Nothing is ever black and white (revisited)

Fundamentalism, political or religious, is the greatest philosophical danger to humankind; there are no one-word answers to the problems that beset our world. There are rarely simple solutions. Life is much more complicated than a tabloid headline. Unfortunately 'public debate' all too often sinks into polarised, lowest common denominator, narrow mindedness. Creating the Promised Land is not as easy as a political sound-bite or any religious teaching might suggest. Economics and indeed life itself are complicated webs.

Just as you don't stop murder by having a death penalty, you don't necessarily improve education by building more schools, or improve health care by employing more doctors; society’s ills can only be resolved by holistic solutions.

Right and wrong are only matters of opinion and not some kind of universal truth. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems, if you only take things at face value and you do not bother scratching below the surface how can you ever understand the true meaning or the true implication of an idea? That's not being glass half empty or pessimistic about things. Life is complicated, and dealing with life is equally complicated.

By way of example take ‘cost saving’, that great mantra of the modern age. The concept of cost-saving is probably a myth. Is it really possible to get something for nothing, or is a cost saving really just shifting the burden elsewhere, or a mixture of the two?

Culture, economics, education, health, law and order and many other aspects of life are so intertwined, so reliant on each other, that if you legislate or change one thing it will usually affect something else. Just like the 'Butterfly Effect', if you make a change in one place, it can reverberate and create change elsewhere; often in unexpected places.

Things are not always as they seem. Nothing is ever black and white. At best there are invariably shades of grey, but mostly things will be multi-coloured multi-faceted and fractal. Life is a rainbow. Look beyond the obvious. The obvious often isn’t.

*This was originally printed on my website paulgarrard.com

Liberty starts in the mind

Black and white thinking is one of the greatest dangers to society. It’s why the UK is in the mess that it is. Unfortunately it is due to having too many lazy and ignorant people in the population. People who expect easy answers because anything too difficult or abstract proves impossible for them to digest and comprehend. But, as I’m very fond of saying, nothing is ever black and white. What’s to be done about it? I’m not totally sure. Somehow we need to educate people. And when I say educate I mean help them to be able to think critically and in abstract ways. Education is not about filling peoples’ heads with assorted ‘facts’. Education should be about setting people free. I doubt I’ll live to see an educated populace. I’m not sure it will ever happen. I’m not sure people want to be set free. 

 Liberty starts in the mind.

I am an atheist

I shouldn’t need to say that. Being an atheist should be the default human condition. It would be like announcing constantly that you haven’t got the lurgy. Religion is something you catch. It’s effectively a disease.

By the way, and for the record, i haven’t to my knowledge happen to currently be afflicted by the afore mention lurgy.

If you don’t feel that you can get through life without the crutch that is religion then that’s fine with me. Go ahead, but please keep it to yourself. I don’t need to know about it and please don’t indoctrinate others with your strange ideas.

Now I’m very fond of saying that nothing is ever black and white, which is truly the case, but I will try and keep this as simplistic as I can. Mainly because religion seems to be followed by mostly simplistic people. Okay, when I say ‘there is no god’ the god-botherers normally respond with something along the lines of ‘how do you know there isn’t a god?’ or ‘prove that there isn’t a god’. Why? Why do I have to prove the non-existence of something when there’s clearly no evidence for its existence? That’s like saying, ‘prove that Elvis isn’t alive and living on a double-decker bus on the moon’. The onus is on those who subscribe to the superstition to bring forth the facts. To date there is no evidence.

Beware people who quote the writings of Thomas Acquinas, they are some of the most narrow-minded of them all. They use it as ‘evidence’ to validate their superstitious beliefs. There is no evidence. The same applies to those who quote the bible, et al. The bible is a collection of contradictory writings by any number of ancient people’s trying to either explain their existence and or to keep others in line (oppress). This certainly applies to all other writings connected with the Abrahamic religions.

If there was a god, that god would be able to prove their own existence so that we were all beyond doubt. God hasn’t done that. I and millions of others are living proof of that. If there was a god that god wouldn’t want to be worshipped, that would make it needy. For a god to be needy is a flaw. For a god not to be able to prove its existence is a flaw. A god would be perfect, a god would be infallible. I could go on and on but I won’t. There is no god.

