapel. He was far more concerned with his sculpting. But, of course, the Pope is the earthly conduit to God himself and that is a potent authority upon which to call. Let us not forget, also, that the premise of the Renaissance was a renewed embracing of classical artistic values. The Greeks, the Romans, were, for the most part, seen as Pagans by the Church. Much of the learning of the ancients was lost due to the intolerance of the Church. Vitruvius’ De Architectura was, at the time of the Renaissance, the only known treatise on Roman architecture. The Church pillaged the ruins of Rome for columns and stones with which to build their own structures. Even the recipe for concrete was lost for centuries. One cannot deny the importance of the Church in the restoration of artistic values in Europe, but simultaneously one must always remember that they were one of the primary reasons a revival was thought necessary.

The Bible, for many centuries, was only ever printed in Latin. Of course this is understandable before Gutenberg developed his printing press in the mid fifteenth century, as each copy of the Bible, and any publication for that matter, needed to be carefully handwritten by a dedicated scribe, normally a monk (allowing the Church an ample level of control over censorship). But after the Bible came to be (relative to the period at least) mass produced, it began to circulate in various languages. This did not please the Catholic Church. In 1517, seven people were burned at the stake for the crime of teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer in English. The punishment for owning a Bible in any language other than Latin was death. Thomas More, an infamous persecutor of “heretical” non-Latin Bible owners, was made patron saint of politicians as recently as 1935! Even before More’s time, in the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe (a man I have mentioned in my series of border-line amusing etymological Facebook status updates) had copied the Bible into English dozens of times. He believed that the organisation of the Church was against the Bible itself, a moral paradox he sought to balance. When the Pope at the time (I do not know who the Pope was at the time) discovered this, some years after Wycliffe’s death, he ordered the poor man’s bones dug up, grinded into dust and cast into the river. As a comical chaser to this shot of liturgical tyranny, I remind you that in his first manuscript, Wycliffe was forced to conceive new English words as replacements for certain Latin terms. My favourite is, understandably, the original English for “intestines”, which Wycliffe thought most sensible to name “arse-ropes”. John Wycliffe, everyone! A man whose hand I sorely wish I could shake... had it not been decomposed by the Almighty and pulverised by his chief gimp.

Can we thank the Church for “much European culture, knowledge and technology?” In fairly broad terms, my answer would be: certainly not. The Church were responsible for setting back the development of art, culture, learning, technology and everything modern society is based on, many, many years. Not to mention the fact that, for the Papal hierarchy, human decency and humanitarian education seems to have been a fairly low priority, sacrificed in favour of pomp and ceremony. For all his many faults, I am certainly grateful for Luther and his notions of Biblical self-study, and his belief in the necessity of legalising non-Latin manuscripts. Certainly a step forward for civilization, shackled as it had been by over-zealous spiritual subjugation.

Roman Catholicism delivers moral absolutes...

How comforting for common people to exist in the knowledge that they need not contemplate the morality of their actions. How secure we should all be in knowing that a set of absolute morals exists, and that we need only adhere to them to be happy. How wonderful. How splendid. How ridiculous.

Jesus taught mankind many things. He told us to “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, a wonderful, enlightened concept, and as relevant today as it was that day nearly two millennia ago when Christ stumped that group of hypocrites in their preparations for a good ol’ fashioned community stoning. Essentially, the teachings of Christ have, by and large, been an enormous force for good in the world. This I concede without hesitation or bitterness. I am in agreement with Christians the world over that Christ’s teachings are invaluable. Of course, his divinity is always in dispute, but regardless, his teachings remain integral to many peoples’ lives. They represent what I like to think (probably naively) are our social instincts: not to steal from one another, to treat each other kindly, tolerantly, to love and to forgive and, last but not least, not to kill one another. Please, please, please, please, please don’t let yourself become confused between the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ. Christ’s teachings should be taken on their own merit. Remember, of course, that Christ’s death was partly the doing of religious leaders who had followed the Ten Commandments for many centuries before the coming of Christ. These commandments, and every other moral absolute the Church has peddled for years, are highly suspect in my opinion. The Ten Commandments, as Christopher Hitchins pointed out in his argument, simultaneously demand love and fear. Christ never even entreated humanity to fear him, let alone demand it. God, however, flat-out, no-holds barred, demands simultaneous love and fear, or grants you damnation, free will or none. I needn’t point out how ludicrous this is and perhaps you have guessed how this section is panning out.

Moral absolutes are terrifying to us rational human beings. We live, in this day and age, lives lasting many decades. Last time I checked the average life expectancy for a Briton was somewhere in the seventies. Seventy years is a long time, and even in just under twenty, my ideas of morality have changed enormously, and continue to do so. The human brain does not respond well to moral absolutism, as its default state is one of inquiry and of curiosity. It is in our nature to question, to experiment, to analyse and to ascertain. Indeed, one of the most exciting, fascinating and socially productive endeavours undertaken by our species is that of probing the inestimable labyrinths of human morality. To exist in a state I can only describe as moral complacency is more dangerous than I can commit to words. When societies revert to unquestioning obedience of any set of codes of conduct, they surrender that which lends them not only the dignity of our species, but the safety of ourselves, our families, friends and everyone else: our free will and our quest for development and enlightenment.

Besides, how immutable are the morals of the Church? How absolute is absolute? Historically, about as absolute as my grandfather’s bladder control. What would the Church’s attitude to slavery be today, do you think? Most likely they would consider it inhumane, an appalling violation of morality. Yet, during the rapid increase in trade of African slaves in the wake of growing Imperialism and in part due to the rise of the mercantile classes, do you think the Church spoke out against it? Of course not. Scholars investigating the Papacy’s attitude towards slavery believe the first instance of a Pope speaking out against slavery was only as recently as 1890. Before then the Church adopted a stance of, at best, ambivalence and indecision. Certain saints are known to have purchased slaves with the intent of freeing them, but this does not exactly, or vaguely or in any way otherwise, reflect the actions of the Church.

