In Victory, Magnanimity.

"In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity" (Winston Churchill)
 
"What cheers me up? I suppose mainly gloating over the misfortunes of other people. I guess that has to be it, yeah, mainly crowing over the miseries of others. It doesn't always work, but it never completely fails." (Christopher Hitchens)
 
I was down at the election for Procureur du Bien Public last night to get a photo for La Baguette, the Parish Magazine. I was originally just going to take a photo of the winning candidate, Peter Norman, but my editor very wisely, I think, suggested I took a photo of Peter Norman and John Trafford (the losing candidate) shaking hands. He was quite right, of course.
 
That's an image of victory and magnanimity; it is a sign that whoever wins, this is not a result that should end in bitterness or acrimony. And John Trafford lost, but he was a good loser, which is I suppose what you might expect; he is a very nice man.
 
It's all too easy with elections or other news stories to feed into the modern trend for divisiveness, and gloating. There's a lot of gloating on the misfortunes of other people on Twitter locally.
 
Those doing it will probably be able to justify it to themselves, but what it often comes down to is an excuse for that kind of behaviour was that "they started it first", the kind of excuse that two children fighting give to their parents. But however the other person is behaving, do they really need to react that way? They are surely not children any more; why do they then persist in behaving with such childish patterns of behaviour. Can't they do better than that? Is that really the best that they can be as human beings?
 
I'm not going to name people; they know who they are. This is not about naming and shaming, it is about exploring the psychology of this behaviour, and look at why people behave in this way.
 
Psychiatrist John Birtchnell describes this tendency of some human beings to respond in this way to the misfortune of others. He notes that:
 
"some people are capable of deriving satisfaction from the abuse of their power by showing off to others, intimidating them, bullying them, making fun of them, putting them down, pointing to their deficiencies, causing them embarrassment or distress, gloating over their misfortune, or witnessing their distress or desperation" (1)
 
And he notes that even psychotherapists themselves "are not immune from any of these forms of behaviour, which lie at the very heart of sadism."
 
There is a kind of sea-saw effect at work here, where "reacting to the setbacks and misfortunes of others is gaining upperness as a consequence of others losing it. When someone drops in position, another's position in relation to her/him rises." (2)
 
What cuts against this is compassion, and concern for the plight of the other person. As he comments:
 
"Potentially this is a source of pleasure, but the pleasure can be diminished, or denied altogether, out of concern for the plight of the other person." (2)
 
And a lot of these kinds of behaviours are patterns learned from childhood, which still effect how people behave. They become fixed patterns for reacting, hitting out, and enjoying the misfortune of others. As he notes on "derision":
 
"Children more than adults laugh at the misfortune of others and, in their laughing, experience the state of upperness. In former times, adults would visit lunatic asylums to laugh at the inmates, but nowadays they do not so blatantly enjoy the misfortune of others. Ridicule and mocking are nonetheless ways of experiencing upperness at the expense of others, and many jokes and humorous stories relate accounts of other people in unfortunate circumstances."
 
"Humiliation. There is ample evidence that people derive pleasure from humiliating others, but, as with derision, they are inhibited from doing so by their consciences" (2)
 
We don't visit lunatic asylums now to mock others, but the internet lends itself to a modern equivalent of this kind of behaviour. Ignore that voice of conscience, and it will fade away.
 
And on cruelty, Birchnell again notes the roots in the children's behaviour:
 
"Children, because their socialization process is less complete, are capable of great cruelty under certain circumstances. William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies, though a work of fiction, credibly illustrates this. Bandura et al. (1975) demonstrated that two effective means of making cruelty possible were diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization. They wrote, 'By displacing responsibility elsewhere, people need not hold themselves accountable for what they do and are thus spared self-prohibiting reactions" '(2)
 
Buddhism has a lot to teach us about how these patterns from our past shape our lives, and what we need to do about it. The Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom notes that:
 
"It is conduct unbecoming to a Dharma student to pick on others and blame them in order to build a self-defence or reinforce one's position. It is the downfall of a Dharma student to become jealous of the other people's prosperity and gloat over others' misfortunes." (3)
 
And the Buddhist movement Soka Gakkai International notes that:
 
"Buddhism sheds light on the inner dynamics of human life that lead us to create such an undesirable reality. One of the most pernicious and powerful desires inherent in human life, according to Buddhist thought, is the desire for power over others, the urge to subjugate other people to our will. In this condition, the ego finds its most unrestrained and destructive expression, regarding others simply as a means to satisfy its selfish objectives."
 
"But if human nature is the cause of our most dire global problems, it is also the source of the fundamental solution. The countervailing force to the destructive aspect to human nature and the suffering it engenders is compassion. Compassion, a sense of solidarity with others--with all life--arising from a wish for mutual happiness and growth, is the heart and origin of Buddhism." (4)
 
And Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron comments on why we badly need compassion in political dialogue:
 
"In recent years, national dialogue in the U. S. has deteriorated, with people ranging from politicians to talk show hosts encouraging anger, disrespect, harsh speech, and exaggerated accusations that only stir people up. It seems that rudeness, blame, and demonizing others is passed off as entertainment in the effort to gather votes. ..This lack of basic human manners, petty squabbling, and in some cases outright aggression interferes with finding solutions to very real national and international problems. Compassion helps us be more respectful and considerate so that we work together for the benefit of everyone. "(5)

Compassion is a challenge because it goes against deep rooted behaviours that we learned in childhood, and challenges us to be the best people we can be, not to be stuck in a groove laid down in the past. I'll finish, then, with a quote from a Veteran Western Practitioner of Buddhism:
 
"Compassion does not put others down to make us feel more important. Compassion builds bridges between people instead of erecting walls. Compassion helps to solve problems instead of creating new ones. Compassion agonizes at others' efforts gone wrong instead of gloating over their misfortunes. Compassion practices positive thinking, making others see their potential and helps them to achieve their best." (6)

Links
(1)   "Relating in Psychotherapy: The Application of a New Theory" by John Birtchnell, 1999
(2)   "How Humans Relate: A New Interpersonal Theory." by John Birtchnell, 1993
(3)   http://www.zenbuddhisttemple.org/seminary.html
(4)   http://www.sgi.org/buddhism/buddhist-concepts/compassion-solidarity-of-the-heart.html
(5)   http://www.thubtenchodron.org/CurrentEvents/applications_of_compassion.pdf
(6)   http://www.pureinsight.org/node/2161

Buddhism and Blogging

"Hate groups used to be hard-pressed to get any airtime; now they have a global forum twenty-four hours a day on Web sites and blogs." (David D. Perlmutter, Blogwars)
 
George Orwell, in 1984, had the "Two Minutes Hate" when people chanted away at those declared non-persons, enemies of the State. The internet has democratised the "Two Minutes Hate", and at the same time it dehumanises people. Like the picture on the Televisor Screen, faces are posted to become figures of hate. People are demonised, and those doing this cannot see that they are becoming what they hate.
 
Buddhaghosa said ""By doing this you are like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement in his hand and so first burns himself or makes himself stink", and this saying has been paraphrased, rather neatly as:
 
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else - you are the one who gets burned."
 
