A SLIMMING DIET is needed if you want to lose weight. While a little exercise can help at key times during a slimming diet, the main thing is to watch what you eat.

Media Makes You Fat

Dieting is always in the media. It is like the weather; it never goes out of fashion: are fashion models too skinny? are Children are becoming obese earlier? Slimming is big business — which means it is fundamentally capitalist, and that means it depends upon making you want something all the time, and never, ever satisfying that need. The media tells us that dieting makes us fat, while promoting a new diet! The one thing they say that is true is that the answer is a change in lifestyle, but then they spoil it all by telling you to change your lifestyle in a radical way — with different food and drink and exercise regimes!

Today, you are not merely to eat healthily and cook like a TV celebrity chef, but you also have to consider the carbon footprint, choose organic, be fair to third world farmers, watch the pennies, and take into consideration religious dietary requirements on top of your slimming diet demands! (see “Why Consumer Choice is Not Good“). Life is FAR TOO COMPLICATED FOR ALL THIS!

Why Do You Want To Be Thinner?

If you want to be thinner for heath reasons, then do something serious about it - such as the Atkins diet (see below) — or perhaps a professional medical treatment. If it is down to peer pressure or media pressure (see “Why Girls Want to be Stick Thin“), then it might be better for your health (and mental health) to step back and reflect on your body image and esteem.  Maybe you just need better clothes? If you still feel the need to slim down and tone up — perhaps for a beach holiday or wedding — then you will probably not be interested in changing your whole lifestyle, you would probably choose a quick fix… the crash exercise and crash diet method.  Get it sorted, get it done approach.

Why do you Want to Exercise?

My guess is that you probably just want to exercise to speed up weight loss and maybe improve muscle tone.  Cardio-Vascular and Aerobic training will be of no use, but these are bay far the most popular things slimmers do! Some people will say that they want to be healthier through exercise, a lot of people would say that they want to be fitter. Hardly any will say they do exercise to increase fun or because they compete in sport or games. That is a shame.

What is Fit?

To set the record straight, fitness means being fit for purpose, which is merely apt, appropriate, sufficient, enough, or plenty. The word was never intended to mean excess, so terms like “very fit” or “super-fit” are silly and meaningless. If you go about your life without too much effort, then you are fit enough for your life and lifestyle.

If, however, you change your lifestyle, and find that you are out of puff or that muscles start aching, then you are clearly not fit for purpose — that said, it won’t take you long to adapt. This is patently and obviously true — take for example a person who moves home, to an apartment on the third floor. Initially, taking the stairs would require effort, but soon it becomes no problem at all. Look around, there is plenty of everyday evidence in support of fitness flux.

Exercise can be bad

The trouble is that many people who wish to lose weight, take up exercise for the duration of the diet. In addition, they pick the wrong exercises — and gain a voracious appetite to weaken their dietary resolve! Some try toning, but end up building muscles (which weighs more than fat). This must be avoided at all costs because exercise builds an expectation in the body, your metabolism will speed up, and disaster will strike as soon as you quit your exercise program — especially when you stop slimming at the same time.

Crash exercising

Crash exercising always ends badly — often in a real crash! You will burn out, you might injure yourself, or you might have to suddenly stop due to ill-health or injury… and that sudden stop is bad news for losing weight and muscle tone.

If you are going to exercise, then you must maintain it (and be able to maintain it) or else it will be counter-productive. By all means get a professional guide, but don’t get carried away and go “for the burn” — just set reasonable and realistic targets for toning and fitness that you can maintain for years to come. Think about playing a team sport rather than taking a step class or joining a gym filled with weird machines. If you think about it, gyms are designed for body building.

Remember that exercise is as bad as crash dieting, and it is exercise more than anything else that leads to a lifetime of yo-yo weight gains and losses.

Vested Interests

The media and the gym clubs sell us exercise equipment and gym memberships. Books have to be sold. The government want us to be less ill and obese. There is a lot of information out there, and it is confusing. But the solution is simpler than you might think: just walk about a bit more — take the stairs now and then, go dancing — do some stretching — and that is more than enough exercise for anyone, even while dieting. Do more at your peril.

Still sceptical? Come on! Be realistic!

Are you really a gym person? Do you like other people’s sweat and germs? Can you honestly afford the time to go? Is that really you, someone you want to be, or someone you think you ought to be?

Do you believe that you can eat what you like and then just work it off in the gym?

Think Again; it takes a great deal of effort and work over quite a long time just to burn off an teenie-tiny chocolate snack. Is that amount of lifestyle change really going to work for you?

Body Fat comes from Food & Drink

If you are overweight, then it is most likely because of your eating and drinking habits. That is the cruel truth unadorned. But that is NOT an accusation, I am not merely saying that it is a fat person’s fault that they are fat.

Eating and Drinking Culture

Look, people eat and drink for myriad reasons, including boredom, bad habit/ unconscious triggered response, loneliness, and sadness, but also to socialise. In other words it is most often a lifestyle topic.

Life pretty much revolves around food and drink if you think about it, from beers with the boys, barbecues, picnics, pizza with the kids, eating with the family, a bottle of bubbly to celebrate, or a stiff drink to commiserate, food and drink are centre-stage.

When people marry, there is a wedding breakfast, and there is always food at a wake. Birthday cakes, romantic dinners, and mamma’s apple pie tell us the honest truth about how important food and drink are to us all.

How Can You Change Your Whole Lifestyle?

The media demands you change this, that you turn away from the honest truth, that you change your lifestyle to some ridiculous ideal, and that is why such regimes are doomed to failure for us (and wealth for the media moguls, gym equipment sellers and health club entrepreneurs). They ask you to give up your life for some toned, slim, healthy lifestyle of fresh fruit and vegetables and hours in the gym or jogging round the park.

Another truth is that it took a while to get fat, so it really ought to take at least as long to get back to slim. So take the long view, and be realistic – forget the gym and the meal drink substitutes.

Slimmed down portions

Small changes go a long way, but if you want bigger changes or if you are impatient, then an ideal time to change your lifestyle is when you are already changing your lifestyle for other reasons. So if you have moved home, started a new job, or if there is a new relationship or situation, then exploit the imposed change to impose new “healthy” changes of your own. By that I mean, fewer beers, smaller portions, more stairs and stuff that you will realistically be able to maintain easily.

Stay True to Who YOU Are

Generally, though, it really is best if you do NOT change your lifestyle. You are you. Stay that way, be yourself. Just start training yourself to do with a little less food. Start leaving a few things on your plate. Educate your stomach slowly.

Do not buy “slimming” foods or foods that claim to be “healthy”. That’s utter nonsense! One thing is merely substituted with another, fat with trans-fatty acids, sugar with chemicals and so forth. Look at the French and Italians — in fact see my post entitled “Why The American Dream is Our Nightmare” of January 2007.

