Monday, 16 March 2009

Hater

I’ve just finished reading the first of my 3 new books courtesy of Waterstones’ delightful 3 for 2 offer Hater David Moody. I’m not going to go into huge amount of detail but this is likely to contain spoilers so if you are planning on reading it you have been warned.

The plot of the book is that a sudden change has come across society and previously rational, self-controlled individuals suddenly start attacking each those around them, fatally if they can achieve them. The media gets a hold of the story and these people are dubbed ‘Haters’, a group which exponentially increases in size until nothing less than a state of emergency has been declared and a full scale war has broken out between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The key fear in the book is that the nice rational people turn into Haters instantaneously and without warning, and will attack any and all around them (with the exception of other Haters) including friends and family creating an exceptional level of paranoia.

My issue with the book is that even though I don’t think it’s particularly well written, I not only read it in a day but have kept thinking about it since. The main character isn’t the most likeable and I felt the conclusion of the story was somewhat lacking. Part of me feels like it was written with the purpose of setting up a sequel (and given that it is being made into a film by Guillermo del Toro I may not be far wrong) and yet some part of it has affected me in that way that only books can do.

There’s a lot of talk in the novel about the labels the media has applied and whether extensive news coverage can lead to a greater chance of retaliation. I am a firm believer that the two most dangerous words in the English language are ‘us’ and ‘them’. We’re wired to place great importance upon group loyalty and you can create it so easily by dividing people into the most arbitrary of groups, if you need proof look no further than the headlines of the Daily Mail. The change in group loyalty that the main character experiences is extremely well-done and possibly the best bit of the book. The reason for the change is never fully explained but rather is glossed over by a very brief description of ‘something’ being ‘different’ in a certain section of the population’s genetics and that ‘something’ has ‘activated’ this different behavioural programming. This is probably my least favourite bit of the books. Again, I am an ardent supporter of the view that behaviour is hugely, if not predominantly, influenced by genetics and Hater just falls disappointingly short of using it to good effect. It’s almost like Moody wrote the book before the idea behind it had fully formed (that or the sequel thing again). Hate

Saturday, 21 February 2009

γνῶθι σεαυτόν - Know Thyself

From Wikipedia:

The saying "Know thyself" may refer by extension to the ideal of understanding human behavior, morals, and thought, because ultimately to understand oneself is to understand other humans as well. However, the ancient Greek philosophers thought that no man can ever comprehend the human spirit and thought thoroughly, so it would have been almost inconceivable to know oneself fully. Therefore, the saying may refer to a less ambitious ideal, such as knowing one's own habits, morals, temperament, ability to control anger, and other aspects of human behavior that we struggle with on a daily basis.


I never liked philosophy.

Sunday, 8 February 2009

You're Crazy

I'm totally stealing from Dougal's blog:

The rules are:

  1. Put your iPod or other music player on shuffle.
  2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
  3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it sounds!

This is what I got. How many of these do you think are relevant answers to the questions? I would say nearly a dozen.

If someone says “is this okay” you say?
Mama Kin
What would best describe your personality
Fatty Boo
What do you like in a guy/girl?
Yesterdays
What is your life’s purpose?
Know Your Enemy
What is your motto?
My Sweet Prince
What do your friends think of you?
Sing for the Submarine
What do you think about often?
A Whole Child Ago
What is 2+2?
Otherside
What do you think of your best friend?
Storm In A Teacup
What is your life story?
What's The Difference
What do you want to be when you grow up?
War
What do you think when you see the person you like?
Miss U Less, See U More
What do your parents think of you?
Gone To The Dogs
What will you dance to at your wedding?
Jaded
What will they play at your funeral?
Blackball
What is your hobby/interest?
Somewhere I Belong
What is your biggest secret?
Life Goes On
What do you think of your friends?
Spit Shine
What’s the worst thing that could happen?
The Despair Factor
How will you die?
Rewind
What is the one thing you regret?
One Man Army
What makes you laugh?
Animal Bar
What makes you cry?
The Ghosts Of Tom Joad
Will you ever get married?
I Ain't Mad Atcha
What scares you the most?
Half The World Away
Who likes you?
Time And Time Again
If you could go back in time, what would you change?
Good God
What hurts right now?
Crooked Nigga Too
What will you post this as?
You're Crazy

Sunday, 1 February 2009

A history lesson in superior, Mandarin speakers smoking in church



I was watching Jennifer Beals speak at the Women's Event this afternoon and one of the things she said was "I envision a time in the not too distant future when my daughter will say to me "You mean there used to be a time when gay people couldn't get married? God that's so crazy"" and it got me thinking: what will my kids/ grandkids/ most likely someone else's kids, come home and say after their history lessons?
  • People used to believe in God?
  • Smoking was legal in public places?
  • Smoking was legal?
  • We used to think there was no life on other planets?
  • White people used to think they were superior?
  • Mandarin wasn't the international language?
  • What's oil?
  • You used to have to use bits of metal to buy things with?
  • You could die from cancer?
  • Sex was seen as a bad thing?
Anymore?