Here, then, seems an appropriate place to make essentially the same statement I made last month. Individuals pursuing a spiritual life should feel in no way besmirched by the awful things I am writing about the Catholic Church. The Church is an organisation and therefore should be considered as entirely separate from those who follow its faith in their own lives. I have said it before, as long as they actively seek to denounce that which is in need of reassessment, acting against what I have described as moral absolutism, there is no reason for anyone to have the slightest suspicion of them, and I wish them all the happiness and contentment in the world.

But, to return to topic... That such a drastic alteration in morals is possible is evidence, if any was needed, that the Catholic Church is a human institution. It is an earthly organisation run by humans. The Pope himself, indisputable in many ways though his alleged closeness to God makes him, is human. He will die. He is in no way faultless or irrefutable. It makes sense then that the Church should adapt to the times, even though, in the briefing, it is put forward as a benefit that the Church does not adapt. It no longer persecutes individuals for reading English Bibles, or Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Greek or (Heaven forbid!) American-English Bibles, yet it steadfastly refuses to alter its archaic stance on homosexuality. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchins once more, homosexuality is not merely a form of sexuality, but a form of love. A church which actively promotes the spread of love ostracising from its ranks enormous numbers of people based on the fact that they spread their love to the “wrong” people, this is madness. It is an appalling paradox.

To go back to the subject of Papal censorship, the Catholic Church does try, at every opportunity, if not to burn, then at least to censor that which it finds heretical, such as the Harry Potter books. Pope Benedict XVI saw the series as being a terrible influence on children, and the Vatican’s official newspaper included the opinion that Harry “...proposes a wrong and malicious image of the hero, an unreligious one, which is even worse than an explicitly anti-religious proposition." BUT this very paper, L'Osservatore Romano, was, only four years later, to print that the Pope thought the sixth film was the best so far and that: "There is a clear line of demarcation between good and evil and [the film] makes clear that good is right. One understands as well that sometimes this requires hard work and sacrifice." If the Pope himself, in a modern world such as we inhabit, cannot deliver a moral absolute on something like a children’s story, what hope is there that it can provide any absolutes whatsoever? Those it does stand by, notoriously the prohibition of artificial contraception, cause untold levels of death and suffering. To quote directly from what I have just now realized is a rather excellent briefing:

“Each year, 600,000 women die needlessly during pregnancy and childbirth and thousands more die from botched illegal abortions. Each year, 5.8 million people become HIV positive and 2.5 million die from Aids. Today, more than 28% of African children have lost one or both parents to Aids. Yet the Church has consistently lobbied to block international policy decisions that would make condom education and use a major tool in the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and in the battle against Aids. At a recent world conference on women and population development, it successfully led the effort to block the inclusion of safe, legal abortion on the list of basic reproductive rights for women. It has used its voice to limit access to family planning, safe abortion – even in countries where abortion is legal – and emergency contraception, even for women who have been raped in an act of war. The Church has had no hesitation in quoting specious scientific evidence to back its case. In Kenya a church pamphlet stated that HIV can pass through condoms and in 2003, the Vatican claimed that "serious scientific studies" backed this view. No scientists supported the claim. It was a lie.”

The statistics are staggering. It may certainly be an absolute, but I would feel ill if I were to seriously consider calling it moral. These statistics, in my own opinion, render the argument for the Church’s positive impact on the world heartbreakingly empty, regardless of the supposed billions donated by Catholic charities the world over. As with the arts, the Church’s interference and widespread moral authoritarianism have done more to damage the human race than enrich it. I don’t feel I need really say any more on this subject, but Stephen Fry certainly makes a compelling argument on the video.

I fear I have become a little morose, but I don’t feel I can be blamed in the slightest. I’ve certainly learned a lot today, and that I have incorporated learnings from all of my three University courses into the mix is exceptionally rewarding. I would like, once again, to remind anyone reading this that my contempt for the organised Catholic Church is just that: contempt for the organised Catholic Church. In fact, I felt terribly sorry for the Archbishop John Onaiyekan throughout the debate. He seemed to me to be one of many religious individuals who have true faith in a benevolent God. However misplaced you see this trust, it can do a great deal of good. I have no doubt there are many individuals in Africa, in Britain, and the whole world over, who actively seek to turn their faith towards improving the world. Archbishop Onaiyekan’s arguments were based primarily on statistics regarding the billion strong membership of his faith and the very large sums donated to African humanitarian causes and, at least during his solo argument, he seemed a genuine believer in the individual benefits God can bring people. He defended his faith admirably, but crashed and burned when defending his Church and this failure encapsulates and solidifies the opinions of many...

The Catholic Church have an inestimable potential to do good, but don’t. If only it were within their ability, if only they had the courage, to make changes to their doctrine, many millions would be happier and safer. The facts and figures that defenders of the Church put forward are all well and good, that during Hitler’s final solution, many Jews were granted refuge in the Pope’s palace, that the Church funds the distribution of aid in struggling, war-torn countries, and many other facts besides, are rendered almost meaningless by the larger picture. These instances are exceptional. When defending an institution in which one believes, one will understandably seek to put forward the most considerable of its achievements, but an institution with the funds, the influence and over a BILLION adherents, the largest Church in the world, should be able to do so much more. I can scarcely imagine what such an enormous organisation could do with the right mindset. But, of course, the hierarchy of the Church is one of conservatism, of obsession, of intolerance, deflection and decrepitude. An awful lot of cobwebs need dusting before the Church will live up to anything even bordering on its full potential.

Jamie

"A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to..."