Buy smaller cups and plates, and reduce portions!

FAD DIETS

Do fad diets work? Yes they do, it’s just that people cannot stick to them — or else they do not really understand them.

Atkins Explained

Take for example, ATKINS’S DIET. This absolutely works, and it cannot fail if done properly. It demands a very scientific mind and methodical approach. It was designed for saving the lives of excessively fat US Americans — people who were so overweight they were at death’s door.

This technical diet is probably the most misunderstood of all slimming diets. It is actually not a single diet at all, rather it is three diets. Everyone talks about the first one — the one that lasts for the shortest time, heaven knows why.

The Atkins Diets are only about controlling your personal carbohydrate requirement — for life! To do the diet you will need (a) many vitamin pills, (b) an exercise regime, (c) urine testing strips, and (d) set of scales.

The first diet puts you into a state of ketosis, you will have very bad breath, and your urine testing strips will change colour to show that you have used up all your carbohydrates and your body is now eating its own fat reserves (in other words, that you are slimming down). All you have done is removed all carbohydrates from your diet. It takes a few days to reach ketosis, and this first diet only lasts a week.

Now that you have reached a special state, you slowly start added back in a little carbohydrate at a time, using the urine testing strips, and weighing yourself a lot to discover the exact amount of carbs that it takes (and that is unique to you) for you to leave the state of ketosis. This is the position where you neither gain nor lose weight. This phase takes a few weeks.

You then add more carbs until you discover the exact amount of carbs that makes your weight increase.

The third diet is using the information your experimental diets have provided — you know exactly how many carbs will make you lose weight, stay at a weight and gain weight — you are therefore in total control of your body’s weight forever.

Atkins fails because people are not that scientific — they do the first part of the diet only — and they do it for weeks. Weeks without bread, pasta and the like is difficult to maintain. It is almost impossible to eat out socially. Alcohol is forbidden too. It is a serious lifestyle change… yet it is NOT a slimming diet per se, rather a method for discovering a certain number of grammes of carbohydrate in your particular diet will make you fet or thin.

Calories and Body Type

Calorie-controlled diets do work, of course they do. The extent to which they work very much depends upon your body type (somatotype and female equivalent). But they fail because it is too much of a lifestyle change to add up calories all the time.

Crash diets are great if, when they are over, you manage to maintain things — and that has to mean smaller portions. The choice is yours to lose weight slowly or quickly. The key to success is to monitor the situation by weighing yourself, keeping an eye on things, and minimising lifestyle changes.

Disorders

Do not confuse slimming with anorexia, or bulimia. Eating disorders are quite different from fad or yo-yo dieting behaviour. Also do not confuse a so-called healthy diet with a slimming diet. Five portions of fruit each day is demanding, expensive, bad for your teeth and stomach, and is very fattening unless you exercise a lot in the gym.

FORGIVENESS is out of fashion at the moment.

I think it is a great shame; forgiveness is a measure of civilisation, of how far we have progressed, or advanced - how civilised we have become.

Unfortunately, the present hunger is for revenge and retribution. We demand punishment for people who have done wrong, especially when they have done wrong to us personally.

This trend has been around for a while now, and may reflect the post-Christian society (or post-religious secularity). So much so that we can actually laugh at revenge scenarios, of divorce and “a woman scorned”. We are so very selfish these days.

My point is that this is not good for us collectively nor individually.

At this point I would really like to begin my attempt to convince you that forgiveness could lengthen your life, and improve the quality of it as well.

In my opinion, an attitude of forgiveness, a habit of forgiving, leads to better design. Better design means a better life. Let me try to show you what I mean by that.

Have you ever deleted something on your computer by accident? Have you ever closed down a file you were working on, and wished you hadn’t; you lost your work? That is a horrible feeling, isn’t it?

Have you ever missed your turn-off from a motorway? It’s so frustrating, but you have to drive miles to take the next turn-off, cross over to rejoin the motorway going in the opposite direction, merely to then take the turn-off again — of course, not all turn-off arrangements allow immediate access over to the other side, and you can get into a right old muddle, and drive a great many miles all because you made a simple mistake.

The point is that it is human to make a mistake, and we ought to take this into account when we design things — we ought to go with the natural flow, make allowances for human error, and build in options — forgiveness (not punishment).

It is not good enough to put up a few signs at the side of the road. It is not sufficient to have a pop up ask you if you really want to overwrite a computer file. You have to provide a way back, a forgiveness path.

• Imagine a life where you do not get jumped on and penalised for every single silly mistake!
• Imagine a world of forgiveness, or common sense prevailing (instead of job’s worth types following orders and doing things exactly by the book).

If you can imagine that world, you must surely see how much less stressful it would be — how much happier we’d all be.

That in itself would reduce much of society’s problems. And there is actually a lot of proof to back this up.

For example, the late Hans Monderman showed that people are more kind and considerate of each other when all the road markings, traffic lights, signs and pavements are removed. he managed to eliminate traffic jams, reduce pollution, save the planet, save lives and destress people. I discussed Monderman in my post “How to Stop Traffic Jams & Save Lives” of 2007-01-20.

Why have disabled parking space allocation, when people are more understanding and nicer? Having such spaces creates anger and frustration. Rules and regulations tend to do that — why? That’s right, because they are inflexible and unforgiving.

Durham County has no speed cameras; drunk drivers do not get caught by cameras, only speed offenders get caught. So their policy has been to actually do some proper policing instead. Policing is all about letting people off, it is not about being as black-and-white and clear cut as a camera. Warnings, prevention due to police presence, and having a very good excuse are all called into play in a more negotiable and potentially forgiving situation.

So while forgiveness can be built-in to certain designed things, it’s not necessarily so permanent and rigid; forgiveness can also be down to common sense and humanity.

That’s why examinations often have components — a written test, some coursework, an assessment, and so forth. This is because any person can have an off day — that’s forgiveable, isn’t it? Not everyone responds well to the pressure of an exam, so we need to forgive that effect somehow.

Forgiveness is not about letting everyone do what they want, anarchy, or being soft on criminals. No, not at all; forgiveness is about making things better.

From the rigid, Kantian written laws that must be obeyed (if you do the crime, then you must do the time), to the opposite anarchistic extreme, forgiveness is found in the middle; it is the balance point — the region where you use human judgement in applying rules in the interests of fairness and a better outcome.

Forgiveness is about improvement for humanity. It’s about tolerance and understanding. It’s about listening, and helping people to aspire to their potential — haven’t we had enough of restrictions?

Letting go of the rules means that people can be free to act like people, as opposed to acting mechanically, or robotically to a set of rigid rules and instructions.

EVERYONE seems to know what “art” is until you ask them. It’s all very complicated for such a small word!