Religion exists to control people. Nothing more, nothing less. It is the opiate of the people.

If you’re happy with following a religion that’s fine but please don’t think it’s a normal thing to do. Question yourself, and I mean genuinely question yourself. Look for evidence. I guarantee you will find none. Have a nice day!

Rainbow thinking - the only way ahead

I’ve written on this blog a number of times about nothing ever being black and white. I’m convinced that the western world is in the state that it is because of lazy thinking. Fundamentalism, political or religious, is the greatest philosophical danger to humankind; there are no one-word answers to the problems that beset our world. There are rarely simple solutions. Life is much more complicated than a tabloid headline. Unfortunately ‘public debate’ all too often sinks into polarised, lowest common denominator, narrow mindedness. Creating the Promised Land is not as easy as a political sound-bite or any religious teaching might suggest. Economics and indeed life itself are complicated webs. We are in the state that we are in because too many people think in black and white instead of all the colours of the rainbow.

Okay this one is not for the faint-hearted. This video has been at least a year and a half in the making, with some of the content dating back over the last ten years. It’s a slightly surreal video that I hope encapsulates my philosophy of ‘Nothing is ever black and white’. If you only think in black and white then you won't get this video. Even if you don't think in black and white you still might not get it. I've tried to convey a sense of the complexity of life and our existence. I hope I've at least partially achieved that. But of course it might be a load of old tosh and I'm a complete charlatan. If you're looking for the meaning of life you might find this helpful; I think humankind is a long way off finding a reason for life and I suspect a meaning might not even exist. Doubt is the beginning and not the end of wisdom. Scratch beneath the surface to see further than what you might think of as the obvious. Remove your blinkers!

Potentially we are all refugees

Imagine if we let the thick of neck, knuckle dragging, beer bellied, spotty, low IQ, shouty white blokes take over. Think about that. Think it couldn’t happen? Think again. The Brexit vote happened because filthy rich white blokes exploited the intellectually challenged members of society. Those simple souls who can only think in black and white. The filthy rich could take back even more control! Think!

If that were ever to happen what would you do?

Under fascism no one is safe. Not even the fascists. Fascism rules through fear. Fear breeds distrust. Distrust creates purges. People, yes real human beings, are vapourised. A knock on the door in the dead of night, a scuffle, and you are spirited away. Your name erased from history. Think!

Imagine this happening, then imagine having to get out of your house as quickly as possible and fleeing in fear of your life. What would you take with you? What of your most prized possessions would you love into your single solitary suitcase? This is the dilemma that hundreds of thousands have to face each year. Your life in a suitcase.Think!

What would I take? I really couldn't say. A change or two of clothes I guess. But what else? Important financial records/papers perhaps, a small momento or two, relevant medication, travel kettle, iPod and perhaps a travel radio might fit in two. I guess it would also be useful to take small things of high monetary value like jewellery. Things that could be sold to raise some cash. Have I forgotten anything? Probably. Think!

What would you pack in a solitary suitcase? Could you cope with that? You'd have to. It would be cope or die. Think about that!

Being a refugee as far as I can see is no fun. You don't upsticks just because you fancy a change of scenery. Refugees are people. People fleeing persecution. Put yourself in their shoes; you've escaped persecution or death, wouldn't you hope to be welcomed when you reach a safe haven? What if there were no safe havens? Where would you go if you needed to?

We all have a responsibility to help refugees.

Think!

Traditional values

I am firmly of the opinion that tradition stifles creativity and progression. Tradition is for those who are moribund of thought and can’t or won’t cope with progression. Unfortunately there are far too many people in England who seem to want to return politically to a mythical bygone era. A perceived golden age. Such thinking is dangerous. The reactionary is a person to be feared and challenged. Reactionary politics is destroying the entire economic fabric of the country; we have high levels of poverty, poor health, homelessness, illiteracy, stupidity and crime. But hey ho we mustn’t complain as we’ll be getting blue passports soon. Hip fucking hooray!