The Dalai Lama has a good deal to say about the negative effects of hate: In his book "Healing Anger", he comments that:
 
"The destructive effects of hatred are very visible, very obvious and immediate. For example, when a strong or forceful thought of hatred arises, at that very instant it overwhelms one totally and destroys one's peace and presence of mind"
 
And he goes on to examine how hatred can arise:
 
"If we examine how anger or hateful thoughts arise in us, we will find that, generally speaking, they arise when we feel hurt, when we feel that we have been unfairly treated by someone against our expectations. If in that instant we examine carefully the way anger arises, there is a sense that it comes as a protector, comes as a friend that would help our battle or in taking revenge against the person who has inflicted harm on us. So the anger or hateful thought that arises appears to come as a shield or a protector. But in reality that is an illusion. It is a very delusory state of mind."
 
Without mindfulness, what starts as a defence can easily become a habit, and the bully is born. The road is one in which the virtues of compassion become lost, swallowed up in vilifying others. The Dalai Lama describes this in terms of:
 
"Only thinking of yourself, having no regard for others, a lack of concern for others' well-being."
 
It is notable that people who direct invective at people from blogs avoid meeting people face to face. As David D. Perlmutter notes in "Blogwars"
 
"Over the years of getting e-hate-mail responding to some of my newspaper op-eds, I have also noted the tendency of people putting the worst invectives and language into an electronic message that, I believe, they would not have expressed similarly in a phone call, in person, or even on paper"
 
There is a disengagement from the other in a blog or social media which can lend itself to very destructive words being used. And the immediacy of it means that there is often a lack of mindfulness. Meeting someone in person, you have etiquette of conversation, the give and take, the talking and listening which is part of dialogue.
 
People who spend too much time disengaged from dialogue with other people other than online may, of course, lose this skill, and simply harangue and shout at people, and be unable to listen when they do meet people. They lose the ability to speak to people face to face; this is another example of how the internet can dehumanise people. They are losing social skills, and becoming almost autistic in their inability to interact, take turns, and listen.
 
It is ironic, because autistic people, aware of their deficiencies, struggle to interact, take turns, and listen. What is hard for them to achieve, and what they desire to achieve, is a gift thrown carelessly aside by people who have it.
 
One of the most notable features of the lack of mindfulness in the internet is the ability to jump in and make pronouncements without looking at the facts. It's the world of the child's playground, of taking sides, of goodies and baddies, where everything is starkly drawn in black and white.
 
It does no good to provide facts, because without mindfulness, a person takes a stance, and does not change it, and defends it, never admitting or being willing to admit that they might be mistaken. Rather like writers like Von Daniken and his "Chariot of the Gods", suppositions rapidly become treated as facts; allegations, if they support your own prejudices, must be true.
 
That's not how science works, of course. Science works to look for falsification of your own theories and ideas, to test them, to be aware that they might be mistaken, and what you really want to be true is no guarantee that something is true. A theory has to be good enough to fit all the facts.
 
But pseudoscience takes a different approach, a selective approach to evidence, which screens out any inconvenient facts, and avoids confronting them; it is a fundamental intellectual dishonesty, and there is a lot of it about. Repetition is also used as a means to suggest something is true, as if the number of instances it is repeated somehow gives a statement a special verisimilitude.
 
The notion of critical peer review is something alien to this approach, because pseudoscience is tied up with an emotional investment in certainty; any criticism is seen as bad, the action of an enemy of the truth. That is a measure itself of how distant the pseudoscientific approach is from genuine science, and how it encourages an emotional immaturity which rejects a critical friend. As Popper remarked, even our most cherished scientific beliefs should not be beyond scrutiny.
 
The internet provides plenty of scope for rumour, and selective use of facts, and the rigours of a more scientific approach is discarded in favour of the attention grabbing headline. That is one area where the blog certainly can emulate the tabloid newspaper, in its use of lurid headlines, and the striking rhetoric, and ad hominem arguments, all of which sell the blog to its readers just as the newspaper sensationalises the story in order to sell papers.

Further Thoughts on Manslaughter Plea

In my previous post, I was trying not to make a judgement, but rather to explain the legal background for any judgment of manslaughter though diminished responsibility. I'm very glad that's not a decision I have to make.

If I was making a judgement, it perhaps wouldn't be because he killed the children - because then he seems to have been on a killing spree, I think it is likely that after killing one person, the self-control which most people had was gone or certainly diminished. But the fact that the first victim was not his wife, but his father in law, sitting in a chair quietly, watching television seems to call into question his plea that it was his wife's behaviour which caused him to start the killings. If there is no evidence of any conflict between him and his father in law, it begs the question why he should suddenly fly at him rather than his wife - the more obvious first victim. And moreover, his wife was the last victim, not the first, which seems again inconsistent with his plea.

The problem of diminished responsibility - rather like that of depression (which has been the subject of a Radio 4 discussion recently) is to do with our model of rational agency. It is trying to fit into a model in which human beings are rational agents, responsible for their actions with one which takes a view that we are more at the mercy of our biology than we realise.

When Freud and Darwin enter, it gets even more complex, as instinct and unconscious motivations come into the modern picture. So that we can accept that someone can commit suicide if clinically depressed, and that people will behave in irrational ways because of emotions such as love which are (as Darwin) evolved precisely to ensure the primary function of procreation and survival of the gene pool.

But suicide also reflects this muddled view -  "while the balance of their mind is disturbed", suggesting there is a "healthy" state. And yet, as documented in a strange and very unsettling documentary by Sir Terry Pratchett, there are people who rationally take the decision to take their own life. It's just that contradicts the legal idea of rational agent where people don't do that in their proper frame of mind.

The rational agency model comes from Greek philosophy, the other one from modernity, with the enlightenment philosophy that there is really no such thing as free will, our actions are the results of chemical reactions within our brain, and we rationalise that after the event.

The most notable proponent in modern times was the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, in which he stated that there was no "Ghost in the Machine", but the basic picture goes back as far as Hume and Laplace. At its basics, if the world is strictly deterministic, in which cause follows effect, then brains must follow theoretically predicable patterns. There is no freewill, and from that, no responsibility. The most notorious statement of this was made by Richard Dawkins, but it is quite a widespread view:

Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment. (1)

Nicole Vincent's paper "On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility" notes Dawkin's view among others:

Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen maintain that advances in neuroscience demonstrate that ''free will. is an illusion'' and so they contend that the criminal law's retributive aims should be replaced with such aims as deterrence, prevention and treatment (2004:224). Robert Sapolsky's discussion of the role that the frontal cortex plays in self-control is also a plea for ''a world of criminal justice in which there is no blame [but] only prior causes'' (2004:1794). Finally, Richard Dawkins takes an even harder stance against what he sees as ''the flawed concept of retributive'' punishment-he argues that ''as a moral principle [retribution] is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour'' because on his account ''a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make[s] nonsense of the very idea of responsibility''-and so he too feels that the law's proper aims should be deterrence, prevention, treatment and perhaps removal of dangerous individuals from society, but certainly not retribution (2006). (2)

Vincent notes that "in philosophical discussions, responsibility is often talked about as if it were a single, unitary and generic concept." But she notes that - in contrast - within the criminal law, the word ''responsibility'' refers to at least six distinguishable ideas, which can be shown in Hart's famous parable about Smith the ship captain:

(1) Smith had always been an exceedingly responsible person, (2) and as captain of the ship he was responsible for the safety of his passengers and crew. However, on his last voyage he drank himself into a stupor, (3) and he was responsible for the loss of his ship and many lives. (4) Smith's defense attorney argued that the alcohol and Smith's transient depression were responsible for his misconduct, (5) but the prosecution's medical experts confirmed that Smith was fully responsible when he started drinking since he was not suffering from depression at that time. (6) Alas, his employer will probably have to take responsibility for this tragedy, since the victims' families' claims for damages far outstrip the limits of Smith's personal indemnity insurance policy.