I decided to investigate, and found that the meaning of “art” has changed over quite a short period of time — and not merely changed, but radically changed so that it presently means the polar opposite of what it originally meant — and that’s pretty amazing, in my opinion.

When I began thinking about what “art” is supposed to mean, I scribbled down some phrases, randomly, as they arrived in my mind — art, arty, artisan, artist, arty-farty, the arts, artistic, art gallery, state of the art, bachelor of arts, the art of seduction, and so on.

“State of the art” and “the art of seduction” provided the key for me, a realisation that an art was something that you learned, something that required practice, a skill honed. A Bachelor of Arts degree therefore means that you have been able to show that you have learned something difficult to the required degree.

In fact, further research confirmed this realisation. Art is something acquired by practice. Practice makes perfect. The art of guitar playing, the art of dancing, the art of fishing, the art of oration.

Long ago, people sat and practised needlework, piano-playing, painting a canvas, and would describe themselves as acquiring the art.

This drew me to realise that art was all about schooling, learning and teaching — in other words, it did not relate at all to anything natural – “art” was not about natural ability or talent, but simply to dedicated application and perseverence!

This idea was further enhanced by the idea of mechanisation being the ultimate art form! This makes perfect sense because, you see, the idea of practice is to be able to repeat an activity as identically as possible each time. So the aim is to be able to play the music exactly the same each time, or to be able to hit the bull’s eye each time with the dart. In other words, the nearer to a machine the better — or to put this the other way round, the less human the better.

That’s pretty surprising, isn’t it?

Emotions and feelings interfere with performing arts, one has to learn to rise above human weaknesses and try to behave like an automaton or robot.

Workers in mechanised industries, with conveyor belts and assembly lines are known as artisans for that reason. Consistent behaviour equals predictable outcomes.

However, art has changed, and seems now to be applied to things that are emotional, natural, rough, and which cannot be repeated — such as rusting sculptures, unmade beds, paintings made up of splashes and drips, improvised dance and so forth.

The worth or value of an art is no longer associated with hard work, but with effortlessness. Nature and natural ability are more valued than anything gained from study, practice and diligence.

How could this word come to have the reverse meaning?

I think the answer has to do with quality — with worth and value. My thought process went like this: as an art is perfected, the natural or human aspect is necessarily reduced — and this devalues the product because a real machine will always be better, more accurate and efficient. In division of labour, working in a conveyor-belt style factory, a worker is skilled in part (not whole). If a machine, computer or robot can replace the artist, then what does that say about art?

Two concert pianists, for example, will be able to produce and reproduce extremely high quality work, what is to choose between them — or indeed what is to choose between them and some computerised or mechanical option?

It therefore seems to be the case that for an art to be of value, there needs to be an X-Factor, a certain je ne sais quoi. I mean to say, there has to be something, some quality , that makes a mere human activity better than the mechanised version.

This crucial, tiny factor has to be natural — over the other, one person might have a better body type or shape, or their body may be in better health or condition. They might be more intelligent or simply more interested. Who knows if this skill, talent, genius or whatever you want to call it, is accidental or God-given, genetically inherited or developed, encouraged and learned.

The Italians call it Bella Figura — but they are not alone in adding value in this way; across the world, extra kudos is given for this extra factor — it is not merely what you do, but the way that you do it, the way it looks. Things can be impressive, beautiful, well-presented, courteously and politely done. Add sportsmanship or flair to a football game, add emotion and respond to an audience, get the groove or the vibe, catch the wave.

Now, as this aspect cannot be repeated exactly the same each time, the value must come from the scarcity. You go to see the prima ballerina or prima ballerina assoluta – and (of course) she will consistently perform to the highest quality, but that will be her at her worst, for at her best, she will perform better — she will add something natural.

I suspect that because of this, over time, a lot of people have forgotten about the practice and hard work that goes into any repeatable, reproducible art, and now we have reached the point where art is all about one-offs. It seems to me that dripping paint cannot be reproduced exactly, and working with naturally found and formed objects is as far from mechanisation as you can get!

This obviously leads to massive problems in definition and in understanding art — the situation we have today. Now, almost anything can be claimed as art. It seems to have almost been redefined to mean anything that has no practical use or purpose. Some people think art has a role in our lives by challenging us intellectually and emotionally through humour, amusement, intrigue or juxtaposition.

I would go as far as to suggest that art may have died and been reborn anew as a token. Let’s face it, if you have something that is of no use or purpose, yet it exists and is not considered refuse or rubbish — then it is perfect for use as a token for investment and offsetting tax. High financial values are decided upon by the élite for the élite to suit themselves and their purposes. This art is not for everyone; it is pretentious — it is meant to be.

I think it is a great shame that this has happened because economics skews things, and I would rather live in a world of bella figura than of heavily marketed pop music, muzak, pointless civic sculptures, and unmade beds. Can we rescue art from business?

It seems to me that people often expect things to come easily as a result of all this — they want to be suddenly discovered, they want fame and fortune without doing the hard work and practice. You can be a singer without lessons, without practice and sometimes without ability — the public will vote for you or download and buy your music and go to your shows if the marketing is right. In the end, computers can fix your bum notes and make you look perfect in your photographs.

End of Part One.

ON TELEVISION, archaeology showed us all it was possible to dig down a bit and discover fossils or ancient encampments from times lone gone. They always seemed to be digging, and this remains the case as far as I can ascertain.

In my humble opinion, this seems to suggest that if you leave something alone for long enough, it will become covered over. I think this is significant.

I was quite young when I first realised this was what had happened, and further enquiries provided a startling conclusion: man was at war with nature. It was a constant battle too, with no let up.

Anything that man left alone would corrode away to nothing, and it is obvious that we have very little impact on nature in the long run; that is the way it works. Nature is in constant flux and is infinitely adaptable. Therefore it cannot be beaten.

• It is a vanity to think we can impact so greatly on the planet, or anything else for that matter. Let’s face the truth: in the end, nature will win, and we will be beaten out of existence.

It is obvious when you think about it; we have no control over earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, drought, infestations, or asteroid collisions and so much more.

I really do think that only when we all can accept this simple and obvious truth, that we can live better. We can stop thinking we can affect the outcomes with prayer, or with nuclear weapons. The sooner we realise that the enemy is not Russian, Islam, or Alien, the better.

Let’s be really blunt to make the point. If we hunt down and kill an entire species, then it is extinct. Nature (including us) then has to adjust to compensate. That’s all… please accept that it will cope and move on.

I wonder if it is better to let something become extinct or for mankind to try to play nature by struggling to keep a species alive.

We have a housing shortage in the UK at the moment, but new locations are bedevilled by groups who think that building homes would adversely affect nature.

• They have a view that nature is some fragile and intricate system that relies on some kindly caring humans to continue!