I suppose it could be argued that using the word reactionary now is reactionary in itself. It’s not a word that is bandied about much these days. A bit of a blast from the past. But I can’t actually think of a better word to describe those sort of people that hold political beliefs based on nostalgia rather than reality. The sort that only see things in black and white, concrete thinkers who are incapable of abstract or critical thought and tend not to be particularly creative. Concrete thinkers and other narrow-minded sorts tend to fear change. They don’t adapt easily to new or different ways of doing things

If you’re a Tory, a Brexiteer or a Neoliberal then you’re a reactionary. Perhaps for a brief period the Tories were modern enough to just try and maintain the status quo, but that sort of Tory ‘thinking’ has long been despatched to the dustbin of history. Reactionaries fear progression. They yearn for the ‘good old days’, which of course weren’t good at all. They’re the sort of person that thinks in a very rigid way. If they’d been around when the wheel was invented they’d have been dead against it; no good would come of such a revolutionary idea (excuse the pun). That is why there is no deep and meaningful philosophy behind conservatism and why those that voted brexit couldn’t actually explain in sound philosophical or practical terms how it would actually benefit the average person in the street. Right wing politics is all about maintaining the position and wealth of the elite. Its about obscurantism, oppression, coercion and indoctrination of the majority using propaganda and the age old tactic of divide and rule. It's never about improvement or equality. Those concepts are totally alien to the reactionary Tory.

The reactionary elite are kept in office by the chimerical middle-class; an example of artifice in the extreme. There is no middle-class. Start thinking people. The greatest resource you possess is your mind. Please start using it.

Don't follow leaders, watch the parkin' meters

I've been a socialist since the age of 17 when I went to work as a bank clerk. It opened my eyes in so many ways. I saw the vast difference between rich and poor. I also saw how people toadied up to those with money, and more so if they had a title. I concluded that such differences in wealth were unjust and the unfairness and snobbery that went with it was all just morally wrong. I’m now 63, the divide has become even greater, my politics have become if anything more left-wing and I do believe (although this could just be the old bloke in me) that the vast majority of the population are less well educated than they were fifty years ago.

I like people, I believe in them, but at the same time I loathe people and rather arrogantly consider many to be utterly stupid. I become very frustrated at times because of people’s stupidity. I’m no fan of leaders either. In a true democracy we would be an autonomous collective although it would require a highly intelligent population to even contemplate that notion let alone put it into practice. We therefore end up with leaders. Leaders we can either love or loathe. A third party we can either blame or praise; someone we can abdicate our responsibilities to.

In reality leadership should be about facilitating the requirements of their electorate. Leadership should never be dictatorial. In fact it can’t be as telling people what to do is not leadership at all. Therefore whilst it’s important to protest about evil people like Trump we should never forget that the reason why the evil fascist bastards of this ilk worm their way into power is because of the stupidity of the population who didn’t oppose them. It really is that simple. The difficult bit is enabling the education of the masses. Many don’t realise that they’re in need of education. Education should be about enabling people to think for themselves, to question and to formulate opinions based on sound arguments of economic and philosophical reasoning.

Unfortunately if you're an idiot you probably don’t realise that you are an idiot. Perhaps I’m an idiot? Perhaps everything really is black and white? Perhaps there is a god and he is white? I somehow doubt it but I might be wrong.

Superstition

Religion and right wing politics exist to exploit and oppress large groups of people; enabling a few to control the many. They both offer easy answers. Answers that people can accept at face value without any thought. Answers that are no more than advertising slogans. It doesn't matter that the answers they give are not evidence based, or what they promise fails to materialise; there will either be an excuse, a distraction or a lie to cover up their failings, a papering over the cracks to hide their charlatanism.

Reactionaries and devotees of magic men with beards (right wing politicians and clerics to the simple) operate using the K.I.S.S. form of delivery: 'Keep it simple, stupid'. Not my phrase but one once used in business presentation circles. People like simple. Simple enables them to believe without intellect. They can relate to X being the problem and Y being the solution. They can't relate to the possibility that the solution might require measures that are complex and perhaps need to run in tandem or appear on the surface not to be directly connected. If chaos theory is correct (obviously it's a theory so it might or might not be) then existence is a multitudinal array of chain reactions going on ad infinitum.

