God Knows Best

My local pub had a guest beer on tap recently called God Knows Best and a fine drop it was too so perhaps in terms of beer he does although I suspect he left it to some mortal to actually brew the stuff.

This phrase sprang to mind again when listening to coverage of the Popes current visit to the UK, which as these things go is generally being hailed as a success. I was particularly struck by a speech he made in Scotland which has turned into a bit of a theme throughout his visit, it was a plea to ensure that religion (presumably his) is not excluded from decision making in an "increasingly secular society" He reminded his audience that the current legal system and laws were founded on Christian values and that this tradition needed to continue as the freedom promised by secularism was illusory and it merely provided people the "freedom to harm themselves"

So my first thought is that this Pope, who as a previous member of Hitler youth should know better, seems to have limited grasp of history. In particular the history of his own church and religion in general and the misery it has visited upon millions of people, never mind the harm it has wrought.
As a very recent example during his current visit he has felt the need to apologies for the catholic churches part in child sex abuse but seems to fail to recognise that the very "do as I say" attitude that he is promoting was a significant factor in why these particular events came to pass and why the church felt the need to systematically cover these up. The rise in secularism that he so bemoans is exactly why we even know about these events, as the church has lost its all powerful grip on people's lives they have felt safe enough to come forward and let the light shine on these dark times.

It is also condescending to believe that only Christian values are worth considering in the drafting of the rules that govern our societies, especially as an ever decreasing number of people necessarily subscribe to these values. This seems to me to be a simple plea for the once powerful to remain or become powerful again.

 On the other hand we can all be prone to a bit of "I know best isim" especially when we see someone doing something that runs counter to our own belief system, so take up one of the Christian messages the Pope has forgotten and remember to be tolerant of the people you meet who do stuff you don't agree with, perhaps it is hunting and eating whales or maybe it is wearing a burka or letting prisoners vote. Whatever it is remember to apply the test of personal liberty versus societal contract rather than any adherence to an outdated dogma written ostensibly 2000 years ago when the world was quite a different place.

You only bury your mother once

So thankfully my mother is still alive and doing well, so is her mother so I have good genes on my maternal side at least for a long life.

The title was taken from a comment I heard on talk back radio and a women was relaying how incredibly hard it was for her and presumably most of us when we face that event. She talked of the absolute grief that overwhelmed her and said that two years down the road she felt she was still recovering. She observed at one point that she didn't know how to handle this event because "you only bury your mother once" Now having said that my mother is still alive I like most of us have still faced the death of a loved one and I am sure we can all understand how this lady was feeling.

The host of the radio program went on to observe that "rationally we all know that the person in the box doesn't want us to be sad but at times like this we don't really think rationally" Again I think this is a sentiment that we can all get on board with. Certainly if I was "in the box" I would not want people to be distraught with grief and certainly not for two years afterwards, especially if they were one of the people I loved in life. (OK so there is a small part of our ego who would like people to miss us a bit when we are gone as it validates our time on earth but other than that.)

So the two comments combined lead me to think about practicing being rational because you "only bury your mother once" and so in preparation for that event I wondered if it is important that we practice not letting our emotions overwhelm us and with some practice in the bank this might help us a bit when we face very difficult emotional moments. I am not crazy enough to think we can just rationalise away grief but it should help to realise that our loved one would still want us to be happy, if we remember that and believe it.

We all know that we can find ourselves saying things that we later regret, normally because we were angry or some other emotion has taken control of our tounges. Or that we react to situations and feel foolish later "in the cold light of day" etc. These are all opportunities to try and involve your rational self and put in some practice to help you through the tough times, not to mention the benefits of not having to deal with the aftermath of some ill advised comment made in anger.