This is patently nonsense; if you allow a motorway or housing scheme to be built, notice how much effort, time and cost is involved in maintenance. Without constant and vigilant upkeep, the motorway and housing would be returned to nature, leaving only bits and pieces for future archaeologists to discover.

Indeed the only difference between actively removing the motorway and houses and just leaving them to nature is that archaeologists would prefer us to just abandon things for them to find in the future!

The first barrier between mankind and nature is clothing. Shelter is the second barrier. If we did not keep warm and dry, nature would make sure we became extinct.

We struggle to keep our shelters warm and dry, and even though things have progressed and developed over time, this is still a fundamental truth. We decide on our conditions for comfort, beating nature until the day we get cancer, famine, flood or earthquake, for rest assured, in the end nature wins.

For my part, I do not have the fears of Burke and Hare, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein’s monster, the Island of Dr. Morreau — they were of their time.

The Enlightenment and then the Industrial Revolution meant great changes in a short time. We basically went from a religious and superstitious rural existence to a scientific, industrious, rational, and urban one. As the value of God declined, the belief in mankind’s power increased to a point where some thought we ought to worry about it.

I do not suffer that vanity. It doesn’t matter if I believe that we caused Global warming, or if I believe that we can do something about it; I believe that if we did nothing, nature would cope perfectly well. The question is whether nature would include us in any future plan. So we have to do something to try to fight nature and continue to exist as a species. That’s the bottom line; the eternal struggle for existence.

It is the same for asteroids and meteors that might collide with Earth and destroy us all — we will have to try to blow them off course using nuclear devices or die trying. When an earthquake knocks down my house, I will build another.

I have no problem with GM foods, antibiotics, superbugs, animal research, hunting and so forth. Yes, I can see the ethical, religious and moral issues, but clarity is brought to the debate when you realise that the enemy is nature, and we have to do what we have to do to survive for as long as we can individually and as a race.

Does that mean that I have issues with religious people or vegetarians? Funnily enough, the answer is no. Acting as a group, mankind has done such a good job of creating such a false and cosseted environment that such people are inevitable — but the wonderful thing is that we can afford to have such people, and sometimes they are useful in making sure that the money and power is shared out better.

Knowing that nothing lasts is a great help throughout life.

The way I have learned to look at things is to know that if left unattended, they will disappear to all but the archaeologist. I apply this to everything from health, through wealth, to love and relationships.

One could say that relationships do not last and that would be true; they have ups and downs, peaks and troughs, or highs and lows just like everything else, and they will certainly run their course UNLESS they are maintained.

Keeping a relationship alive is just like any battle for survival; the relationship must be prevented from stagnation, it must be kept alive, it must be maintained, nourished, cared for, manipulated, etc. A relationship is not a condition or state, it is active, ever changing and requires participation and a commitment to involvement.

You know that it won’t last forever, but you can make sure it is long lasting and fun as well as meaningful and important.

A career is the same; it needs interest and ambition, it needs attending and activity — it needs risks, not bland securities and safeties.

Every area of your life makes this demand on you. You have to choose which things get your attention, you have to prioritise as best you can. It will fade away and die if you do nothing, so it requires positive energy and vision to maintain it, to pursue it, to make it work (whatever that is). Nothing lasts forever, but that is no excuse to do nothing!

IN a previous article posted on this blog, I attempted to show how easily we are manipulated by the wording of copyright restriction notices (see How Words Manipulate of January 2007). I wrote that article because it had become annoying enough in my mind and I needed an outlet.

Recently I have been getting annoyed by the rhetoric of the gutter press, magazines, web sites, radio and television — especially when journalists interview serious professionals who cannot resort to quips or soundbites, or when politicians are involved!

That is why I have returned to this subject. This time I want to concentrate on how we are manipulated by the spoken word — by what is known as “fallacies”. Apart from my attempt to be helpfully informative, I sincerely do hope that my readers will enjoy this article — but, more importantly, that they enjoy playing spot-the-fallacy in interviews ever after.

The Straw Man

The Straw Man is a pretty good place to start as it is one of the most common fallacies. My mother used to use it all the time; I would say, “I am hungry, can I have my dinner early?” to which she’d reply: “No, if we were to allow our children to set the meal times, it wouldn’t be long before we’d be in utter chaos”.

That is “The Straw Man”. I did not suggest that we set all the meal times, I merely asked for one meal time to be adjusted, my argument was replaced by a straw man.

Here’s an example from Wikipedia:

Person A: We should liberalize the laws on marijuana.
Person B: No. Any society with unrestricted access to drugs loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.

The proposal was to relax laws on marijuana. Person B has exaggerated this to a position harder to defend: “unrestricted access to drugs”.

In my own personal experience, “The Straw Man” is over-used by school-teachers, policemen, and parents. It is also used quite a bit in comedy routines and sketches.

Argumentum ad hominem

This is a gem! It is usually called “ad hominem” meaning against the man. It is really annoying because, once you know it and can recognise it, you think of it as blatantly obvious and rather stupid — but it must work as it is extremely common. I reckon I hear this fallacious argument every single day on the news and current affairs media. Honestly!

Person A makes claim X

There is something objectionable about Person A

Therefore claim X is false

I know: it really is that daft! To understand how something so daft can manage to persuade, consider this example:

“You claim that this man is innocent, but you cannot be trusted since you are a criminal as well.”

That line must have been used in a million court-room dramas; discrediting a witness undermines their testimony. Yet, when you think about it, what has you being a criminal got to do with someone’s innocence? You might be right or you might be wrong, but the argument is a fallacy because it is illogical — the one thing does not follow on from the other thing.

It is called “ad hominem” because it attacks the personal, leaving the abstract realm of argument and counter-argument behind. It can get pretty abusive too, consider this:–

“Why are we listening to your opinion about Iraq when you do not even have a job or pay taxes!”

Ad hom & Association

The abuse continues with association tactics, such as — “Well you would say that” — “You would defend the government because you are in the cabinet”, “You would stick up for men against women because you are a man”

Attacks like these are difficult to answer. What can you say other than to protest that “it’s not like that”, that you are or try to be impartial or fair-minded. It is a cheap shot to use “ad hom abuse” for it is nothing more than bullying and belittling; it has no basis in rational argument or logic. Consider this:

Person A makes claim X.
Group B also make claim X.
Therefore, person A is a member of group B.

Example: “You say the gap between the rich and poor is unacceptable, but communists also say this, therefore you are a communist”. This can so easily become a red herring.

Red Herring

A red herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument. The above ad hom association can develop like this:

“You say the gap between the rich and poor is unacceptable. You don’t really mean that, do you? Communists say the same thing. You’re not a communist, are you?”.

The rhetoric here forced the person to engage in a debate about them being a communist, rather than discuss the actual topic. Their credibility can start to slip, and they seem less trustworthy! Listen out for this red herring style as it is in almost every political debate on TV and radio.