Vincent notes that:

First, there is a claim about his virtue responsibility - Smith was normally a dependable person, someone who took his duties seriously, and who normally did the right thing. Second, there is a claim about Smith's role responsibility -  as the ship's captain Smith had certain duties to various parties, both on and off his ship. Third, there is a claim about his outcome responsibility-it is alleged that various states of affairs or outcomes, such as the loss of the ship and many of its passengers and crew, are rightly attributable to him as something that he did.  Fourth, there are two claims about causal responsibility-Smith's defense lawyer alleged that Smith's aberrant behaviour was caused by the alcohol and by his depression.  Fifth, there is a claim about Smith's capacity responsibility - since Smith was not suffering from depression at that time, the prosecution therefore argued that his mental capacities were fully intact, and hence that his moral agency was unimpaired.  And finally, the parable ends with comments about liability responsibility-about who should now do what to take due responsibility (or maybe even to be held responsible) for what has happened; in this case, the sanction of financial liability is mentioned because that is apparently one way in which responsibility might be taken, but we might also suppose that to personally take due responsibility Smith should also do other things such as apologising to the bereaved families or spending a term in prison. (2)

Vincent notes how this lead to a complex situation, in which reduced capacity, due to drugs (including prescribed medication) may lead to different evaluations depending on how the capacity is reduced:

But in law, a person's reduced capacity responsibility will often have the opposite effect on their role responsibilities - i.e. rather than expanding them.. the scope or range of a person's responsibilities might contract or shrink. This is, for instance, how we think about children and others whose mental capacity falls below the minimum threshold of fully responsible moral agency; their reduced capacity is taken as a reason to excuse them or to expect less of them, and thus subsequently to morally blame them for less. However, the relationship between capacity and role responsibility is even more complex than that, because not all instances of reduced capacity-for instance, not ones for which the person is responsible (e.g. drunkenness) - reduce the range or scope of a person's role responsibilities (2)

That neurological effects can determine behaviour is in no doubt. The case of Phineas Gage, a 25 year old railroad foreman is a case in point. In 1848, he was excavating rock when a premature explosion drove the tampering iron (1.1m long, 6 mm diameter) through his cheek and out through the vault of his skull. Amazingly he survived the ordeal, although he remained  semiconscious for a month. The result, as described by Dr Harlow, was of an extreme personality change from a pleasant man to an aggressive unpleasant one:

Dr Harlow's subsequent observations noted the bizarre change in Gage's personality. Immediately after physical recovery he described Gage as follows: "Remembers passing and past events correctly, as well before as since the injury. Intellectual manifestations feeble, being exceedingly capricious and childish, but with a will as indomitable as ever; is particularly obstinate; will not yield to restraint when it conflicts with his desires." Dr Harlow reports that Gage's employers, "who regarded him as the most efficient and capable foreman ... considered the change in his mind so marked that they could not give him his place again.... He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires.... A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man.... His mind was radically changed, so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no longer Gage.'" (3)

David Ferrier's experimental work with animals some years later confirmed that the change in personality in Gage was due to the injury to the prefrontal cortex of the frontal lobes, affecting affect and emotion. So it is clear that neurology can play a part in determining behaviour, and this can be altered either because of injury or as a side effect of medication.

But Gale's case was an extreme in which his personality changed overnight, and for which there was a clear indicator of cause by a physical injury.  This is not the case with Damian Rzeszowski, although it appears he was on medication, and most notably recently, he claimed to have experienced hearing voices, which can be an indicator of mental breakdown,  and especially schizophrenia.

Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Dale Harrison has given evidence as to the following: "Because Damian's GP notes showed he had a short history of depression, it seemed appropriate to seek help from Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital in the UK. On the 19th August, a team of psychiatrists from Broadmoor assessed Damian's mental state and concluded that before he killed he was suffering from a depressive illness, but doctors could not confirm any definite psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, obsessional or delusional beliefs)."

The problem is in ascertaining whether he is in fact hearing voices, heard voices at the time of the attack, and not simply saying that he is hearing voices. A study in 2004 noted that:

Auditory hallucinations are a frequent symptom in schizophrenia. While functional imaging studies have suggested the association of certain patterns of brain activity with sub-syndromes or single symptoms (e.g. positive symptoms such as hallucinations), there has been only limited evidence from structural imaging or post-mortem studies. (5)

This concluded that hearing voices was a complex phenomena, and while neurology studies using MRI can determine possible structural abnormality in the brain, that

Our results imply that auditory hallucinations are not associated with a single regional deficit. Rather, several nodes of a more complex circuitry might be involved. (5)

There are also problems with neurology due to the transient nature of most symptoms, particularly hallucinations.

The case studies from 1972 show how difficult it is to detect a fake. That year, David Rosenhan, a psychologist with a joint degree in law, called eight friends and asked them to fake their way into a mental hospital by pretending to hear voices.

The pseudopatients were to present themselves and say words along these lines: "I am hearing a voice. It is saying thud." Rosenhan specifically chose this complaint because nowhere in psychiatric literature are there any reports of any person hearing a voice that contains such obvious cartoon angst. (6)

However, while the psychiatrists were all taken in by this simple ruse, other patients were not:

The strange thing was, the other patients seemed to know that Rosenhan was normal, even while the doctors did not. One young man, coming up to Rosenhan in the dayroom, said "You're not crazy. You're a journalist or a professor." Another said, "You're checking up on the hospital." (6)

But experts are not always mislead. The case of Lionel Tate in 2005 is an example where symptoms of hearing voices were seen as a deceptive ploy. Two psychologists said the convicted killer was feigning hearing voices in his head. Tate faked mental problems after an older Broward County Jail inmate convinced the 18-year-old it would help his case:

The two psychologists, who examined Mr. Tate separately, testified at the hearing that he had been manipulative and uncooperative. One of them, Barton Jones, said Mr. Tate had appeared to be "feigning a mental disorder." The other, Trudy Block-Garfield, said, "I believe he tried to lead me to believe he was incompetent." (7)

In the case of Damian Rzeszowski, the question which must surely be asked: is there any evidence of his hearing voices - apart from his own testimony - before the killings? If there is none, it casts a doubt on his testimony, especially as he had been seen at the hospital shortly before. Why did he not mention it then?

Links
(1) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1723345/posts
(2) On the Relevance of Neuroscience to Criminal Responsibility, Nicole A Vincent
(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114479/
(4) http://www.angelfire.com/pro/lewiscs/humanitarian.html
(5) http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/14/1/91.full
(6) http://www.thejoyofconcrete.org/students/apsych/insane/cuckoo.htm
(7) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/national/20tate.html?_r=1&ref=lioneltate

Manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility

A man killed six people, including his wife and young children, because his marriage was failing after his wife had an affair, a Jersey court has heard. Damian Rzeszowski, 31, from Poland, stabbed his victims at the family's St Helier flat in August 2011. He has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denies all six counts of murder. The Royal Court heard Rzeszowski's two children, aged five and two, and another five-year-old each suffered more than a dozen stab wounds.(1)

Rzeszowski denies murder, but has pleaded to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, arguing that his mental state was impaired at the time of the killings.(2)

Damian Rzeszowski denies murder but has admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter with diminished responsibility...The key issue in the defence is Damian's state of mind at the time of the killings....The Defence claim Damian was suffering from an impaired state of mind that caused him to lose his temper when he was not in control of his actions. But the Prosecution said on various occasions Damian's story has changed, from saying he was hearing voices at the time that he killed, to denying an hallucinations. (3)

What is manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility? Some idea can be gleaned of how this operated from case studies where that verdict has been returned.