Of course some questions/problems in life might not have a known answer/solution. This never worries the right-wing politician or man of religion. In religion if there's something wrong it's the work of a devil or the punishment of a god; little matter that there is absolutely no proof of the existence of either. In right-wing politics if there is a problem it's the fault of someone 'different' to their perceived norm; they'll blame foreigners, the sick, the infirm, the poor etc. There's always a handy scapegoat.

'Humankind cannot bear very much reality'. T. S. Eliot.

It used to be said that the Church of England was the Tory party at prayer. I'm not sure how accurate that is but in many ways they were/are similar in one respect in that they both peddle lies. Religion and reactionary politics are not based on facts; they are based on a warped faith. Faith is illogical, it is not thinking, but laziness. They are each no more than superstition.

Nothing is ever black and white. There isn't always an answer.

And now a few words from the master of right-wing propaganda* Joseph Goebbels:

'A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.'

'There was no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals. For intellectuals would never be converted and would anyway always yield to the stronger, and this will always be "the man in the street." Arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect. Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.'

'...the rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious.'

* These principles are still being used today.

What’s black and white but read all over?

I have a companion site to this blog: www.of-course.co.uk . It’s a sort of extra resource that I use when I want to expand on things I blog about. The biggest search term, by a long chalk, for www.of-course.co.uk is ‘nothing is ever black and white’. I get hits daily from all around the world. Presumably it strikes a chord. Perhaps it should be the mission statement of the progressive pedant.

People have always craved easy and simplistic answers. It’s why we have religion and why politics is so often reduced to meaningless sound bites and slogans. Sadly too many people seem unable to cope with questions that don’t have easy answers, or horrors of horrors don’t have any answers currently available. The mind of the lazy thinker abhors a vacuum; so when an easy answer is missing one is made up, or sort from a convenient charlatan.

I’m a firm believer that nothing is ever black and white. Nothing is ever that simple. Scratch below the surface and you will always find a multi-coloured myriad of meanings, causes, reasons and answers for what, why are where for. Through my art I endeavour to interpret and convey this philosophy. If you think like me please help spread the word: ‘nothing is ever black and white’.

Nothing is ever black and white

Be it political or religious, fundamentalism is the greatest philosophical danger to humankind. There are no one-word answers to the problems that beset the world. No simple solutions. Life is much more complicated than a gutter-press headline. But ‘public debate’ all too often sinks into polarised, lowest common denominator, narrow minded, sound biteable, tit for tat, verbal volleying.


Creating the Promised Land is never going to be as easy as electioneering slogans suggest. Creating the Promised Land is never going to be as easy and any religious teaching might suggest. Economics and indeed life are both complicated webs.

You don’t stop murder by having the death penalty. You don’t necessarily improve education by building more schools or improve health care by employing more doctors. Cost saving, the great mantra of the modern age, is probably a myth. Is it really possible to get something for nothing, or is a cost saving really just shifting the burden elsewhere, or a mixture of the two?

Nothing is ever black and white. There are invariably shades of grey. Right and wrong are only matters of opinion and not some kind of universal truth. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems. That’s not being glass half full or pessimistic about things. Life is complicated, and dealing with life is equally complicated.

As much as I’m in favour of the redistribution of wealth it would never be as simple as collecting up all of the money in the country and dividing it up equally amongst the population. It would never be as simple as everybody being paid exactly the same wage. Then there is the question about what we mean by ‘wealth’. Is it purely about how much money a person has? Could it be measured by how much knowledge or how many skills they have learned? Perhaps it is about someone’s health, life expectancy and/or quality of life. Or, as more likely is it a mixture of those factors plus a myriad of others? Wealth, whether it is financial, health or knowledge based, doesn’t always have anything to do with how much you acquire or are given, it is often about how you use what comes your way.

Culture, economics, education, health, law and order and many other aspects of life are so intertwined, so reliant on each other, that if you legislate or change one thing it will usually affect something else.

Just like the ‘Butterfly Effect‘, if you make a change in one place, it can reverberate and create change elsewhere often in unexpected places.


Nothing is ever black and white. There are invariably shades of grey.