Tu quoque

“Tu quoque” (pronounced, unfortunately, as “two cock”, and meaning “And you too!”), is another deliberate diversion from the original issue (red herring). It is where the advice or argument is declared false because the person presenting it doesn’t follow it themselves.

“Tu quoque” is frequently seen in conjunction with ad hom, when the assertion implies wrongdoing on the part of the presenter.

A makes criticism P.
A is also guilty of P.
Therefore, P is trashed.

For example: “Thomas Jefferson argued that slavery was wrong and should be abolished, but since Jefferson himself owned slaves, how could slavery be wrong?”.
Slavery was either right or wrong, regardless of Jefferson’s actions. The validity or truth-value of Jefferson’s argument is not affected by his participation in slavery.

Finally, the rather splendidly named “ignoratio elenchi” (pronounced “ig-no’-rasho’-hay-laynshee):

Ignoratio elenchi

“I should not pay a fine for dangerous driving. There are actual dangerous criminals on the streets, and the police should be chasing them instead of harassing a decent tax-paying citizen like me”.

The existence of worse criminals is a secondary issue which has no bearing on whether the driver deserves a fine for recklessness. If this was a deliberate attempt to divert the issue, then it would be a red herring. While the argument about how the police should spend their time may have merit, the question of whom the police should prioritise pursuing, and the question of what should be done with those the police have caught, are separate questions.

Another example: “He such a nice guy, wildly popular at the moment — and he gives a lot of money to all sorts of charities. Clearly, he will end up with an Oscar tonight”.

The conclusion here is “ignoratio elenchi”, since friendliness and charity are not the main qualifications for getting an Oscar.

So have fun spotting straw men, tu quoques, red herrings, ignoratio elenchis, and ad hom abuses; they are everywhere! When you do you will realise just how little real argument and debate exists, how so much is avoided by such rhetorical tactics, and how in the end, we are all seriously misled and manipulated.

I AM going to argue here that things have gone wrong, and that responsibility has become misplaced. It seems to me to be the case that things are no longer what they once were, that things are no longer simple.

Allow me to illustrate: Bread is no longer just bread, there is an amazing range of types of bread — it takes up a lot of shelves in the supermarket. Which one should I buy?

Well, I suppose you can try one after the other until you find a type of bread that you prefer, that seems a reasonable basis for choice — except that it is not, according to all the many lobby groups around.

I am supposed to try to be healthy, so I ought to buy “healthy” bread. If I am worried about the obesity figures, I should select bread that is low in fat and calories, perhaps low in salt to lower cholesterol…

But what about “Organic” — it may be more expensive, but it’s better for you — isn’t it? Maybe so, but the lobbyists for saving the planet would argue that you should select bread that is made locally — with less air miles and a lower carbon footprint.

Well, that might tie-in with those who say you ought to support local farmers or the UK agricultural business.

But then you would fall foul of those who say that you would kill off Fair Trade — those poor farmers in Africa and South America who depend on you buying their stuff (and to hell with saving the planet)!

I could go on, but I wont; you no doubt get the idea and catch my drift.

The fact is that it is impossible to act in accordance with all the factors involved. So no matter what you do as a consumer, you are going to get it horribly wrong, and your action will cause suffering and death, and potentially kill off the human race as well as planet Earth.

Oh, why did I pick that loaf?

Here’s a typical list of nutritional ingredients on a box of cereal (Click on the pic )

Honestly, all this education, all this information, is this what we have come to?

I heard on the radio recently that more information on packaging is a good idea because it informs the consumer, and allows them to make informed choice!

To me this is another way of saying that the responsibility has been transferred (or shirked). The manufacturer is no longer accountable, and that goes for the government too. Everything is MY fault now.

I cannot accept that by telling me the figures that I can be responsible for any consequences, incidental or otherwise. OK, I can look at a product in a supermarket, the packaging could tell me that it has so much salt, so much fat and so forth. Am I now to calculate my daily nutritional requirement with this information? Am I to get out my copy of McCance and Widdowson’s? No, the information is useless in that sense — it can only be useful in the context of the time and place, allowing the consumer to choose which products to buy. That’s a pretty narrow context, isn’t it?

Ethical considerations are much the same — the consumer may be able to choose between one brand of coffee over another, perhaps taking the Fair Trade one.

The decision to choose personal health (survival) over ethical considerations is more tricky. I personally do not feel comfortable having to make that choice.

The way I see it, no food (or anything else of that matter) should be unhealthy or produced in an environment of suffering and exploitation. That should be a matter for elected representatives (goodness we have are enough of them), not us and certainly not at the point of sale.

This would free the consumer to base their choice upon value — mainly cost and taste — and that is correct and as it should be (and as it once was). If local is not cheaper, or organic not tastier, then one has to ask why!

Value is what the packaging information should be about. Biscuits, for example, have extra value when they come with a useful tin box. People do buy things because of nice packaging, but the information on the package adds value — for example, it might inform you that the contents are long-lasting, easy to cook, or best before. Aside from these, value is to be had from information such as being halal or kosher, vegetarian or health-based (gluten-free, contains nuts, etc).

• A worst case might be a Jewish vegetarian with a lactose intolerance and coeliac disease looking for an easy cook ready meal that is cheap but tasty — surely that is enough, without also having to burden this poor person with ethical choices as well!

Why should I have a guilt trip about the conditions of chickens, of third world farmers, calories, added sugar, E-numbers, and carbon footprints?

I just don’t get it. Smoking Kills. It actually says so on the packet! If that is true, then why are they legally for sale? Heroin is illegal, Speed is illegal, Dope is illegal, — so what is going on with cigarettes? Are they saying we can make the choice for ourselves, so it is our responsibility when we die - it is all our own fault. I say that we created a government to do this sort of stuff for us — to save us from having to deal with this by ourselves. Immediate removal of cigarettes from the shelves should be combined with government funded support for nicotine addicts. Tobacco has been a shameful enterprise from the slave-driven outset — we’ve had hundreds of years of this blight, will it never end?

As I stated above, if a product is suddenly found to be bad, like hydrogenated vegetable oil or cigarettes, then it should be removed from the shelves. It is not about personal choice - that is stupid. The personal choice argument is logically invalid.

Of course, there will be those who disagree with me. They might say that we have a “nanny state” and that government is poking its nose into areas they shouldn’t.

The thing is that I wholeheartedly agree with that — I hate a nanny state myself, I just don’t think it applies here; this is exactly the place where government ought to be involved. For me, the nanny state argument stands, but it relates to other matters.

ALBERT Einstein is credited with saying:

‘Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’.

This is often presented as “K.I.S.S. — or Keep It Simple, Stupid”. The idea of keeping things as simple as necessary is very often accredited to a Fransciscan monk from back in the 1300s — a chap called William from the English town of Occam (or Ockham) in Surrey.