We’ve all been there, watching television in the evening with our parents when, suddenly, an uncomfortably passionate scene unfolds on the screen. Skirts are hoisted up, jeans crumple to the ground and perhaps a pasty buttock or two flash like car headlights from the haze of lust and eroticism (and there is also a sex scene on TV). Said buttocks have much the same effect as their companion in simile, car headlights. Shock. Sheer shock with a chaser of horror and the numbing inclination that life is about to get, at best, uncomfortable. You realize with a wave of nausea that you are watching a sex scene with your parents and it’s just flat-out, no-holds barred, wrong. But you can’t stand up and leave or it will look ridiculous. Your parents aren’t going to stand up and leave because they’re grown adults and they have clearly had sex at least once or else it would be beyond your spermy ability to sit and watch a sex scene with them. But what if your parents asked you to leave? What if other people wanted to deny you the exposure mass media gives you to the sexual side of the human race? What if you were ignorant to homosexuality until it was too late and you found it weird, unnatural, even immoral? Would you be the same person? How different might you be and how much different a place would the world be? If you will allow me, I will express my own thoughts on this month’s big question: “Is there too much sex in the media?( Leaning particularly towards a criticism of the right-wing Christian viewpoint)”. I’ll also talk a little about education, but I’m not sure how much... if at all...

Watching “The Big Question” with Andrew the other day, I was surprised at a number of the arguments put forward by the Christian right-wingers. A minority in whom I have never perceived any great threat to decent, tolerant society, they voiced a number of opinions which, on reflection, strike me suddenly as rather alarming. At the time their views seemed like the usual rectal breeze of harmless conservatism, its odour punctuated predictably by heady notes of pious self-aggrandisement. One expects the occasional example of palpable self-defined moral superiority from such fine, upstanding guardians of civilized virtues. For the most part I have always assumed these were the outward signs of a form of spiritual stagnancy reserved for neighbourhood watch meetings and those amongst Parent-Teacher Associations with their own broods of offspring. To see the Bible-totting basket cases parrying logical, humanitarian viewpoints with pomposity and prejudice elicited from me less the usual sighs of mild exasperation and more the sort of confrontational desires I normally avoid or repress. As a usually tolerant person I am, ironically, hypocritically and confusingly, intolerant of intolerance. And if there is one demographic guilty of intolerance it is the Christian right. One particularly venomous specimen, a leathery hag with a 1940s haircut so luridly conservative she made the pale, meek red-head next to her look like a punk-rock lesbian anarchist, succinctly outlined the threat televised eroticisms pose to the youth of today. Such heinous, abominable indecencies as “incest, underage sex, fornication and homosexuality” pervade our television dramas, their combined malevolence seeping like a toxin from the millions of screens which glow like neon bar-signs, parasites nestled deeply in the warm and yielding flesh of the family home. Skins has been cited as a particularly iniquitous example. It has become the target of many a Stepford wife for its bad language and depictions of sexual acts between college students and (gasp!) even teachers. Flagrant ejaculations of “fuck” (as verb, noun and general expletive), “cunt”, “arse”, “tits” and a colourful range of others have earned it simultaneously a position of notoriety among parents and of cult reverence among today’s breed of street-wise, acid-dropping, procreatin’ youngsters. And so the crowds take to the streets, pitchforks aloft and torches blazing. Headed by the likes of our aforementioned turkey-necked harpy lady, they peddle their views that such explicitness on our television screens is responsible for the world’s blights. Which is nonsense.

What strikes me most about their arguments is their definition of indecency on television and what they view as a direct correlation between life and media. By way of a reminder I refer you to the list put forward by Ms. Holier-than-thou: “incest, underage sex, fornication and homosexuality”. I’ll take these one at a time and say a little bit about them, their effect on the public and their definition as indecent and immoral. Any arguments or comments are wholly encouraged.

Incest is, understandably, frowned upon. Given the resultant tangled lattice of jeopardized relationships and conflicting social norms, I don’t understand the psychological imperatives which drive people to incest and I don’t want to judge people who are driven to it, so I’m probably just going to gloss over it by stating quite obviously that incest is a practice we, as a society, discourage. Fortunately, it doesn’t take most people an awful lot of convincing that it is a bad idea and its very occasional depiction in film (“Close My Eyes” by Stephen Poliakoff for example) and other areas of the media are unlikely to encourage people to try it. Knowing they are handling a very sensitive subject, most writers exhibit it in their work responsibly and with due awareness of the difficulties it incurs. Still, it happens. Are we protecting children by keeping them in ignorance of unconventional and, in this case, dangerous sexual practices? If they don’t know it exists, are they protected? Ignorance doesn’t protect you from the law, and, by and large, offers pretty poor armour against the ills of the world as well.

Underage sex. It happens and it happens a lot. Nobody can deny that. But, inversely, young people are waiting longer and longer to have children. Is there a connection between these contradictory statements? I think there is, but it is certainly not alluded to in the content of either. (Very) generally, those teenagers having underage sex are from poorer backgrounds. Those waiting are from more prosperous, tolerant, middle-class backgrounds. The former are never exposed to sex under the supervision of their parents and, as a result, they grow up with false notions of glamorized sex drawn from the likes of Nuts magazine and internet pornography (both fine things of course, but only when accompanied by a backdrop of balanced sexual awareness). The latter, well, the latter are those more likely to have found themselves in the awkward situation I described in my introduction. Awkward though it is, it is perfectly healthy and a safe way of young people being exposed to sex. Obviously someone my age, and probably all of you reading this, merely feel acutely uncomfortable, understanding as we do the details of sex and having at least some notion of the accompanying relationships and emotions . Someone of eleven or twelve, however, might have questions relating to what they are seeing. Now, curiosity is the healthiest thing in the world. It is natural for us to be curious about that which we do not understand. Parents are therefore able to explain sex and relationships in their own way, that way being no business of mine. Is underage sex a problem resulting from overexposure in the media? I don’t think it is. I think it has a great deal more to do with parenting, which is a whole different issue and one infinitely too complicated for me to tackle. Enforcing stricter limits on the sex which can be broadcasted on television, printed in newspapers and recorded on film will not solve the problem of underage sex because there will still be children out there, children whose parents have prepared them poorly for potential relationships and who, doing as children do, learn practically. If anything, a more “diligent” approach to sex in the media will rob those children whose parents are there to answer questions of the opportunity to ask them. It would, frankly, be criminal to rob children of that which stimulates curiosity and a desire to learn about the world and the people around them. It is an instinct which leaves us far too early and must be cultivated as actively as possible.

