I'm Outta Here

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Schizophrenic or inspired?

When people hear voices in their heads we call them mad or schizophrenic.

I wonder whether society has a way of managing and assimilating this madness. The minute we call them pastors, prophets, apostles and so on, we give these people permission to do this and a special place in society. Luckily, not all of these people are arrogant enough to assume they have a direct line to their supreme being.

Throughout the centuries people have told us that a god speaks to them or that their writings are inspired by a god. Are we supposed to just take their word for it? How can we assess whether this is true? Some people say that if a pastor’s words are in line with the bible then he’s genuine. But that begs the question of whether the bible is really the inspired word of their god and how this can be assessed.

Personally, I would be impressed if these books or people could tell us something that no one living in our age could know. The bible does not reveal anything that people living at that time did not already know or couldn’t work out for themselves. Often, they got things wrong. I would have been more impressed if Jesus had taught us about quantum physics or germ theory. Instead he seems to believe the myth of the time that disease is caused by bad spirits.

Revelations and modern day prophecies may be the apologists’ answer: vague, confusing words that are reinterpreted after the fact.

No. I would rather maintain that people who believe a voice in their head tells them what to say and do are self-deluded or slightly unbalanced people, should not be running our countries but should be treated with compassion and understanding, not devotion.

The Word

Why do some people feel so compelled to constantly tell us the Word?

Do they believe that there are still some of us that have not heard?

Or understood?

Why do they feel the repetition of the same message is so imperative for us to hear?

Is their Word so fragile that without constant incantation it will crumble away?

How we become mad

Living in a culture which often seems to have a world view at odds with that in which I was raised, illustrates that one’s own values are not universal and that ‘absolute truth’ is only a fiction.

Not everyone is able to grasp this and it is sad to watch them impotently banging their head against breeze block walls hoping to make a crack. Even grasping this fact does not make it easy and there is always the hope that your own values will prevail.

Many of us foreigners have a difficult time particularly with the notions of truth and justice. It is sometimes impossible for us to step outside of the world we left behind and realise that none of these things are important in the way they were back home. Our attachment to the righteousness of these values makes us look like mad people raging against illusions.

Knowledge for All?

I wonder whether some knowledge is too dangerous for the average person. The knowledge I’m referring to, often seems to be expressed in a form that is incomprehensible to most, with an entrance that seems designed to scare away the casual reader.

A case in point is Nietzsche. His oft quoted statement “God is dead”, out of context, raises many fears in the average person and leads them to believe that he is saying god is deceased. These people would discover that they had much in common with his reasons for this statement if they took the time to read and understand. They might even appreciate his analysis of the problem leading him to make this statement. But for these people, who are so easily scared away, Nietzsche must not be read. Who knows what they will do with the information and they may not have the disposition to be presented with the terrifying truth he reveals.

Subordinate to a system

It’s astonishing how the UK population are pushed to and fro in a technological system designed to make things easy and simple. I guess everyone is happy with it. Life has become systematised. It provides convenience and  ease and streamlines products and services. But everything has its downside. Everyone is boxed and packaged by the ready-made lifestyles they are offered.  In the supermarket, I scanned and paid for my own shopping. I didn’t have to even talk to or deal with another human being. When we have to talk to staff they act as if they have been your best friend for 20 years. The illusion is that we are still having meaningful relationships with other people.

The noise from the media, advertising and the internet allows people to believe they have their own opinions when really their heads are being filled with someone else's ideas. Ideas which, when they reinforce their existing views, they slot into their minds and regard them as their own well-formed beliefs. I suspect that, deep down, people know there is a problem. Maybe that is why everyone is desperately screaming that they are an individual!

Passing the imaculate houses with the old people tending their gardens I felt so sad. What do they feel about the death of the England they once knew? Maybe their beautiful gardens are the last memorials to English humanity?

Capitalist-created harlots

Fashion has assigned women the role of harlot (Merton). It was convincingly sold. Women believe dressing this way comes from their personal desires and is an expression of independence and freedom. Even to challenge this is to be accused of being a right-wing, Christian moralist (each word an insult in its own right). Living in Africa where women cover their bodies, it is always shocking to see someone dressing like a cheap actress from an MTV music video. Does expressing female sexuality mean virtually exposing ones private parts?