The extreme version of this may well be found in the death of Seneca and event that has been much written about and is the subject of a number of famous art works. Seneca at one time was tutor to Nero (famously the emporer who fiddled while Rome burned or perhaps more relevant to this topic had his mother executed)Nero ordered Seneca to kill himself as he suspected him (probably wrongly) of being involved in a plot to kill him. Seneca was a student of Stoic philosophy which helped him meet his fate with calm resolution. This made him the poster child for Stoicism and gives rise to the label of stoic that we sometimes give to "stiff upper lip" types. In a sentance Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions.

So I am not suggesting we all adopt Stoicism but I do think that there is some good in the idea that the rational can help with some of those "destructive emotions" such as fear, anger, depression etc and may help us with our grief when the time comes, as it will, for all of us.

Action, Crowd Reaction

So Newton told us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, however he was refering to physics not people.

The recent Christchurch earthquake is an interesting case, clearly Newton was right on the physics front as all that action generated by the ground certainly caused a reaction with the buildings, roads, infastructure etc that it came in contact with. At this point I wish to say that I understand that a lot of peoples lives have been effected by the quake and I do feel for them however.....

That doesn't really account for the frenzy of fear, doubt, panic and over reaction we are witnessing on the TV and radio. We have people saying the can't sleep for worry, that they are moving out of town, some temporarily some suggesting permanently. That their lives have been permanenetly scared by this event etc.

I mean come on, this is completly silly, in the moment of the earthquake the fear and associated fight or flight response kicks in the juices flow and we act in a hyper mode of stress, increased heart rate etc. All of which can be very handy when a wall might fall on you at any moment and jumping quickly out of the way will save your life. The event lasted a few minutes or less at a guess (I wasn't there but I did feel it) and I will give you a couple of hours to calm down but after that the big reasoning brain should take over.

The likelyhood of aftershocks is high, however I understand that the first one is always the biggest (per a geology prof on the telly) and better yet you know they are coming so you can get ready. After that I suspect that the risk of another "big" quake (in quotes because it is all relative I guess) is the same as it every was (or probably less as my personal observation is they seem to be spread out in time) and that your level of panic should be the same as the day before the quake. I mean after all we live in a country created by two plates coming together this is a highly earthquake prone country.

Why then do so many people dwell on their feelings and completely disregard the rational response, also at times like this people who request rationality are likely to be branded as unfeeling and as I am at risk of that I feel the need to defend that position. Is it feeling to promote peoples fears as legitamate when they are not? Does this make them feel better? Can I feel empathy for your situation and loss without buying into your irational emotions? Well of course I can and acting rationally I am likely to be more useful to you. If a fireman comes to rescue me I could care less what he/she feels for me as long as they cooly and rationally do their job and help me out. Same thing isn't it?

But the media loves the drama, not much of a sound bite if someones says "well no one died so no real problem", on the other hand a distressed person grieving the loss of their property and vowing to head for the hills "before another one gets me" makes a much better image and so around it goes.

The worst example in my memory was the death of Lady Diana Spencer, the crazy scenes of people in major distress grieving for someone they didn't actually know will always be a head shaker for me.

Its a fine and good thing to have emotions but lets keep the big rational brain engaged which in the end should help us with our emotions. So do someone in Christchurch a favour ring them up and tell them the world is just the same as it was before and that you are thinking about moving to Christchurch as it should be about 100 years till there is another quake there. (rationally speaking of course)

My Children are my Greatest Achievement

I heard a woman the other day say "my children are my greatest achievement" This set me to thinking because I was unconvinced it was true, like a lot of women these days her children were only one aspect of her life, she had been well educated, she had a job in which she had done well, served on community groups, was interested in cooking at a high level with which she entertained her friends etc.

So many aspects to her life where she was operating at a high level and yet the "achievement" was her children?

On first glance I thought she was confusing love and affection for acheivement after all few would deny the great love that a parent and potentially especially the mother has for her children. Many parents have given up even their own lives to protect their children in extreme cases and in the less extreme a still significant amount of resources and effort are devoted to children.