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

No man's land

I know I’m terrible at updating this blog, apologies to Helen and Dougal who actually read the damn thing….

I’ve been travelling a lot for work, visiting various deaf schools around Scotland. In fact as I write this I am sitting on a train to Glasgow as I am testing over the next three days. One nice surprise to come out of working in the deaf schools is that my BSL skills are up to the job. I knew that, having gained my Level 2, I was technically a good enough signer however having not had the chance to use it for nigh on 8 months, there was always the fear that most of it had fallen out of my ears. And trying to explain that to my boss who hired me on the basis that I knew BSL (along with my many other wonderful qualities of course) would have been slightly tricky.

I feel the need to confess that whilst I say my BSL skills are good enough, what really happens in practice is that my Sign Supported English skills are good enough. Anyone who has heard me rant about SSE will know that I’m not a huge fan of it. My main gripe is not from people like myself using it – I made the conscience decision that it was better to use well-formed signs with correct English grammar than it was to use horrifically bad BSL grammar and confuse the hell out of school children – but rather that this is used by teachers/ schools under the pretence that they are using BSL. SSE has its uses but as a first language is not one of them.

I’m beginning to truly understand for the first time just how different BSL is from English. Not just in terms of grammar etc, but rather how ideas, concepts and explanations are expressed and how what language we use can change our entire understanding of the world. I was told by a friend studying Japanese that because of the structure, you have to know what you are saying when you start saying it, unlike English where you can change your intended utterance halfway through and still produce a grammatically correct, logical sentence. One of the products of this is that there is much less uncertainty in the language which, as testament to the power of linguistics, is reflected in the way people view the world and their behaviour in that world. I can’t give you a concrete example of this in BSL because I’m just starting to notice it myself. On the surface, as a hearing, basic level signer, BSL almost seems like a sub-par language when it comes to trying to give an explanation, especially about an abstract idea. Then suddenly I’ll see the interpreter sign something that in English would seem clunky and laborious but in BSL is almost beautiful its clarity and its power.

Which brings me back to the subject of SSE. If a child is being taught by someone who is using SSE rather than BSL then they’re not going to have access to the unique viewpoint that is transmitted linguistically by different languages. The signs don’t lend themselves to nuances of English regardless of how strictly the word order is followed, and the lack of true BSL means that they won’t pick up embedded meaning in that language either.

Deaf children are almost unique in being in this ‘no man's land’ of language. The problem with trying to research this, or even to think about it is, in my opinion, that we are unable to remove ourselves from the thought of having a first language. If you don’t have a basic schema of how to process the world then what do you map new information on to?

Friday, 19 December 2008

g/Gay?

If you’ve ever read anything about Deaf people you may have noticed the distinction of d/Deaf. ‘Big D Deaf’ as it is sometimes called, signifies a person who is culturally Deaf whilst ‘Little d deaf’ is used to describe a person with hearing loss. This can make for some interesting case studies, Deaf hearing people (children of deaf adults in particular) and those profoundly deaf people who are culturally Hearing. Confused? Probably best to stop here then.

I was thinking about the dichotomy of culture and biology in terms of homosexuality. A friend in Aberdeen is in the beginnings of a relationship with a woman who has ‘never thought of herself as gay’ and I started to wonder if perhaps the d/Deaf distinction could be applied to being g/Gay.

In order for this to work we have to apply the lovely neat scientific notion of a double dissociation, which for d/Deaf people would look something like this:

deaf

hearing

Deaf

X

X

Hearing

X

X

This table works pretty well. All combinations can and do exist. It might appear a little odd at first but it doesn’t take too much thought to figure out how each one could arise. The g/Gay table requires a little step outside of the box.

gay

straight

Gay

X

?

Straight

?

X

Can you be a culturally gay heterosexual? Or a culturally straight homosexual?

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I’ve been trying to finish this with a profound point for the last 2 weeks to no avail but due to the need to post something before the blog police come along and arrest me I’m simply going to say: Discuss.

Sunday, 7 December 2008

Better late than dead.

I’m now officially on holiday until 5th January so I can once again return to being a good little blogger! The most exciting thing to happen in the last few weeks was a visit by Helen and Dougal to Aberdeen. The weekend was just so crazy – that’s the real reason I haven’t blogged, I’ve only just recovered from the comedown….

…….Ok not really. It was quite a quiet weekend, we watched some films, went out for dinner and drank a lot of tea but, as middle aged as this may make me sound, it was very nice to just spend some time with friends I don’t get to see all that often.

Aside from that life has consisted of working and PhDing. I finally handed in my ethics application, I forsee no problems so all that’s left to do now is to design the stimuli, find some willing deaf people and start testing! Give me a couple of days and I’ll write another blog about what I’m actually going to be doing…

I’m off to Singapore on Monday for 3 weeks which I am immensely looking forward to. Not only do I get to spend Christmas with my dad for the first time I will be able to remember but I get to see a couple of very close friends who have relocated to the other side of the world. Oh and I get to fly there business class :D