Fornication, fornication, fornication. For any of you who aren’t aware of the full definition of fornication, it is the having of sex between consenting, but unmarried, individuals for the purpose of pleasure. There is a lot in that definition which can elicit discussion and debate, primarily between the secular and spiritual proportions of society. I, personally, being a liberally thinking man, a somewhat mild-mannered version of Wilde’s more outrageous Lord Henry Wotton, consider fornication a perfectly natural part of modern living. Not for me, but certainly for those more blessed with looks, charm and grace. The prerequisite of marriage in a sexual relationship is an archaic concept and as a race we have long lost our dependency on such inane and obtuse points on our moral compasses. That the church and the church alone should be responsible for setting the parameters of decency and integrity in our personal lives, in our own homes and, dare I say it, in our own beds, well, it’s a preposterous notion. Should you wish to adhere to these limitations then all power to you, from the very pits of my sinner’s heart. I don’t reprimand you for succumbing to the recommendations of an outdated life model, but neither do I reserve respect for you if it is simply mindless obedience. God, I am told, gave us free will so that we might question his wisdom and thereby worship him willingly, rather than as tyrannized subjects. Your personal decision shan’t lessen my affection for you, provided it is a decision, and provided you denounce that which is plainly in need of reassessment.

But, irrelevant of the morality of fornication, does its portrayal in the media encourage its enactment in society? As with those aspects of so-called sexual indecency discussed above, its influence via the media is only limited by the intelligence of those into whose brains it is projected. An educated person, or even an uneducated but emotionally healthy person, even a child on a path of healthy emotional development, will see sex on television for the purpose of pleasure and appreciate it on its own terms and on their own terms. Viewers of Friends have the intelligence and the maturity to appreciate Joey as a comic character. Sure, he sleeps with lots of women for pleasure, and sure he isn’t always exactly mature in his approach to this, but I dare you, I dare you, to label him a bad influence. It can’t be done. People realize the hyperbolic nature of his character, just as they accept the exaggerated and glamorized world of topless models and internet web-cam girls. It is an entirely fictional sub-culture and only the prudish meddling of would-be do-gooders reveals any real threat in the mass of silicone, bikinis and sexual promiscuity.

As for homosexuality, the subject of the debate is not whether it should be limited on television and even in education, but whether it should be projected as acceptable at all. I’m afraid I must take a very definite stance on this subject, and I accommodate no views to the contrary. The fact that the Christian right-wingers, and others (I do not want to be unfair), put homosexuality forward as an example of sexual immorality is a truth which I sorely wish I did not have to face. That such views still circulate society and are considered valid is unthinkable. It’s appalling and disgusting and outdated and utter nonsense. To the peddlers of such twaddle, may your walks to work be forever plagued by rogue dog-turds and your tax returns be riddled with administrative mishaps. Propagating homosexuality as a sexual immorality is a practice which is, thankfully, dying and very soon the dusty, decaying shepherds of mankind in their cavernous churches will have to amend their moral code or be rinsed away as sense and compassion prevail over blind faith and occult, Sunday morning mutterings.

I think that might have sounded a bit uncompromising and a tad lacking in diplomacy, but really? Think about it. I’d like to add also that certain officials within world faiths and certainly many hundreds of thousands of religious individuals are doing a splendid job as far as adopting more lenient, humanitarian viewpoints is concerned. My somewhat over-enthusiastic rambling is directed at a very small minority of die-hards and not to those who go about their spirituality not bothering anyone. If it makes them happy, good for them. But enforcing strictures pertaining to passages in a text many centuries and, further back, thousands of years old and written by the over-excited hands of flagellated zealots and uttered from the corpulent lips of bureaucrats with unquestioning civil obedience on their minds, that my friends, is no way to conduct one’s self.

Realizing how perilously close I have approached digression, I feel obliged to wrap up what is already an overly long Blog entry. I hope I have aroused your curiosity and encourage you to consider the topic for yourself. Consider the nature of censorship as well. History is saturated with instances of rulers limiting what their subjects are exposed to “for their own good” as is your everyday life. Consider the role of sex in society, its effects, the feelings and opinions it inspires, the divides it creates. Compare this sociological complexity with the raw simplicity of the act itself. For anyone not too mentally exhausted by this discursive marathon, I remind you that I wholeheartedly welcome your own views on the morality of televised sex, the lamentably ongoing stigmatisation of homosexuality and the perceived obligations of religion to inform media policy, and whether such obligations even exist.

Now, if you don’t mind, Michael has kindly allowed me to borrow Florence & The Machine’s album, Lungs. Since, on moving day, within the space of two hours, I saw her on GMTV, read about her in our flat’s dog-eared copy of Heat magazine and heard “Kiss With A Fist” for the first time, I am now terribly infatuated with Florence Welch and require some alone time with the album. As you were.

Jamie

Hey you kids! Stop crapping in the rhododendrons!