For example,  Anne Burke was acquitted of murder in 2009, but found guilty of killing her violent husband Pat, 55, by reason of diminished responsibility.

Mrs Burke had claimed he had beaten her, kicked her in the stomach when she was pregnant and threatened to blow her head off during their turbulent 32-year marriage. She described her marriage as "a litany of abuse" adding that she only started drinking so she could "stand up" to her husband.

The court heard that six days prior to the killing, Mrs Burke was admitted to the psychiatric unit of Portlaoise Hospital, after attempting to slash her wrists. She was discharged two days later without having received any treatment or medication, at her and her husband's request, but said she knew her head wasn't right. (4)

And when she returned home, matters deteriorated to the point where she killed her husband.

She told the court it was about 4pm when she picked up a hammer that had been in the bedroom and hit him over the head as he slept. Mrs Burke told gardai afterwards that "it was a haze... it was like someone else was doing it.". At around 10pm that night she wrote a suicide note to her four children and cut her wrists.

Two psychiatrists who gave medical evidence on behalf of both the defence and prosecution agreed that Mrs Burke was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the killing, namely severe depression.(4)

What is clear from that case is that warnings about her mental state were so obvious that her discharge after a suicidal attempt ignored her depression, and no follow up by social services on her mental condition or the abusive home background was ever given. This was a case in which both defence and prosecution agreed; it can be regarded as a case which illustrates where there is little doubt of the mitigating factors which led to the death of her husband.

In 2011, an airline pilot Robert Brown admitted killing his wife, and was jailed for 26 years, but was cleared of the murder charge.

Robert Brown, 47, attacked millionairess Joanna with a claw hammer and then buried her body in a prepared grave after a costly divorce battle. The jury sensationally cleared Brown of murder on the grounds he was suffering from a mental illness. But Judge Mr Justice Cooke handed down one of the harshest prison terms for manslaughter available to him. Appearing to question the jury's decision, he told British Airways pilot Brown: "Your responsibility, though diminished, remains substantial. "You intended to kill, you intended to conceal the body and to hide the evidence of the killing." Outside court, Joanna's mother Diana Parkes described the verdict as a "gross miscarriage of justice". And she added: "Robert Brown got away with murder in name only. " He ended up bludgeoning Joanna to death in their sprawling family home as their two young children cowered in the playroom last October.(5)

It is clear that there can be considerable leeway given and a manslaughter verdict can still be brought in. In this particular case, there was considerable surprise at the jury verdict, and it is clear that while the judge had to accept it, it probably would not have been the verdict which he would have delivered. There was evidence of clear thinking after the event.

The principle of "diminished responsibility" was introduced into UK law with the Homicide Act - 1957. This can be summarised as follows:

Section 2 of this law determines that a person shall not be convicted of the crime of murder, but only of manslaughter, if he committed the act as a result of mental disorders, which are described as follows:

abnormality of the mind (whether arising from a condition of arrested or retarded development of mind or any inherent causes or induced by disease or injury) as substantially impaired his mental responsibility for his acts....

The principle underpinning this law is that a person who suffers in this way from a mental disorder is not able to create the special mens rea which is required to commit the crime of murder and, therefore, he shall be deemed to be responsible for the crime of manslaughter only.

The principle of diminished criminal responsibility offers an additional option to the insanity defense. This defense creates the required hierarchy, draws the psychiatric perception closer to the legal perception and enables a more cogent dialogue between these two schools in court. This dialogue enables a reduction in the level of the criminal responsibility of the defendant, while not exempting him from criminal responsibility.(6)

It appears in the case in point in Jersey, that part of the grounds of the defense was provocation due to the wife's behaviour with relation to their marriage and relationships with other men:

Provocation can be traced back to the 17th century, when the criminal law distinguished between a killing where there was proof of malice aforethought, and an unpremeditated killing on the spur of the moment following a provocative act. (7)

In Australia, various cases such as that of Stingel gave rise to the following ruling by a court:

The fact that the particular accused lacks the power of self-control of an ordinary person by reason of some attribute or characteristic which must be taken into account in identifying the content or gravity of the particular wrongful act or insult will not affect the reference point of the objective test, namely, the power of self-control of a hypothetical 'ordinary person'. (8)

A report on defenses to homicide also gave this note later in 2004:

The partial defence of provocation sends the message that in some situations people (who are not at risk of being killed or seriously injured themselves) are not expected to control their impulses to kill or seriously injure another person. While extreme anger may partly explain a person's actions, in the Commission's view it does not mean such behaviour should be partly excused ... Historically,  an angry response to a provocation might have been excusable, but in the 21st century, the Victorian community has a right to expect people will control their behaviour, even when angry or emotionally upset. (9)

What emerges is that it is problematic and complex to assess the situation in which a trigger could occur which would cause an individual to lose control, and how one would determine what "loss of control" means. The Law Commission of England and Wales found that "there is no satisfactory definition of loss of self-control".

The Jersey case is further complicated by the fact that the accused did not just murder his wife, but then went on a berserker rampage, killing other people who in no way had provoked him on any occasion. The nearest case I can recall which is similar in some respects is that of Derek Bird in Cumbria:

The incident began when Bird, a self-employed taxi driver from Rowrah, first shot dead his twin brother, David Bird, in Lamplugh, then shot dead the family solicitor, Kevin Commons, in Frizington (10)

In this case, 12 people had been killed, that a further 11 people were injured, and then the suspect had killed himself, but it began with a domestic dispute that spiraled out of control, where Derek Bird then expanded the range of killings to anyone who came across his path. It is a salutary reminded of how the situation might have escalated if Damian Rzeszowski had been armed, not with a knife, but with a gun.

In most cases where violence escalates from a domestic grievance to a massacre, the perpetrator has been killed or ended taking their own life. This makes it difficult to know what their state of mind was, and how it could be assessed in such a case. This will be a difficult case for the Jurats, which does raise the question why only two Jurats are sitting, when the complexity of motivation would suggest that the minimal number is not what I would have expected. I was quite surprised.

Links
(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-19210360
(2) http://www.thisisjersey.com/news/2012/08/13/murder-trial-court-hears-of-victims-final-moments/
(3) http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=500922
(4) The Mirror, December 2009
(5) The Mirror, May 2011
(6) The Diminished Responsibility Defense in the Israeli Juridical Practice. Jacob Margolin, - Author. Journal title: The Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences. Vol 35:2, January 1, 1998.
(7) Provocation: A Totally Flawed Defence That Has No Place in Australian Criminal Law Irrespective of Sentencing Regime. Andrew Hemming, University of Western Sydney Law Review. Vol:14. 2010
(8) Stingel v R (1990) 171 CLR 312, 332
(9) Victorian Law Reform Commission, Defences to Homicide: Final Report (2004)
(10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbria_shootings

The Inner Dimension of Politics

"How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of the seasoning herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practice, without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23:23)

As we approach the elections in Jersey, it is perhaps time to look back on the last three years, as Daniel Wimberley has been doing. If you go to his site, you will see a good many of the States decisions, and why he sees many of the actions and words coming from those with the levers of power as misleading the general public.