William of Occam did indeed come up with a law of succinctness (parsimony) — but is this lex parsimoniae the same thing as advocating simplicity? As far as I can ascertain, Occam said:

‘Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.’

I do not think this is the same meaning — or intention — as Einstein’s, but to assist you in making up your own mind, here’re the origins as I found them:

‘Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate’;
‘Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem’;
‘Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora’;

I personally think William was advocating that in creating, building, writing, drawing, (etc) that you should not ADD anything that is not required. Whereas Albert was coming from a different direction — reducing, removing, deducting, and making things simpler.

Nevertheless, it has been the Einsteinian approach that has, over the years, been manipulated into what-is-known-as “Occam’s Razor”.

William Ockham (c. 1285–1349) is remembered as an influential nominalist, but his popular fame as a great logician rests chiefly on the maxim attributed to him and known as Occam’s razor Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem or “Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily.” The term razor refers to the act of shaving away unnecessary assumptions to get to the simplest explanation. No doubt this represents correctly the general tendency of his philosophy, but it has not so far been found in any of his writings. His nearest pronouncement seems to be Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate, which occurs in his theological work on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (Quaestiones et decisiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi [ed. Lugd., 1495], i, dist. 27, qu. 2, K). In his Summa Totius Logicae, i. 12, Ockham cites the principle of economy, Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora.
— Thorburn, 1918, pp. 352-3; Kneale and Kneale, 1962, p. 243.

OK, perhaps it does not matter whether you start with something basic and add nothing superfluous or whether you start with something complex and shave it down to something simple — as long as you arrive at something that is as simple (or as complex) as it needs to be — no more and no less. If that were so, then I would be prepared to allow Einstein to equal Occam.

However, when I first read ‘Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily,’ I immediately took it to mean that people should not have too many children (perhaps I saw the word, ‘multiply’ and thought of the command to ‘go forth and multiply’ in the Western Christian tradition). My next thought was that we should not have too many cars, clothes, homes, rooms, and so forth, and we should work, play, eat (etc) just enough (not too much and not too little). I was immediately reminded of the ‘Golden mean’, and of Daedalus warning his son Icarus to fly the middle course between the sea’s spray and the sun’s heat. So the whole idea of a “Razor”, “austerity” and “simplicity” surprised me.

Is it possible that just because William was a mendicant monk living the austere and simple life behind the monestary walls, people think his ideas must have something to do with a vow of poverty or living a very basic life by removing all extraneousness and ornamenture to arrive at a core? Hmm; I do seem to remember that he spoke out against the wealth of the papacy.

• What this idea means, and how it is used, is pretty significant because it appears to be a cornerstone for many arguments by many great thinkers through the years. Furious rows have been generated by the scientific community as well as by the religious and the philosophical.

For example, I know that a lot of mathematicians and physicists think that Occam’s principle is that if you have two equally likely solutions to a problem, you MUST pick the simplest. Now, while this may be stretching things a bit, as far as William of Occam is concerned, it is however true that Aristotle said nature operates in the shortest way possible, but I am not so sure. I’ll come back to this later.

Obvious & Easy

Some go further and believe that all processes ought to begin with the most obvious and easiest. This comes from phrases such as “Say what you see” (from TV’s “Catchphrase”) and “If you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras”. Unfortunately, this sort of thinking is easily exploited by the unscrupulous — from con men to setting people up or influencing a jury. The most simple, the easiest, the obvious is not always the truth.

Interpretations

Many scholars take Occam to mean that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory.

The thing is, ‘Occam’s Razor’ has been claimed by loads of people, from Isaac Newton to Leibniz’s ‘identity of observables’.

Presently I find that it is often taken to mean that nothing should be done until it has to be done (things are left to the very last minute) , or that things ought to be “dumbed down” (never use a ‘big’ word or a complicated idea) — that things would be aimed at the lowest common denominator, the simplest thinking of the population. I have even been led to believe that Occam is responsible for the media’s concentration on base instincts — sex and money, opulence and pleasure!

My my, how we can interpret, misinterpret and re-interpret; we have managed to take a sentence from the 14th century and make it have polar opposite meanings — on the one hand avarice and abundance, on the other hand, minimalism and simplicity!

Misuse

Like myself, Galileo Galilei hated the misuse of Occam’s Razor — and wrote of it in his publication, ‘Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo‘, which compared the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system. Although this was back in 1632, poor old Occam is still being abused and misused to this very day!

This is patently a ridiculous situation, so let’s try to sort out the mess. The crux seems to be in the idea of simplicity (we touched on this before — it comes from Aristotle), so let’s attend to that first of all.

Simplicity is desirable?

If a patient, exhibiting many symptoms, presents himself to a physician — is the diagnosis that he has a single rare disease (the simplest solution) that fits the symptoms, or that he has a number of more commonplace diseases (the more complex solution)? It is statistically more likely that this patient has several common diseases, which is known in the medical profession as ‘Hickam’s dictum‘ (The principle usually and delightfully stated as: “Patients can have as many diseases as they damn well please”). This is one very important argument against simplicity.

Another counter-argument against simplicity I found in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which holds as a basic principle that ‘multiple descriptions are better than one’ to communicate better. Simplicity in communication and interrelations is undesirable because people respond differently to verbal and body language depending on a bias to the senses (to be glib, some people know what you are saying, while others hear what you are saying, or see what you are saying).

Most biologists know that simplicity is not always the preferred route taken by nature, and they are pretty active in warning about the limitations of Occam’s razor.

• So simplicity is NOT always the best way, not always appropriate, not always natural, and not always desirable.

Having said that, simplicity is more often the best way (just not always).

The Meaning

I don’t think Occam wanted a Razor, I think he was taking about taking a middle route, the Golden Mean. I give William credit for not being wrong, for not backing simplicity. The Golden Mean allows Occam to be meaningful to those biologists and medical professionals who know the limitations of simplicity.

The Razor came later, and although called Occam’s Razor, I don’t see it as authentically Occam — but, hey, that doesn’t matter; as the NLP folk say, “The meaning of the communication is the response it produces, not the intended communication” — so Occam’s Razor is what everyone says it is. It therefore means a lot of different things, and I am happy enough with that.

For many years I have had dialogues and quarrels filled with arguments and counter-arguments regarding this, and what I always try to do is separate Occam’s principle (have just enough) from Occam’s Razor (simplification). I have to say that in this I am not often very successful; it is a subtle point to try to get across.

Relevance Today

Both Occam’s Razor and Principle are relevant today. They are empowering and enlightening. If we take enough — if we do not overdo anything, if we get the balancing act just right, then we can avoid the fate of poor Icarus!