Feeling as I do a strong sense of duty to my tiny cluster of readers, I strive diligently to concoct interesting takes on interesting subjects each month. However, sometimes I find it difficult, and when this is the case you get something like last month’s entry. For those of you who bothered to read it (a masterpiece of literary criticism), I beg your forgiveness. For those of you who didn’t bother, I simultaneously applaud your good sense and wish rickets upon your offspring. It does seem unthinkable that, given the variety of controversial news stories plastered on newspapers and television screens throughout the country, I should fail to find just one subject on which to ruminate (especially having ignored the scandalous plaster-caked television screen crisis!). The answer/excuse is simple. I prefer not to deal with current affairs. After all, in a year’s time, will anyone harbour even the tiniest desire to re-read a piece on how I disagree with Sarah Palin’s opinions on the NHS? Will anyone give a flying dog’s bollocks about tedious animosities within the Labour party, the sixty-or-so claims of parentage to Michael Jackson’s poor children or the hilarity of the achievements of South African athletes being overshadowed by the bear-shouldered shadow of their questionable gender? Probably not. So I endeavour to write on subjects which affect us all. Thus my entries on nostalgia, exercise, romance and the roles of reader and writer in creating meaning within a literary text (it pervades your every action, you know). This month I write about getting older and becoming that little bit more grown up...or not...

At nineteen I am still able to remember very clearly the emphasis which was placed on “maturity” during my childhood and early teens. The careers of school teachers seemed, to me at least, to be based primarily upon their ability to nullify that part of a child’s brain that finds flatulence and sex education amusing. In hindsight this is even more terrible a shame that it was then. The number of children within whom animosity for authority is kindled by the prudish preening of teachers on a holy crusade of enforced personal development and accelerated maturation must surely be a tragically lofty figure. That forcing a person to do something for their own good more often than not causes them to act in a deliberately contradictory manner is not only restricted to the classroom, but successive generations seem perpetually unable to retain this knowledge. Thus we are encouraged, from womb to decompositional gas, to find animals sexing one another up distasteful, and conversely, to find deadlines, diligence and decency stimulating and refreshing. It’s disgusting.

A friend of mine recently made comments to the effect of disapproving of student drinking culture. Not in its entirety but certainly in its manic obsession with drinking as much as possible in as little time as possible with as much primal chanting as possible. He made the entirely valid point that many people actually think less of you should you prove unable to meet whatever lunatic challenge has been tossed sloppily your way. I think many of us have been in a situation where, as a result of dangerously out-of-focus eyesight, a perilously full stomach or a spew-addled grip on a menacingly eclectic cocktail of poisons, we have failed to live up to the solid, fleshy, smelly wall of peer pressure looming before us and have been forced to endure the jeers and less than flattering criticisms of our fellow revellers. This is the height of immaturity, of course, as my friend pointed out (having been similarly peer pressured into ingesting a foreboding liquid medley of Budweiser and paracetamol). But is this really all that terrible? Sure, making someone feel uncomfortable at a party is pretty unpleasant, but peer-pressure is part of being young. It’s also part of being slightly older, being middle-aged, being elderly and probably of being downright old. Should you think twice before shot-gunning a beer on the basis that what you are about to do is juvenile and medically-inadvisable? Should you buggery. Should you think twice before doing the same because you just don’t want to, or physicaly can’t? If you like, I won’t judge you. But prepare for other to do just that.

Some ten years in the future my time as a student will be behind me; I will be approaching thirty and will probably have a fairly shitty but fairly secure job teaching delinquents about Arthur Miller in some God-forsaken urban comprehensive. Spent will be my opportunities to pass out in a puddle of my own vomit without eliciting the most vehement disapproval from other adults. Right now it’s quite amusing, if very disgusting. But these things can happen and no permanent stain on my good name will result. Not so in ten years time... Although, teaching in aforementioned comprehensive, I am likely to be promoted to head of department as a result. My point is that immaturity is wrung out of us far too early and we are encouraged to embrace the world as the cold, hate-filled and judgemental place it sometimes is. We are scolded for immaturity in the classroom and feature on page four of the local newspaper for immaturity in adulthood.

I think comedians have a similar problem. They sometimes make jokes that are, if not immature in a childish fashion, immature in that they are not “respectable” jokes. Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr, Frankie Boyle and a whole host of contemporary comedians make jokes about rape, the Holocaust, paedophilia and an entire restricted section worth of tasteless subjects. Yet these people don’t actually find these topics inherently funny. Who would? They just have to trust that the audience has the intelligence, the maturity, to appreciate what they are doing. So why then should children, teenagers, students, even adults and pensioners, be reprimanded for tastelessness, provided that it is not malicious? That, essentially, is what immaturity boils down to: taste and the lack thereof. A man of nearly twenty chugging a mixture of Tennants, Sauvignon Blanc, Sailor Jerry’s and Bailey’s Irish Cream is tasteless (figuratively speaking). It is not respectable. You would not do it in front of your mother (unless your name is Andrew Cooper). But it isn’t something to be discouraged. Certainly not. Likewise, a joke about faecal matter is not appropriate for some circumstances, but it should be restricted as such. “Timmy, that sort of joke is inappropriate for the classroom”. NOT “Timmy, that sort of joke is inappropriate”, or God forbid, the lamentably immortal “Timmy, grow up!”

Children, don’t be fooled into thinking that cutting back on dirty jokes constitutes “growing up”. If that is society’s definition then never grow up. Just remember to hide your true self in certain company. After all, growing up should be enjoyable, not stifling.

Jamie

P.S. I am moving back to Edinburgh very soon. Hopefully this will help the flow of ideas for discussion. It has been a slow two or three months, as the last entry will attest. Peace out honkies!

A Message from the Author-God...

I thought this month might be a good opportunity to try something a little different. Some might call it laziness, others wanton self indulgence; some might even be up in arms at what they see as poorly veiled megalomania. It's a little bit of all these things actually. I thought, despite the innumerable topics waiting patiently to be discussed this month, I would give you a glimpse of what my University course is like. I could have written something new, but this was already gathering dust on my hard drive. It's the second essay I produced for my Literature degree. It also holds the record for the best grade I have achieved thus far on this leg of my education, a reasonable, sensible and inoffensive 75%. The topic: the role of reader and writer. The subject matter: Henry James'  malicious novella The Turn of the Screw. So, if you have the stomach for it, here is a fully referenced insight into how my brain functions behind the expression of doleful confusion. With some imagination I'm sure you will see how this could be interpreted as relevant...