It is the commentary of someone of great integrity, who has been rather shocked to see how politicians really behave, and what he sees as a fundamental lack of honesty. I don't agree with every one of his comments, but some, such as Lime Grove, display clear evidence of deception and mismanagement.

http://whichwayshallivote.wordpress.com/

He refers to this as "lying", a charge which I am sure will be denied by most of those mentioned, or over the events discussed. Now lying is perhaps deliberately chosen as a strong word, to get people to think, but it is also perhaps the most easily dismissed of words. It can be argued that these are matters which are difference of opinions, and to hold a different opinion is not to lie.

But there are shades of deceit, of a lack of honesty, which do not perhaps manifest themselves in obvious ways. It is a powerful irony of conscious rational thought that it is blind to all other forms of cognitive engagement, such as that gained from introspection, or learning to listen to others, and so can believe itself correct, and obviously correct. Self-deceit is perhaps the most dangerous form of lying, and I think there is a lot of self-deception in politics because of its very nature

The art of listening, of engaging, and really concentrating on what others are saying, and understanding what their concerns are, is not one that we are good at. Our own ego tends to come first, and while most people will engage in turn taking in a conversation, that is not the same as listening. More often, it is a case of letting another person speak, before we can come in with our own thoughts and ideas.

When another person is talking, what are you doing? If you are like most people you are thinking about what you are going to say as soon as there is a break in the conversation. If no break appears shortly you rehearse what you plan to say. Is that you? Do you know what the other person said? Can you repeat what has been said or do you merely know what you are going to say? Embarrassing, isn't it?

There is a technique called active listening that can help you overcome this habit. Active listening is where the listener takes an active role in the communications process by applying four techniques: restatement--restating or paraphrasing a message, summary--summarizing the main issues of a series of important points, responding to non-verbal cues--acknowledging and verbalizing the presence and effect of non-verbal messages, and responding to feelings--acknowledging and verbalizing the presence and affect of the feelings expressed... Managers need to be active listeners to improve their communication effectiveness by verifying understanding, clarifying communication, and encouraging more effective communication. Active listening also demonstrates to the communicator that the message was important, and that the manager is conscientious. (1)

Now there are a good many consultations, of asking the public what they think, and this is deemed to be politician engagement. But it is not. For a start, the matrix for the engagement is often limited by the kind of questions asked by the politicians or their advisors. But equally importantly, not only is the politician setting the agenda for the way they want the consultation to proceed, they are also removing themselves from engagement with real human beings, with going and actively listening to what people have to say. Imagine Jersey was another example - get people together, and fix the agenda on which they can speak. Active listening doesn't just involve this kind of consultation, which may be little more than listening and then persuading people that your view is right, and picking a selection of views, so that you have some that agree with you - it also means engaging in an active way in the listening process, of being humble enough to be able to change, however difficult or even painful that might be.

Within the States, what has struck me more than anything over the last three years, much more so than in fact on Frank Walker's watch, was the way in which there was a division between us and them, reflected quite clearly in voting patterns, and a fortress mentality in which dialogue was not taking place; instead of harnessing talents of all the members, there seemed to be a fear that this would lead to compromises or weaknesses in the Council of Ministers own position. The promised consensus, of bringing a wider States into the heart of Government, which was in the speech of the Chief Minister evaporated within a week on his election. Political commentators in the Jersey Evening Post have noted this, but there has been no sense in which the contradiction between word and act has ever been the subject of introspection.

There seems to be a failure to learn, and I don't just mean leaning from mistakes, I also mean learning to see one's own motivations, to be more introspective. Perhaps politicians in their quieter moments, are introspective, but that doesn't often appear apparent to me from anything they say. The interior journey, and the self-examination, with regrets, mistakes, apologies seems to be almost wholly lacking. Instead when mistakes are made, "the last word" seems to be the order of the day, coming back with a final vindication of one's own position.

O God, you have searched us out and known us, and all that we are is open to you. We confess that we have sinned: we have used our power to dominate and our weakness to manipulate; we have evaded responsibility and failed to confront evil; we have denied dignity to ourselves and to each other, and fallen into despair. We turn to you O God; we renounce evil; we claim your love; we choose to be made whole. (Anglican Confession of Faith)

We acknowledge that we are on the land of our Indigenous people. We honour their care of this part of the earth, their capacity to tread lightly over God's creation and to share its gifts. We weep, 0 God, for the lives of our people. We toil day and night and still our children go hungry. We sow the fields, planting your seeds of abundance and bringing in the gifts of your harvest. But this is torn from our hands and all that is left are the crumbs from tables of the rich. The gap grows wider and wider as we die from lack of health care and fall back in life without education and freedom. We bow our heads in shame, 0 God, for our tables groan with plenty. Our only questions are about which good thing to eat, and how much is too much. We puzzle over what more we can choose to add to our clothes, our homes and our style of living. As we hear the cries of the suffering people in the distance, we know that we have betrayed your dream. We have failed to live in your just community.(Confession, Service of Trade Justice)

One of the remarkable facts in the blogs, and on occasion - though usually slapped down by the speaker in the States - has been the appeal by those in opposition to the religious beliefs of some of those in power, even though some of those making those appeals are not themselves religious believers. But they see an inherent contradiction between the way the religious areas of life do not seem to have any impact on the politic arena, either in introspection, and any kind of confession that those in power might be mistaken, or in the values of social justice which they rightly see as apparent threaded through.

It is always as if they are saying: you are Christians - surely we expect better of you than a pragmatic attitude to fixing things, and some acknowledgement of when you make mistakes, a little less arrogance, a little more social concern and compassion for others. In fact they are saying that Christian belief should make a difference, but they can't see that it is apparent. And of course, the whole arena of debate deliberately is such that politics and religion have been sharply divided in a way that our ancestors of even two hundred years ago would have found hard to believe, so that even the word "godforsaken" is forbidden in the States Chamber. It is almost as if the removal of the Rectors from the States Chamber have shunted religious matters out as well. But that ban shouldn't mean that politicians can't draw upon those religious traditions in speeches outside the Chamber, and show the roots of social justice are deeply part of their lives. No one wants a theocracy, but the prophetic voice has also been silenced, where truth speaks to power.

Why is that important? I think it is important because it means that the kind of introspection which is needed, such as that which can confront the subtle tendencies to "dominate and our weakness to manipulate" (as the Confession above states) are also lost, or become simply an empty form of words, declaimed on Sundays, but unseen elsewhere. Without that element, politicians who are not prone or able to reflect on their motivations, tend to recall themselves in the best light, simply because their are powerful mechanisms for self-deceit within all human beings:

In every person's memory, times of not knowing what they now know are accompanied by moments of discovery--times when they are presented with new information that contradicts and then changes their prior beliefs. Such memories reinforce a widely shared folk theory of how people learn: Take ignorance, add information, and then gain competence at tasks such as knowing which of two remote cities is farther north. The human ability to recall such sequences is nearly universal. So is the ability to describe them. As a result, the folk theory is easy to communicate. Relative to more complex explanations of how we learn, we should expect this one to suffice in casual conversations in which the cost of being incorrect is insubstantial.