But lets be honest, they sort of get there regardless don't they ? I mean there are some terrible parents out there and their children still grow up and some even go on to  be great members of society and acheive great things in spite of thier upbringing. So as parents aren't we rather overstating "our acheivement" when we beam with pride at little Jimmys graduation. Our own graduation sure and my reference mother presumably had to put in a lot of effort to graduate herself, but when she had kids... well....

So the dictionary says;

Achievement –noun
something accomplished, esp. by superior ability, special effort, great courage, etc.; a great or heroic deed: his remarkable achievements in art.

Does this sound like having a child?

Well actually I think it does in the end, it takes great courage to set out on a long journey to bring a child into the world and raise them up. The chances of great hurt along the way are high, some children don't make it and a greater tragedy can not befall a human being, our children will themselves be hurt and we feel all their pain no matter how small or great. Despite my reference to bad parents most try hard as they understand the world to show their children the way and it takes great sustained effort over a long time.
And the rewards, well there are rewards no doubt but it is mostly a selfless act.

So here is to those making that great courageous and heroic effort to be a mum or dad and here is cheers to the giants on who's shoulders we stand our own heroic mums and dads.

Blame Storming

Blame Storming - sitting around figuring out who to blame for the latest stuff up.

Why do some corporates insist on this type of approach, we all know that people make mistakes and people say it so often that you almost forget that it is true. Then when people do make an error some personality types feel duty bound to punish them, effectively for being human.

Now we have a category of "mistakes" that we find unacceptable and worthy of punishment they are called crimes, the reason we punish is that we don't really think it was a true mistake. If we do think so then even within this category we make allowances. eg if you deliberately run someone over we will charge you with murder and you may spend a long time in prison, if however you have an accident and kill someone you may still be punished for essentially not being careful enough but the penalty will be nowhere near as severe.

So back to corporates and how they behave, I was speaking with someone recently who had discovered an error (not made it just discovered it) and was concerned about bringing it to the attention of thier boss because it would spark a round of recriminations and Blame Storming. I have to wonder how this organisation feels this is useful. It is clearly incentivising employees to stay quiet even if they are aware of issues, it will probably limit any willingness to take risks and therefore inovation (always a risk) will be stiffled, it will likely lower productivity as it may not be a happy place to work etc I can't really think of any positive reason to behave this way other than... it makes the boss feel superior (potentially) or some other ego boost for the people pointing the fingers.

OK so I can understand the frustration with the "non learning" employee who continues to make the same mistake over and over, however blame is still not very useful outplacement councilling is probably best.

Is this really the answer to everything?

So on the TV the other night is an UK based expert on the problems associated with Alcohol, who was here at the behest of some interest group or other presumably the anit Alcohol lobby as his message in a nutshell was to "ban alcohol" His views on the matter prehaps best tipified by the comment "if alcohol was invented today we would ban it"

Indeed "lets ban it" a message likely to be very well received here in NZ as this seems to be our standard response to anything we see as a problem and if we are not going to ban it outright we need to regulate it into oblivion.

But does this work? Has it ever worked? and do we stop to work through the consequences based on research not emotion?

While not something banned but something regulated cycle helmets are a fantastic example where there is no reliable data on the effectivness of these helmets in preventing injury. There is evidence that the number of fatalities increase amoung helmet wearing cyclists and the stat that I like the most on this subject is you are more likely to suffer a head injury walking and yet no one is suggesting helmets for walkers. Another negative statistic is that helmets are shown to decrease cycle participation.

But I digress back to Alcohol we have a fantastic experiment in the form of the American Prohibition period between 1920 to 1933 when Alcohol was in fact widely banned in America and to varying degrees they did try and enforce the ban. Clearly it didn't work but it did turn otherwise law abiding citizens into potential criminals and gave criminal gangs a fantastic source of revenue which they were prepared to defend with violence.