 In the relationship between author and reader, both parties fulfil roles crucial to the conception of meaning in the text. As the creator of the text itself the author assumes a position with considerable sway over this but the reader, subordinate in terms of influence as he or she may seem, still retains the final word on the subject. The text, upon its release to the reader, finds itself at the mercy of their perceptions. The reading of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, for example, inevitably places a considerable degree of responsibility on the observations and deductions of the reader. The very nature of the plot is that of uncertainty and ambiguity. As such it offers an ideal looking glass through which to view and understand the roles of both author and reader. The two can potentially be viewed together or individually as either a symbiotic literary relationship or as two separate entities with distinct roles.

     The role of the author is to offer subject matter in a way that allows the reader to perceive it on their own terms. An effective author does not stifle the creativity of the reader or patronise them with explicit statements. Roland Barthes claimed in his essay ‘The Death of the Author’ that ‘the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author’ (Barthes 1470). He believed that the presence or concept of an author in the reading process impressed upon the text limits and restrictions and encouraged readers to ‘disentangle’ the text rather than to ‘decipher’ it (1469). This is a valid point; intimate knowledge of the author can manipulate the reading of a text. Premeditated awareness of a certain author’s beliefs, faith or biographical detail can potentially highlight instances where the author has leaked into the text, subconsciously or otherwise. James, for instance, was no stranger to the kind of scene portrayed in his frame narrative, being a popular guest in any number of drawing rooms throughout London (James 11). However this detail does not influence the meaning of the story. It is merely that, a detail, a trivial piece of knowledge regarding setting. A reader of The Turn of the Screw will not draw any notion of powerful significance from this. Barthes maintains that the author and the text are separate or, at least, should be considered separately. The role of the author then is one removed from the meaning of the text. If the writer’s intention, ‘the “message” of the Author-God’ (1468) as Barthes phrases it, is removed then the reader’s role becomes purer. For Barthes the role of the author is simply to write, to produce the text. The author writes the text, but his relation to its meaning does not precede or proceed the reading process (1467). The author’s role in creating meaning is negligible as the text he or she creates is a ‘multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash’ (1468). Although to consider the author as a human existing before, after and during the flow of the text inescapably can lure the reader into certain restricting areas, it actually makes little sense to assume that an utter rejection of the author as an entity yields a purer, fuller interpretation of meaning. In The Turn of the Screw James writes as a character in the story. The recollection the reader is exposed to is the work of the narrator, a copy of the manuscript of the governess. The narrator is a fictional author within the story. To approach the text contained within the frame narrative without due consideration to the part of the fictional author would actually be restricting in itself. In considering the origins of a text we, as readers, can approach meaning from a human viewpoint, rather than from a scientifically analytical one. By doing this we can gain insight not only into aspects of the plot but also of characters, the governess being a prime example of this. 

     Even if we were to remove the author from the text their role is undeniably crucial. There could be no reading process, no opportunity for analysis or interpretation without the nurturing influence of the author. If a text were to make plain each and every aspect of its literary anatomy then it would be rendered meaningless. It would merely be an encyclopaedic collection of events without room for alternate readings. What the author must decide is which facts should be excluded and which facts will encourage an active role on the part of the reader. If the author carries this out well then it matters not whether they are included in derivation of meaning by the reader. The reality and depth of the text will still be evident without attaching explicit meaning to each and every action and event. Taking, as an example, the last words of Miles in The Turn of the Screw: ‘Peter Quint – you devil!’ (261) we are faced with a number of possible interpretations. James does not resolve the identity of the so called ‘devil’. It could refer to Peter Quint. It could just as easily be an attack on the governess. This omission of fact lends the scene a deeply disturbing air as the reader is, as at various points in the story, forced to consider what they believe to know and how they can really maintain these beliefs with any kind of certainty. Here the role of the author in generation of meaning is to encourage and nurture conflict in the mind of the reader. This conflict leads the reading of the text to encompass more possibilities so that each reader does not necessarily ascertain their own definitive version of events but appreciates the range of potential truths discovered. So the author provides the fuel for the reader to determine meaning in the text, a role including a certain level of interpretation for the author himself.

     The reader’s role in the reading of any text, and especially The Turn of the Screw, is to act as a canvas upon which the words can imprint meaning. As such, every reader of a given text will invariably be imprinted differently, however subtle these differences may be. What makes possible and defines these dissimilarities in the meaning of texts between readers is the distance existing between text and reader. Wolfgang Iser wrote in Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology that ‘The imbalance between text and reader . . . is undefined, and it is this very indeterminacy that increases the variety of communications possible’ (33). Iser’s idea of the distance between reader and text is exemplified in an arguably hyperbolic manner in The Turn of the Screw. James deliberately creates a considerable detachment between the reader and the text, a distance littered with barriers to understanding and deduction. The events of the novella are communicated to us through an unconventional narrative. The story is, at its basest definition, the experiences of the governess. Even using this as a marker, according to Iser, the reader is faced with a substantial breadth of separation. It is a fundamental part of ‘dyadic interaction’ that experience is a personal attribute and that ‘Contact therefore depends upon our continually filling in a central gap in our experience’ (32). In the case of the governess it is the role of the reader to actively attempt to bridge the gap created by the fact that these events were in the life of another human being. To complicate matters the governess’ account of her experience is filtered through other narrators. Her recollection of the events is recorded in a manuscript which is read by Douglas, as indicated in the frame narrative. Douglas is not the narrator however, and Douglas’ reading of the manuscript is relayed to us via a member of his audience. The reader must be responsible for bridging the gap not only between the text and his or her self but also the fictional distance between the characters, some of whom know each other purely through contact with a physical script. In this way a reader of The Turn of the Screw is as much a part of the story as the characters, at least in terms of approaching the ambiguous facts from a similar starting line. This factor in the reading process is implied when Douglas says ‘You’ll easily judge . . . you will’ (James 147). That the name, gender and indeed almost all detail of the narrator are exempt from the text invites the reader to fulfil this role. Douglas provokes an active role in the reading of the text, one where the reader must make decisions which influence the story to the core.  