But the folk theory can be deceptive. The deception takes the form of inducing people to derive a causal story about how people learn from data insufficient for that task. The deception is a consequence of what statisticians call "selecting on the dependent variable." In other words, people recall the cases where the theory is accurate (for example, we start incompetent at a particular task; we pay attention to a new piece of information; it changes our views, and we then gain the ability to accomplish the task) and not cases in which it fails (for example, we start, incompetent, at a particular task, we either ignore new information or use it in a way that does not increase our intelligence, and we, therefore, gain no task-relevant abilities) (2)

Politics can be tough, and politicians often need to develop a tough shell. That's even been stated during the course of these elections. But the danger is that the protective layers that keep one's self esteem intact can also lead to all kinds of other problems, and in particular, a kind of reflex action to defend one's position, rather than ever subjecting it to self criticism. Instead, what develops is the ability to create "rationalizations as protective devices":

In a very important sense, life is devoted to the protection of the ego, the care and promotion of the self. Nor is the definition of what is ego or ego-involved confined to the body, or even to wholly personal attributes. On the contrary, it tends to be extended to people, symbols, ideas, and objects which in some way are associated with some aspect of the person. The selection of these ego-involved objects is the product both of social designation and idiosyncratic personal preference, the operation of the two factors making for individuality within a common framework. Self-esteem, then, inevitably rises and falls with the "fortunes" of the ego-involved objects. The socially determined sources of self-esteem have been termed "status," and the individually determined sources as "self-integrity." In reinforcing self-esteem from these sources, people fall back upon rationalizations as protective devices. (3)

Political motivation, is in part to do with an effort to maintain or enhance self-esteem. This can lead to an inability to decide once one's preferences have been clarified. But it does not always have to be that way. The example of Gandhi shows us that introspection can go hand in hand with politics, and the external journey can also be guided by the internal journey:

Though he freely experimented with western ways during his stay in London, he remained faithful to the Hindu beliefs of renunciation and selflessness, which served as a formative moral and ethical matrix throughout his life. These virtues also contributed to his identity as both a spiritual and a political figure and reflected his perception of his own development as a process of "self-realization" gained through "deep, self-introspection." (4)

A sea-change in politics is perhaps not likely to come overnight, but I think there must be room for improvements, and for more introspection into motivations, more active listening to the general public, for at the moment, we are still in the shallows and the dry places, and the deep well of life is still some way in the distance.

"How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but are full of bones and decaying corpses on the inside. In the same way, on the outside you appear good to everybody, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and sins.
(Matthew 23:27-28)

Links
(1) How the Manager Can Use Active Listening. Contributors: Jay T. Knippen, Thad B. Green, Public Personnel Management, 1994
(2) Deliberation Disconnected: What It Takes to Improve Civic Competence. Arthur Lupia , Law and Contemporary Problems, 2002olitical Life:
(3) Why People Get Involved in Politics. Robert E. Lane, 1959
(4) Gandhi, Mao, Mandela, and Gorbachev: Studies in Personality, Power, and Politics. Anthony R. Deluca, 2000

A Brighter People, or a More Heavily Certificated Society?

People in Jersey are getting 'brighter', according to the findings of the 2010 Social Survey. The survey's results show that more people are going on to further education, but, the island still lags behind the UK. More than a quarter of islanders of working age have 'higher level qualifications' - mostly degrees and that a further 50 percent have 'secondary qualifications' - that's GCSEs, GNVQs, A-levels, or O-Levels. Only a fifth have no formal academic qualifications, now that's mainly older islander who fall into this group, but the statistics do reflect better access to further education. Back in 2001 a mere 12 % of islanders had a higher level qualification, that's now more than doubled to 29 percent. Nine years ago, 34 percent had no qualification, that's now dropped to 14. That downward trend clearly reflecting a better educated population, one that's likely to continue. (1)

But is it "brighter", or a more heavily certificated world? I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story "Profession" (2), in which there are "Education tapes" which put knowledge into people's heads:

"The turning point came when the mechanics of the storage of knowledge within the brain was worked out. Once that had been done, it became possible to devise Educational tapes that would modify the mechanics in such a way as to place within the mind a body of knowledge ready-made so to speak. But you know about that. Once that was done, trained men could be turned out by the thousands and millions, and we could begin what someone has since called the 'Filling of the Universe.' There are now fifteen hundred inhabited planets in the Galaxy and there is no end in sight."

In Asimov's vision, of course, the tape process is relatively painless and quick, and it leads to a society where profession is flaunted by certification. George Platten, the protagonist of the story, has parents with registered professions, as do most of the population.

"Let's see, George. It says here on your card that your father is named Peter and that he's a Registered Pipe Fitter and your mother is named Amy and is a Registered Home Technician. Is that right?"

But it still leads to problems of supply and demand. I have seen this most clearly with nursery schools training in the late 1990s, when Highlands College was busy providing NVCQs in Early Leaning and Childhood, but not matching this to the demand. As a result, over a relatively few years, the qualification required rose from NVCQ grade 2 to grade 3, to whittle down the numbers required. An increasingly certificate driven society will do this, however good the certificates, because the number of certificates does not directly match the employment prospects. An education course is useful for someone retraining, trying to change direction to improve employment prospects, but on its own, it can lead to crowding out of the marketplace:

George had argued with Stubby Trevelyan about that constantly. As best friends, their arguments had to be constant and vitriolic and, of course, neither ever persuaded or was persuaded. But then Trevelyan had had a father who was a Registered Metallurgist and had actually served on one of the Outworlds, and a grandfather who had also been a Registered Metallurgist. He himself was intent on becoming a Registered Metallurgist almost as a matter of family right and was firmly convinced that any other profession was a shade less than respectable. "There'll always be metal, he said, "and there's an accomplishment in molding alloys to specification and watching structures grow. Now what's a Programmer going to be doing? Sitting at a coder all day long, feeding some fool mile-long machine."

Even at sixteen, George had learned to be practical. He said simply, "There'll be a million Metallurgists put out along with you."
"Because it's good. A good profession. The best."
"But you get crowded out, Stubby. You can be way back in line. Any world can tape out its own Metallurgists, and the market for advanced Earth models isn't so big. And it's mostly the small worlds that want them. You know what per cent of the turn-out of Registered Metallurgists get tabbed for worlds with a Grade A rating. I looked it up. It's just 13.3 per cent. That means you'll have seven chances in eight of being stuck in some world that just about has running water. You may even be stuck on Earth; 2.3 per cent are."

On education day, George goes with his classmates to receive the education tapes, and discovers to his horror that he can't be taped. He is an outcast in a society where everyone is registered:

He was led by a red-uniformed guide along the busy corridors lined with separate rooms each containing its groups, here two, there five: the Motor Mechanics, the Construction Engineers, the Agronomists - There were hundreds of specialized Professions and most of them would be represented in this small town by one or two anyway. He hated them all just then: the Statisticians, the Accountants, the lesser breeds and the higher. He hated them because they owned their smug knowledge now, knew their fate, while he himself empty still' had to face some kind of further red tape.