While I may have seemed somewhat anti-Razor, I actually like the myriad forms of it — and I would think it a good thing to seek simplicity in most things — as long as the simplicity is not detrimental.

For example, I would like less dumbing down in the media — a middle route is best (not too high brow and not too silly either), but I would like a simpler, more streamlined political system. I really do think politicians are not good for us. In general, I would like to have public services as simple as possible (but not too simple), but fewer very rich people and fewer very poor people (which simply means more people with enough). I would love simple traffic management systems such as advocated by Hans Mondermann (see How To Stop Traffic Jams & Save Lives and Why The Car Is Best), and a better sense of community with better connections between government and people, and between groups of people (see How To Manage Racism, Sectarianism and Sexism).

I do not mind games with complicated rules, books with complicated ideas, challenging educational subjects, puzzles and so forth (as long as they are no more complicated than they need to be). I like to think for myself — and to be free and able to research for myself (see How To Get To Heaven Part 1, part 2 and part 3). However, I resent complexity in red tape and paperwork as much as I resent dumbing down and simplistic religious concepts (see How It All Began).

I don’t think I am unique in these respects, so I would urge people to think Occam, and get to work with that Razor of his!

ALL today’s politics and ideologies are in fact pretty new. It’s odd that we just take for granted ideas like Capitalism, Democracy, Communism, Socialism, Trades Unions, insurance, banking, and even parliaments as the norms.

However, the truth is that they are all experimental ideas — all of them are man-made, designed, thought up, devised, planned and contrived — and they are not very old, so they have not had a lot of time to iron out the wrinkles.

Although trade is as natural and as old as mankind itself, it soon became corrupted when “capital” was required to build ships for global shipping trade. “Capitalism” was born out of invention not nature — the idea being that you speculate, raise money and provide a return depending on results.

I have heard far too often that “Capitalism” is natural and intuitive when it clearly is not! Capitalism is far removed from the simple natural world of trade, and is a complex man-made system of investments and returns, of insurance against loss and damage, of stocks and shares, and of banking. As time goes on there are new complexities added — think of things like portfolios, hedging, betting against the future value of shares and earning a living entirely from “playing the markets”.

It amazes me that so many people think there is only one game, and only one set of rules, and that it is impossible to change anything (or to think up something “new”). Why just accept things as they are; after all nothing is set in stone! Realising this, are we not compelled to ask what has worked and what has not? — and what is the best form of government for now and for the future?

Surely a review is well overdue?

This developing Capitalism was naturally the perfect model to be taken up during the Industrial Revolution of the mid-1800s as it was as perfectly suited to production as it was to trade, and it did not have any particular political or philosophical position — meaning that it was able to co-exist with government (indeed governments would gamble tax money on the free markets).

However, the historical period is called a “revolution” because of the relatively sudden shift in money and power away from a traditional, natural, and organic ruling class to a new, contrived and experimental class.

Bearing in mind that an industrial world of mechanisation and mass-production is inherently a world contrived or invented — and organised by a few men, so it is no surprise that people (equally suddenly) wondered if we ought to be ruled by Capitalists as opposed to the traditional aristocratic world order.

• As a result, all of the political parties and ideologies that we have today were dreamt up, formed, invented or created within just 50 years of the start of The Industrial Revolution.

I don’t know about you, but this brings up immediately two very scary thoughts. First that these are all just experiments — untried and untested ideas thought up in the limited minds of mere mortal men, and secondly that we have had no further new, fresh, ideologies since that time!

Industrialisation and Capitalism are complex man-made messes. So are Communism and Socialism; all are experimental notions which, over time and in different places, have been adapted and corrupted — simply because they are essentially unnatural — by being the products of the human mind.

Democracy is unnatural too, and in an earlier article I explained that there is no such thing (and can be no such thing) as democracy — even though political doctrines claim democracy as fundamental. Consider this: both the Capitalist USA and the Communist USSR claimed to be founded on democracy!

When you step back and think about it, you will see that it’s layer upon layer of nonsense. Even if democracy was possible, would it be desirable? Mob rule? Seriously?

OK, so I have laboured the point: all these notions are (a) new (b) experimental (c) complicated and man-made, and (d) corrupt.

This is the point in the investigation to consider what might be an alternative. This could be a brand new idea — trouble is, I cannot think of anything at the moment. If we reject the present array of failed ideas and cannot think up anything better, we are faced with looking at the past.

What has a proven track record? What actually works? Is there a more natural form of government possible — something more sociologically sound?

When we do that, when we think hard about it, we suddenly see the horrible and glaringly obvious truth — that the only organic, natural, and true form of government is a monarchy!

Let’s face it, it has proved itself to have been the most successful method in history — and seems to work well in different cultures and different times because it is natural and organic — as opposed to being devised by a philosopher or politician.

This is how people have always naturally organised themselves as groups, tribes or civilisations — it is so natural that even animals do it!

Even today, children get books filled with castles, princes, princesses, sultans, emirs, chiefs, chieftans, pharaohs, and the like. Everyone instinctively knows the natural order. Who has never heard of most (if not all) of the following: Aladdin, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, Shrek, Star wars, Robin Hood, King Arthur and the Knights of The Round Table, Sir Lancelot, Rob Roy, The Princess Bride, St. George and The Dragon, Egyptian, Greek and Norse Mythology, Helen of Troy, Jewish and Christian Bibles, King Herod, King David, Good King Wenceslas, Old King Cole, Baron Frankenstein, Lord Snooty, All The King’s Horses and All The King’s Men, The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Grand Old Duke of York, The Black Prince, The Black Knight, The Red Baron, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Henry VIII, The Sun King, Montezuma, Geronimo, Chief Sitting Bull, Suleman The Wise, King James Bible, Catherine The Great, Charlemagne (King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor), Alexander The Great, Frederick the Great, Caesar, King Louis in Jungle Book, The Dauphin, William of Orange, Queen Victoria, Mary Queen of Scots, William Wallace, Marie Antoinette, Roundheads and Cavaliers, The Three Musketeers, Emperor Hirohito, The Sultan of Brunei, Princess Grace of Monaco, Princess Diana, Princess Leia and even The identical twin of King Louis XIV — The Man in The Iron mask. The list is endless — but in case you’re still not convinced about how natural and deeply ingrained the concept is, look at the two most popular, universal and long-lasting pastimes:

In Playing Cards we see the King and Queen and the descending values, in chess we see the same thing.

Brides want to be like “princesses” and swept away by their “prince charming”! From Disney films to Star Wars, it is evident that this is firmly in our psyche. Can this really be in dispute?

So it is perfectly clear that the longest serving form of government throughout history is monarchy — and Imperialism. Even the Christian church refers to the “Kingdom of God”, God being on a Throne, Jesus being referred to as “Lord”, and we are his humble servants.

• So if this form of government served us so well for so long, and if it is so natural — what happened to it? Where is it today?