     The sanity of the governess is a factor over which the decisions of the reader have great influence. The only evidence of the presence of the ghosts is the governess’ manuscript over which she has full control. There are instances when the reader must carefully assess the evidence provided thus far. One particular example finds Mrs Grose confronted with the governess’ claims of seeing the spectre of Miss Jessel. Unable to see the apparition herself she remarks: ‘What a dreadful turn, to be sure, Miss! Where on earth do you see anything?’ (239). Here is a formidable affront to what we, as readers, believe we know. It explicitly forces us to consider our own perceptions of the governess’ experience and to evaluate the means by which our observations have been shaped and in doing so heightens the sense of tension and sinister uncertainty which is the basis for the text. This may seem fairly concrete proof of the governess’ madness but dealing with aspects of the supernatural can offer the opportunity for readers to eschew the conventions of realism and rational possibility. Therefore even an event of such clarity catalyses the formation of myriad interpretations. The reader has been granted information, whether reliable or otherwise, and must now reach, to some extent, a conclusion. Iser supports this when he writes ‘In literary works . . . the message is transmitted in two ways, in that the reader “receives” it by composing it” (Iser 31). 

     The role of the reader then is to give human meaning to a text. In The Turn of the Screw, without reader interpretation, the story is a vague chronology of uncertain facts, truths and half truths all undistinguishable from each other. The act of the reader involving themselves with these uncertainties is what defines it. Iser summarised this process when he developed his approach towards the ‘text as a skeleton of “schematized aspects” that must be actualized or concretized by the reader’ (Herman 193). The new ‘concretized’ form of the text in the mind of the reader, replete with meaning, is a personal concept. It draws its life force not only from the text, from the recorded events themselves, but also from the active mind of the reader. The individual reader’s understanding and generation of meaning will inherit features and outlooks derived from personal experience and character. The reader will naturally and unavoidably incorporate these into their reading experience (Iser 32).

     To conclude, without the contribution of both author and reader texts could have no meaning. Without the influence of the author there could not even be potential for meaning. Without the reader’s active contribution the possibilities for meaning would go unexplored. The author must actively seek to encourage the imagination of the reader with conflict and unresolved uncertainty. In this way the reader’s interpretation of meaning is richer and multi-layered, increasing the realism of the story and providing more opportunity for the reader to relate to the text. Clyde de L. Ryals captured this argument in his book A World of Possibilities when he wrote that the roles of the author and reader comprised of ‘the writer supplying what “true historical research would yield” and the reader bringing “a kindred openness, a kindred spirit of endeavour”’ (Ryals 22). Ryals goes on to say that “meaning is generated by both the author and the reader, who share in the moral responsibility of interpreting the fluid text” (22). 



Barthes, Roland. ‘The Death of the Author’. Trans. Stephen Heath. The Norton Anthology of   Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. London. W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. 1466 – 1470.

Herman, Luc. ‘Concepts of Realism’. Melton, Suffolk. Boydell & Brewer, 1996.

Iser, Wolfgang. ‘Prospecting: From Reader Response to Literary Anthropology’. Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press, 1989. 

James, Henry. ‘The Turn of the Screw’. The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers. Ed. Anthony Curtis. London. Penguin Books, 1986. 143 – 262.

Ryals, Clyde de L. ‘A World of Possibilities’. Ohio. Ohio State University Press, 1990.

The Drug Worries of Jamie Lamb, aged 18 and five sixths...

It's June here on Earth and that means that, for anyone living in the Northern Hemisphere, it's summer! Hurrah, etc. It also means that those of us who ventured off to the big cities have returned! But, let not tears of joy from your eyes escape, for now we must all find jobs. Of course, I am the last to find one... A working interview at THE HYDRO (cue Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor") is scheduled for Tuesday and I can only pray that the Gods of gainful employment take pity on me. Anyroad, with Summer (normally) comes parties, music festivals, drinking and drugs. Experiences of these things have taught me many things (never allow yourself to be attached to a camp chair with an entire roll of duct tape is but one of the nuggets of wisdom I amassed!) and I hope that, despite financial strictures, I will be able to partake of some of these in the next few weeks. It is, in fact, the last item on the above list that I intend to talk about. Drugs, of all varieties, create a miasma of controversy wherever they crop up and so I intend to throw myself headlong into the thickening haze. So let's locate a vein of thought and pierce it with the keen needle of reasoned argument!

Last year I wrote at length against the Scottish Parliament’s plans to raise the minimum age at which we can buy alcohol from supermarkets and off-licences and, in doing so, I single-handedly prevented the measure being approved. Some months later Parliament tried to encourage individual sellers to discriminate against those younger than twenty-one but, thanks to shameless capitalist greed (suck it, Communism!), this secondary barrage of governmental intervention amounted to nothing. The subject quite rightly elicited an enormous level of public interest and continues to do so. For the time being, however, the sound reasoning of the public and its determined, yet eloquent protesting has won the day over what was, at its root, a poorly conceived overnight attempt to lessen Scotland’s impressive list of social problems. But this is only the frothy head of the richly delicious pint; it is but the cork on the vintage bottle of palatable wine and the residual fermentation gas of the nutritious home-brew. There is still a considerable volume of topics patiently waiting to be knocked back!