He is told the shocking truth:

The man said, "Good evening, George. Our own sector has only one of you this time, I see."
"Only one?" said George blankly.
"Thousands over the Earth, of course. Thousands. You're not alone."
George felt exasperated. He said, "I don't understand, sir. What's my classification? What's happening?"
"Easy, son. You're all right. It could happen to anyone. He held out his hand and George took it mechanically. It was warm and it pressed George's hand firmly. "Sit down, son. I'm Sam Ellenford."
George nodded impatiently. "I want to know what's going on, sir."
"Of course. To begin with, you can't be a Computer Programmer, George. You've guessed that I think."
"Yes, I have,' said George bitterly. "What will I be, then?"
"That's the hard part to explain, George." He paused, then said with careful distinctness, "Nothing."
"What!"
"Nothing!"
"But what does that mean? Why can't you assign me a profession?"
"We have no choice in the matter, George. It's the structure of your mind that decides that."
George went a sallow yellow. His eyes bulged. "There's something wrong with my mind?"
"There's something about it. As far as professional classification is concerned, I suppose you can call it wrong."
"But why?"
Ellenford shrugged. "I'm sure you know how Earth runs its Educational program, George. Practically any human being can absorb practically any body of knowledge, but each individual brain pattern is better suited to receiving some types of knowledge than others. We try to match mind to knowledge as well as we can within the limits of the quota requirements for each profession."
George nodded. "Yes, I know."
"Every once in a while, George, we come up against a young man whose mind is not suited to receiving a superimposed knowledge of any sort."
"You mean I can't be Educated?"
"That is what I mean."
"But that's crazy. I'm intelligent. I can understand - " He looked helplessly about as though trying to find some way of proving that he had a functioning brain.
"Don't misunderstand me, please," said Ellenford gravely. " You're intelligent. There's no question about that. You're even above average in intelligence. Unfortunately that has nothing to do with whether the mind ought to be allowed to accept superimposed knowledge or not. In fact, it is almost always the intelligent person who comes here."

George becomes a "ward of the planet" and is sent to a "house of the feeble minded" where he can learn from books if he so chooses, but there is no certification process. He decides to leave and attend the "Olympics" a competition not of physical sport, but where different professions can compete in a series of tests for the marketplace; those succeeding well being snapped up by the rich and prosperous outer worlds:

He had expected to be stopped before leaving the grounds. He wasn't. He had stopped at an all-night diner to ask directions to an air terminal and expected the proprietor to call the police. That didn't happen. He summoned a skimmer to take him to the airport and the driver asked no questions. Yet he felt no lift at that. He arrived at the airport sick at heart. He had not realized how the outer world would be. He was surrounded by professionals. The diner's proprietor had had his name inscribed on the plastic shell over the cash register. So and so, Registered Cook. The man in the skimmer had his license up, Registered Chauffeur. George felt the bareness of his name and experienced a kind of nakedness because of it worse, he felt skinned. But no one challenged him. No one studied him suspiciously and demanded proof of professional rating. George thought bitterly: Who would imagine any human being without one?

At the Olympics, he sees his old friend Trevelyan who takes part, but fails, in part because he has used older tapes, and there are better, more advanced educational tapes.

"Didn't do so well did I?" Stubby dropped his cigarette and stepped on it, staring off to the street, where the emerging crowd was slowly eddying and finding its way into skimmers, while new lines were forming for the next scheduled Olympics. Trevelyan said heavily, "So what? It's only the second time I missed. Novia can go shove after the deal I got today. There are planets that would jump at me fast enough - But, listen, I haven't seen you since Education Day. Where did you go? Your folks said you were on special assignment but gave no details and you never wrote. You might have written."
"I should have," said George uneasily. "Anyway, I came to say I was sorry the way things went just now."
"Don't be," said Trevelyan. "I told you. Novia can go shove - At that I should have known. They've been saying for weeks that the Beeman machine would be used. All the wise money was on Beeman machines. The damned Education tapes they ran through me were for Henslers and who uses Henslers? The worlds in the Goman Cluster if you want to call them worlds. Wasn't that a nice deal they gave me?"

Trevelyan is wedded to the idea of a society in which knowledge is designated by certification status. He cannot think outside that box. Because his education has only taken him so far, he is unable to come out with any original thought beyond his training, and this is the reason why he has failed:

"Sure, but I lost time wondering if I could be right in my diagnosis when I noticed there wasn't any clamp depressor in the parts they had supplied. They don't deduct for that. If it had been a Hensler, I would have known I was right. How could I match up then? The top winner was a San Franciscan. So were three of the next four. And the fifth guy was from Los Angeles. They get big-city Educational tapes. The best available. Beeman spectrographs and all. How do I compete with them? I came all the way out here just to get a chance at a Novian-sponsored Olympics in my classification and I might just as well have stayed home. I knew it, I tell you, and that settles it. Of all the damned -"

I'm not going to reveal the twist which comes later in the story, but it makes some clear points during its course.

1) A certificate based society, in which everyone has qualifications, becomes overcrowded, and the qualifications lose their value. This was well known when Parkinson wrote his books. By all means, improve employment prospects with courses, but those of skilled professions must be matched to the demands of society.

2) A society which only understands knowledge in terms of certified qualifications is a society which is only half a society; it is a society that will stagnate because in the pursuit of certain knowledge, it has turned away from the kind of open ended problems that occur in the real world, which cannot all be enumerated, and require problem solving thinking, which is a quite different kind of skill. The benefits of time spent not gaining qualifications, but gaining real workplace experience are being downgraded as a result.

This also brings us back to the idea of "brighter". Under the baneful influence of the IQ test, many people have come to believe that intelligence can be measured by means of a closed, fixed option, series of puzzles, which as far as testing knowledge is concerned, are little more than a sterile backwater.(3)

So is Jersey "getting brighter"? I would say not.

Postscript:

Here is an interesting puzzle which requires thought for its solution. It is not a multiple choice test, but it could be seen as a "theory of mind" test.

A striking feature of many of El Greco's pictures is the way figures and faces often appear to be excessively elongated . In trying to account for this idiosyncratic style, an ophthalmologist proposed in 1913 that El Greco may have had a form of astigmatism, which distorted his vision and led to elongated images forming on his retina (Trevor-Roper, 1970). Although such an explanation may initially seem reasonable, it does not stand up to logical scrutiny. Why?

Links
(1) http://www.channelonline.tv/channelonline_jerseynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=492343
(2) http://www.abelard.org/asimov.php
(3) http://www.mathmojo.com/chronicles/2009/02/08/iq-test-answer/

Annie on Maslow

By way of contrast, as these musings tend to be, some psychotherapy. This time, a few notes, with some autobiographical comments, from my late partner, Annie Parmeter. She discussed Maslow in her class, and also with me.

The idea that the evolution of life was counter to entropy, which she begins with, was partly due to her reading of M. Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled", when he came out with very much that idea. It was one of the few areas that we disagreed, because while the emergence of life, and the increasing complexity of life on earth seems to run counter to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, it only does so if one assumes the earth is a closed system. But it isn't, of course, getting energy into the biosphere from the sun, all the time, and it is the sun's energy which is the engine supplying energy for life on earth - and the sun is running down gradually, so that the whole system is increasing in entropy, regardless of localised areas where it appears to be reversed.

She was very good (and where I did agree with her) in seeing, as she explains here, how part of the apparently value-free "self-actualisation" of Maslow actually embodies cultural values from 20th century America, and it must be reinterpreted or adapted to other cultures.