Sound familiar, sounds a lot like the current "war on drugs" that America and varioius other countries including our own is currently involved in. The sad facts are people are still doing, the gangs make money out of it and in the case of harder drugs a lot of suffering results not from the drug taking itself but the surrounding activities. Pharmacy grade cocaine is cheap (it is used in some medical situations) for example but not if you have to get it off your local gang member and it may not be of the same quality standard.

So none of the above is an argument in favour of drug taking or binge drinking (the current manifestation of our drinking culture) both can be very harmful to your health, relationships with others chances of employment etc, etc. However how does increasing restriction or outright prohibition help curb the problems, so far there is zero evidence that this is working so far.

With booze the often quoted solution is to increase the price, however as I understand it the price of P (methamphetamine) is very expensive (I am not a user so stand to be corrected) but it doesn't seem to put people off. Not only that but we now have the example of "pre loading" where young people will buy cheaper supermarket booze and get hammered at home before heading out for the night. I think in economics this would be called substitution, if the price of drinks in bars was more reasonable however prehaps a more controlled approach might be taken. After all you can't take your bottle with you to the pub unless it is inside you which is what happens after all. So sometimes the "solutions" make things worse.

In the exact same arena we have an example of a system that does seem to work. Once upon a time not so long ago no one thought anything about driving drunk and it is still possible at the squash club for example for older members to talk about when xyz got hammered and end up in a ditch and the yarn is told as an item of humor not warning. These same clubs where these stories are told will also tell you that bar takings now are "way down" as "no one wants to drink and drive"

So how did this happen? Education of course, we were all taught that drink driving was not funny and that it was socially unacceptable. "if you drink and drive you are a bloody idiot" went one advert. and over time it has worked. OK police will point to greater enforcement as a factor although the evidence of penalty as a deterent to behaviour is weak as a general rule but as social animals we are driven to conform to the social norms. Change the norms get a result.

Far from banning alcohol make it unacceptable to be drunk.

You will notice that the "ban it" logic is already creeping into the food debate because some people (actually quite a few) are fat. "lets tax fat" they cry, sigh some people are slow learners is all I can say.

My Kingdom for a horse

So driver behaviour featured in a recent post on being inconsiderate and I am begining to feel that I might have it in for vehicles or more specifically the way some people drive (not me of course like everyone I know "we" are good drivers)

To move on from the idea that people are just generally incondsiderate in cars and assume for a moment that most people are decent human beings then the question arises why do people behave the way they do in cars.

Brain power strikes me as a key determinant, no I am not insinuating that people are thick it is just a couple of things we have inherited presumably make driving more difficult.

Firstly speed of decision making which manifests in hesitant driving potentiall especially around intersections and the like.
So people have evolved to travel around at say a maximum speed of about 35km (which is Olympic sprinter speed) and mostly at about 5km (lesiurly walking speed) Therefore dealing with things coming at you at 50 - 100km must present a challange.
On the other hand we see tennis players and cricketers etc facing balls traveling at over 100km and they are able to deal with it? But they do it by reaction rather than analysis. The part of our brain that deals with reaction is the amigdala and is buried deep in our brains and the "oldest" part of the brain. This is also our watchdog the bit of the brain that makes you flinch at an unexpected noise or close your eyelid in time to protect your eye from an incoming partical. It is the "act first ask questions second" part of our brain. You know from your own experiance that the thinking part is much much slower.
For example if you have ever been to a scary movie and flinched at a sudden sight or sound that is our friend amigdala in action the fact that you relax again and don't run out of the theatre is our slower but smarter thinking brain taking over.

So the point is we all make decisions relatively slowly, admittedly some people are faster than others but what a car does travelling at higher than walking speeds is make this slower process visable. While some of the time we rely on learned responses such as changing gear a lot of what happens on the road is constantly changing so we have to think it through not merely react.

Next time we see someone being indecisive on the roads lets assume that they are getting to it as fast as they can its just that sometimes good decisions take time.

Next post, why some people drive in a very sequential manner, but this one is long enough for one day.