The problem with alcohol is the effect it has on the brain. This is also the point of alcohol and the resultant moral and medical quandaries are a rather painful bite on the arse for society. But alcohol is not the only substance which suffers from these difficulties. Illegal drugs present the same problems and attract similar criticisms. The difference, of course, is that alcohol is legal, heroin is not. On some levels though, and with certain drugs, this difference could be interpreted as being simply an inane technicality. To provide an example, a drug which attracts a similar, if not greater, level of discussion to alcohol is cannabis. Known and widely prescribed for its medicinal purposes, and popularised by many musicians, artists, popular sub-cultures and certain Hollywood comedies, cannabis is almost certainly the most widely used illegal drug in the western world. It is not surprising then that many thousands desire its legalisation. The arguments presented but rejected time and time again are (perhaps surprisingly) very sensible and well researched. On the basis of their arguments it would certainly be wrong to generalise the pro-cannabis lobby as perpetually baked hippies. In Britain, for instance, a surprising portion of political right-wingers approve the legalisation of cannabis and the subsequent creation of national standards for the infant industry. However, smoking cannabis is still seen as one of the most anti-social things one can do. What seemed to me the rather frivolous, cannabis related political “scandal” of some years ago serves as a reminder of our society’s priggish intolerance of not only “guilty pleasures” (see last month’s entry for some more thoughts on this subject) but also of mistakes made easily in our youth, poor lifestyle choices and (the most laughable intolerance imaginable) harmless fun. Even more than drunkenness, the use of cannabis as a recreational drug earns one a reputation as a dreg of backwash in the discarded beer bottle of society. To me this makes little sense...

It is commonly known that the majority of violent crimes in Britain involve alcohol. Most murders are committed under the influence of alcohol and a staggering one hundred percent of drink-driving crimes are alcohol related. How many people turn homicidal while high? I may not be a seasoned cannabis smoker, and someone who is might well disagree, but it seems to me that after a few joints most people become extremely friendly, good-humoured and comically relaxed. I am told that the long-term effects of cannabis use include intense paranoia, so it isn’t all peace and love and happiness and rainbows, but compared to alcohol the negatives are thin on the ground. Paranoia seems rather trivial compared with violence, anger and the potential failure of the liver and other organs. It is all a matter of how much you, as an individual, can handle. Know your limits. So goes the mantra taught by the authorities. It is quite true.

The archetypal drug addict is filthy, smelly and can be frequently found in deep slumber on a park bench or in a gutter. They often resort to stealing from loved ones to fund their habit and their lives inevitably tumble in on them as relationships, careers and reputations unravel faster than their drug-addled minds can comprehend. Perhaps this stereotype holds some truth for certain junkies, but it can be just as easily applied to any addict. Gambling addicts run the risk of suffering identical fates and, with some thought and perhaps a degree of recollection I am sure you will surmise that my initial description of the typical junkie is a much better fit for the drunkard. Gambling and alcohol are legal, yet the consequences of over indulgence are just as severe and wide reaching as for a drug addict. The personal and collateral damage is still dependant on the individual in question, still directly connected to that individual’s mental and physical resistance to powerful impulses, regardless of legality. Many addicts function not only adequately, but exceptionally, in the world. Journalists are infamous for alcohol and substance abuse. Politicians have long been recorded as borderline alcoholics (Churchill and Roosevelt are but the best known) and I needn’t delve into the history of actors, models, photographers, musicians and assorted hangers on who have emerged from a kaleidoscope of addictions unscathed. But then Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and more have succumbed prematurely to varying extents, cutting short what could have been, but for their presumably pathologically vulnerable personalities, a fulfilling life of substance abuse. Allen Ginsberg lamented this when he famously wrote Howl: “I saw the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by madness”. Obviously an able mind is not weapon enough to ward off the brutal effects of any riotous indulgences.

And so I cannot help but think that if the government is willing to allow thousands of people to wallow in the cheap malt of their own alcoholism, particularly poor, working-class men who suffer most as a result, then why not allow the legalisation of cannabis. It certainly isn’t any worse. Legalised, its production can be regulated, quality-controlled and economically beneficial. Past research projects have produced results which reveal cannabis to be relatively safe, non-addictive and, of course, less harmful to the lungs than cigarettes due to the absence of tar. The legalisation of other drugs, though more controversial and medically complicated (the increased risk of heart attacks which afflicts cocaine users and the potential for overdoses prevalent in most illegal drugs), would help to decrease the existing underworld of drug trafficking and assorted un-pleasantries. However, the medical risks of cocaine and heroin in particular, not to mention the barbarism funded by the cocaine industry in South America, strike me as solid arguments for maintaining their illegality. Then again, these difficulties exist regardless of legality.

Unfortunately, my reservations arouse suspicions of my own hypocrisy and self-contradiction. Surely certain drugs are too dangerous to be considered for legalisation? But it all depends, as I said, on the individual, does it not? Countries in the western world have long funded terrorism and brutal regimes, what difference will a little cocaine make to national conscience; surely it will happen whether cocaine is legal or not? Cannabis surely can’t be classed in the same manner as heroin? Is Ginsberg's first name “Allen”?

I am afraid this may be turning into, as they say, a “bad trip”. Perhaps it is simply too complicated a topic to be tackled on an eighteen-year-old’s Blog. As I begin to wrap up this entry, I find myself thinking that I support the legalisation of cannabis, but fear the possible backlash of disgruntled LSD users, not to mention the entirely plausible and catastrophic slump in national efficiency. But what of the benefit to the economy, the jobs the industry will create? Then what of the ambiguous logistics of altering national drug legislation?

Damn and blast! I have failed to reach a conclusion! It must have been all the acid I dropped before writing this... Oh well, at least the hippopotamus tap-dancing contest was cool.

Jamie