I'd come across a similar problem arising in conjunction with even the seemingly "objective" IQ testing - it is clear that they often involved not just logic, as their proponents suggest, but also significant cultural biases. Even items such as "Fill an empty field on the left side with the correct picture from the right side" make assumptions about symmetries and regularities which are implicit. The test assumes that the result must come from symmetries in Euclidean geometry, and this has has some absolute Platonic "correctness" in the real world, which of course, it does not. Other considerations may enter into notions of "correctness", for example - in Turkey, prayer rugs, identifiable by a deliberate lack of symmetry (the "arrow" will always be lain in the direction of Mecca), continue to be one of the more beautiful categories of traditional Turkish rugs. The same occurs in Jewish culture, where one of the stylistic traits of Ancient Jewish art is an imperfect symmetry of design where in other cultural contexts a symmetrical pattern would be expected. A "correct" picture might be very unexpected after all!

Anyhow, here is Annie's interesting take on Maslow, and some reflective comments on life:

---

Refelections on Maslow by Annie Parmeter

This evening in class we revisited the work of Maslow and his idea of a hierarchy of needs, the idea of self-actualisation reflecting the popular needs and beliefs of the West coast of America in the 1950s and 60s, some focusing on the human potential of the idea, others applying the principle of self-actualisation to all life as countermanding the natural law of entropy.

The progressive system of needs outlined in Maslow's pyramid can be applied on many levels, right from an individual's addressing the fulfilment of these needs in the decision making process relating to a particular circumstance through consideration of personal development to a chronological 'lifecycle' interpretation of:

· Physiological needs being the primary concern of babies, the elderly, the sick and persons in crisis.
· Safety needs as pertaining to young children.
· Belonging needs applying to all but particularly teenagers seeking peer acceptance and finding their own social niche.
· Recognition needs relating to young adults.
· Self-actualisation needs being part of the human drive to 'create' and 'become'.

Some classmates perceived these needs as being the domain of the privileged few. I think that we all have these needs and the intelligence to find ways of fulfilling them in our daily lives, but the opportunity to address and implement them in particular ways may be the domain of the privileged few.

There are also cultural determinants involved for example our own 'western' value system may encourage a highly individualistic approach but other cultures may see that self-actualisation comes through contribution to the fulfilment of a family, tribal or other larger group need.

Personally I am in a very privileged position with regards being able to concentrate on what is important to me as I have no dependants or work commitments, the only thing that comes between me and my drive to self-actualise is chronic illness which can be an extremely demanding and unpredictable companion.

I see part of the purpose of my existence as being 'to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no one has gone before'. I see no purpose in resistance to the inevitability of change; I welcome the opportunities and possibilities that it brings.

From amongst quite a complex layering of different patterns of attachment I have emerged with a sense of confidence in myself and in addition and perhaps as a consequence I have so far lived a most unusual and interesting life. What I do fear is injustice and men with guns.

As an only child forced to fall back on my own mental and emotional resources from the age of twelve I soon developed the need to form my own judgements of situations, and very soon realised that the view of the world that my parents had portrayed to me no longer existed in real life and quite possibly never had done.

Neither my own view nor that of my parents seemed to tie in with those of the people around me whose ideas seemed to me to be the stuff of fairytales, so I managed the situation as best I could by steering a middle path, on the one hand sticking to my own evaluations gleaned from day to day experiences but on the other presenting a sort of self-preserving collaboration so as to blend in 'undetected'. This charade diminished over the years, until now cantankerous and forty-something I scarcely have the patience to bother with it at all even for the sake of 'social niceties'.

I have made a commitment to be honest with myself, there are still plenty of things I catch myself trying to sweep under the carpet but I'm giving it my best shot. Other people frequently seem to find my honesty fairly scary!

On the subject of presenting my own views.hmm tricky. The last few years have seen me become less and less willing to form any concrete opinions let alone present them to others. Opinions seem to be limiting and bare little relevance to the shifting nature of reality, my boyfriend, a robust critical thinker sees this as a decline into the worst and woolliest sort of relativism. So. damned if you have an opinion and damned if you don't! Am I bovvered?

Taking responsibility for one's life? Quite keen on that as I'm not sure who else is going to do it (so speaks the abandoned owning-class child). I am also interested in taking my share of responsibility for my illness, which I have discussed with my consultant. He is taking care of the medical treatment plan, jointly we are setting goals and I am doing lifestyle choices, research, emotional and mental health and the fun bit.exploration of existential dilemmas.

Ouija boards

By way of something completely different....

Someone on one of the neopagan bulletin boards I visit from time to time, said of the Ouija boards, "Those things scare me silly, as I have known several people with some pretty horrific stories regarding their experiences with them."

I don't like them either. These are some of the reasons I have:

1. Abrogation of responsibility

Recently, there was an Ohio jury that couldn't decide between one charge or another and so you know what they did? They flipped a coin. There have also been reports of Ouija boards being used to come to a decision involving someone's liberty. (cf "The Great Debate V: A Debate on Judicial Reform, England V. United States." by Eugene R. Sullivan, American Criminal Law Review. Volume: 38. Issue: 2., 2001.). This led to a retrial when this decision making process emerged!

This illustrates the danger of a culture of dependency on such methods; it is an extreme example, but ceding responsibility in small matters, but by bit, and someone might find themselves in a similar situation, making a major decision with ethic implications by means of Ouija boards.

2. The Lure of the Forbidden

"Katie and Annae employed Wiccan rituals at the beginning of the Ouija board play, ostensibly to make the séance a more pleasant, perhaps "safer, " or maybe even a more "authentic" experience. Despite this ritual, however, most of the girls were "freaked out" by the end. And this, after all, is the point of Ouija boards. As has been discussed in earlier chapters, it is also the point of many of the teen experiences with the supernatural, from watching horror films, to visiting cemeteries, to telling scary stories late at night."(From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural." by Lynn Schofield Clark, 2003)

As with the Victorians, there is something deliciously creepy about a darkened room, curtains drawn, and a glass marking out answers to questions. Here it functions as a kind of parlour game, where part of the thrill is being frightened by the mysterious way it answers.

Again, from the psychological point of view, there is a culture of dependency, abrogating control: "All the Ouija boards and séances in the world won't conjure up the shades of the dead undead on demand. Do not be fooled: it is they who choose us. We become the helpless ones, the objects of their haunting. " (Cynthia Sugars writing in "Literature and psychology.", Volume: 45. Issue: 3., 1999)

Like "facilitated communication" (which I have come across in my studies on autism), people who use Ouija boards have a vested interest in believing the results. Observing powerful messages and the powerful effect of messages on impressionable people can be impressive.

Yet, as experiences with facilitated communication have shown, decent people often harbor indecent thoughts of which they are unaware. And the fact that a person takes a "communication" seriously enough to have it significantly interfere with the living responsibly is, I think, a sufficient reason for avoiding the Ouija board as being more than a "harmless bit of ntertainment" .'More' magazine in August 1996 reported on the findings of a Glasgow University survey. They estimated that as many as "1 in 10 people - 65% of them women - have been psychologically damaged by their (occult) experiences."

3. Do they work?

I don't think they can give us any truth that is not available from other means, but by placing store on the truth of their utterances, they can work considerable mischief.

G. K. Chesterton recalled how he played with the board as a youth. While he could not explain everything that took place he was sure of one thing: 'In the words that were written for us, there was nothing ostensibly degrading, but any amount that was deceiving...The only thing I will say with complete confidence, about that mystic and invisible power, is that it tells lies.'