Well, these two questions will now be addressed. The reason the modern world changed away from this natural Imperialism as the primary form of government is that for the USA to become a superpower, it first had to destroy Imperialism, and it was successful. Empires cover large areas, have large populations and large resources. Breaking them up would make the USA the biggest market and the dominant force. That is what happened in a nutshell:

Their big chance came when the world went to war — they waited until most of the world was on the brink of collapse to enter and finish the second world war by dropping a nuclear weapon of mass destruction.

The US American sole purpose was to destroy Imperialism throughout the world — particularly the vast and dominant British and French empires — in order to take over. Is this merely my opinion or a flight of fancy on the part of my imagination? Well, I have no axe to grind, all I can suggest is that you consider the bald facts:

• Before the world wars there was The British Empire, The Japanese Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Russian Empire, The Austro-Hungarian Empire and so forth.
• After the world wars there were none – all were wiped out!

If you think I am exaggerating, then consider this: before the world wars the British Empire held sway over a population of about 458 million people, approximately one-quarter of the world’s population and it covered about 36.6 million km² (14.2 million square miles) — about a quarter of Earth’s total land area! Britain as the dominant superpower had the role of global policeman, a state of affairs known as the Pax Britannica. However, after the world wars — and despite “winning” — Britain was reduced to a small country.

My goodness, these empires had been around for centuries – The Ottomans from about 1300 and the British from about 1500, so it is amazing that they did not survive the world wars of the twentieth century.

The Second French Colonial Empire was the second largest after the British Empire. The French Fourth Republic was established after the world wars and struggled to hold on to its colonial empire. The First Indochina War ended in French defeat at The Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.

The Second Indochina War is perhaps better known as the Viet Nam war — which was lost by the USA — and that brings me to my next point: that in getting rid of centuries of natural monarchy, aristocracy and imperialism, the world was made a worse and less stable place.

The USA gained the upper hand after the world wars, but in destroying centuries old imperialism, they left a big mess. Instead of royal marriages, natural boundaries, wars and so forth deciding territories in a sensible way, the post-imperial atlas was carved up in a hurried and careless way — which is ironic because the second world war was pretty-much caused by the messy results of the first world war.

The German Royals lost the first world war — ending the German Empire. Hitler’s Germany began by trying to gain back that which was popularly felt to rightfully belong to Germany. The ensuing empire-building and imperialist attitude of Hitler has a long tradition, even though Hitler was no monarch in the official sense — but you just have to look to Napoleon or Caesar to understand that.

So if the victors had only managed the spoils of the first world war better, we wouldn’t have had a second world war!

But lessons were not learned, and after the second world war, the losers were the imperial empires — and the way these empires were quickly carved up has created all the problems we face today.

The sudden and messy dissolution of the British Empire led to (for examples) the creation of East and West Pakistan and India , the ridiculous formation of countries in Africa, the creation of Israel in Palestine, and Communist China.

Later, the Communist experiment in the USSR suddenly dissolved to leave a lot of unstable and unfortunate Eastern Bloc states.

We have to admit that the last century was a disaster — it ended the only natural and successful form of government mankind has known. It contained two world wars and created the means of self-destruction and mass-destruction. All modern political ideologies were thought up, put into practice and failed.

The USA took the role of global policeman from the Brits, and they continue to fight against all forms of government that are “despotic” — they dislike emperors, kings and dictators — and as the attack on Iraq shows, they will invade and occupy a country simply to change the regime to one that they prefer. This perfectly well illustrates that humans cannot change their spots — the US Americans act exactly like an Imperial empire, but they will deny it.

The US American “Imperialism” is not merely confined to the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan — consider the centuries old tradition of Muslim versus Christian, the ancient Holy Wars (Crusades) between the Christians and Islam — and while the names may have changed (no more Holy Roman Empire, no more Ottoman Empire), some things just never really change.

• The present century is still trying to come to terms with this denial of the natural order and the messy fall-out from the abrupt end of Global Imperialism.

The world’s only remaining emperor is Japan’s Emperor Akihito, and there are still 29 countries in the world that have their own monarchies. However, if we include the British Monarch, — HM The Queen then there are 45 monarchies in total. The 29 are:

Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Belgium, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, Denmark, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Monaco, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Thailand, Tonga, United Arab Emirates, and The Vatican.

Kings, Queens, Emperors, Popes, Dukes, Knights, Princes, Princesses, and Sultans — all are apparently from a time long ago, yet all of which remain in existence to this very day!

What is happening is interesting; countries are joining together — much in the way they used to throughout history when thrones were inherited or by royal marriage. To compete with the USA and rival the emerging China, an Imperial approach is required — the EU needs larger resources, larger population and larger area. The origins of civilisation are in imperial Europe — and now the European Union is growing like an empire once more.

• This is why there are fears about the loss of sovereignty, particularly for those parts of Europe that still have a monarchy — such as Britain and Sweden.
  

Of course we are all going to gravitate back to natural society and government; we are inclined that way.

Instead of pillage and the “spoils of war”, we have exploitation in the form of buying up property for investment and holiday homes in the poorer countries joining this growing empire.

The EU is considering a presidency that lasts longer than a few months — and this is yet another step toward the natural order of a single leading figure — a king or emperor.

The natural order is for monarchy — and this ought to be admitted at some point. My earlier article shows how politicians are not good for us, we have too many of them and they have to think up things to do with our tax money.

In the present modern day world, I see no problem with a monarch running the country — it’s like a presidency that never ends and which is inherited — and let’s face it, who would want to mess things up for their own kids to inherit? The Commonwealth or EU could be the modern version of an Imperial Empire — something to rival Russia and China in the race to take over from the USA.

It is entirely possible to reconcile two different natural forms of government at the same time, For example, most of Europe has been governed by a monarch at the same time as deferring to The Pope in Rome, and the British Empire ran very well with an Empress and a Prime Minister leading a government.

We Brits pretend that we have a democratic system of government when we obviously don’t. The Americans are an Imperial Empire in denial. The EU is trying to be an Imperial Empire — we all need to own up, and stop the pretending.

We need to admit that all of the political doctrines and fancy philosophies have been tried and failed. It is OK to admit that we tried it, but hey, it didn’t work out.

Unless we can come up with something better, I would suggest that we revert to type — return to nature and streamline government back to a court structure. We could, of course, modernise the concept to take on board lessons learned with respect to the rights of women and children, for example.

I for one would not mind handing power over to a monarch; it’s a serious job and because it is for life, I see it as a perfect accompaniment to democratically elected representatives and advisors — a clear and incorruptible head. There is an old adage that the best leader is the one who does not seek it. Monarchy was the best way, and could perhaps once more be the Best Form of Government, and the way forward in a brave new world of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

One thing is for sure: it would end the east- west terrorism!