Wow! Where the hell did this week go? GeordieKeith, occasional comment leaver and uni mate of mine, came over for the weekend meaning, as always, long blurry nights and spaced, eerie mornings, no sleep and as much of everything else as you can take.
My other super tight uni mate suggested a trip through Huxley's Doors of Perception with a little mescaline but we didn't sort that out in the end. This weekend however, definitely, I'll let you know how it goes.
Anyway, spent the first half of the week in a daze, utterly knackered, and thought maybe I'm getting too old for living the life. Of course I quickly realised that the problem isn't staying up all night, it's having to get up for work the next morning. Working for a living is a mugs game.
So, on with the post. Three quick examples of something I've been thinking about recently and, off the top of my head, have decided to call the terminal two step:
"Don't be such a spaz!"
Offended? I think we're supposed to be, but then I try not to pay too much attention to 'the rules'. Why are we supposed to be offended? Well, the 'thinking' seems to go, if you're using a word as an insult then you must believe that what the word denotes is also a bad thing.
ie.
IF calling someone a spaz is a bad thing
THEN being a spaz must be a bad thing,
A clear cut and straightforward argument in two simple steps. Indeed it's this very simplicity that lends the notion an air of credibility. It's so 'obvious' that it must actually be some of this 'common knowledge' or an example of mass consensus.
The thing is, it's bullshit.
Firstly I just disagree, and here's why:
"Don't be such a little girl!"
Does this mean that there's something inherently bad about little girls? Or is it in fact not about little girls themselves but rather how appropriate it is for someone who is not a little girl to act like one? If a little girl got scared and began to cry you'd be sympathetic, if a six foot paratrooper behaved the same way you would be less so.
I'm sure we'd all agree that pretending to be disabled, eg. using a wheelchair, in order to gain some kind of benefit for example, is a pretty shitty way to behave. If someone has a mental or physical condition that causes them to have spasms it would be unnecessary and malicious to call them a spaz, they have no choice about their level of dexterity. Calling a perfectly capable person who is just being downright cack handed a spaz is simply pointing out that they're not fulfilling their potential.
Now that's my own take on this kind of language and it's a general rule I would apply to my own speech. To say that this theory is a replacement for the earlier 'twostep' would be to mimic the twostep's fundamental flaw which comes...
...secondly. I presented the twostep in that particular format to draw attention to the very logical way in which it works. This is because there is, I suspect, another underlying vibe that seems to lend an even greater feeling of instinctive correctness, and that is an almost religious conviction that logic is infallible.
Technically it is correct that if something is truly logical it cannot be 'wrong'. The key here is that any logic operation takes place under a set of specified conditions set by the person performing the operation. If something's logical then it's right, WITHIN THE CONSIDERED CONDITIONS.
In the case above logic is being applied to a process, namely the development of language, that is not itself obviously logical. It could be that it's not logical at all, or simply that there are too many contributing to factors for us to fully comprehend and so it appears without logic.
Either way the fact remains that the system of thought applied in the twostep, while very alluring with it's easy answers, is not appropriate for the situation it is attempting to describe. More examples? Ok.
Feminism. I've always found this to be one of those causes wherein I agree in principle but find the champions, or those speaking loud enough to be heard anyway, particularly irritating. I especially resent those feminists who decry the evils of sexism in one breath and then make generalisations about all men in the next.
Anyway, here's the twostep:
IF the traditional role of women is a bad thing
THEN the traditional role of women has always been a bad thing
Now our society is absolutely slanted, as I've said many times, not just in favour of the guys, but also the rich and the white. I'm not disputing that that's the case, or that it shouldn't be. My point here is that, again, something very important is missing from the operation above.
We have this picture fixed in our heads of 'the olden days' wherein the man goes out to work/hunt whatever, while the woman stays at home with the kids. Why was this the case? Well traditionally we'd say because the man's better at working/hunting, but I'm not sure that's really true.
In terms of physical ability guys do, overall, have the edge, but I'd say this is the RESULT rather than the cause of the traditional setup described above. In 'the olden days' working/hunting was far more dangerous than it is today. The woman stayed at home not because she was less able but because she was MORE VALUABLE to the family.
The simple fact is that the ability to have kids made women more important to the overall survival of the family/tribe/etc. Now clearly while this bit is still true, the physical conditions we live in have changed dramatically.
The setup that made sense all that time ago has become part of our culture, a tradition we follow out of habit, the actual inspiration behind it long since forgotten. As with all other prejudices the key to fixing the whole thing is to remember that being 'equal' does not being the 'same'.
Men and women are not the same and our society will always reflect that. This is no reason, however, for them not to have the same rights and opportunities. Treating the situation as a 'war of the sexes' is ridiculous as it can clearly never be won.
Again the simple nature of the argument and the nice simple chords it seems to strike are very tempting, but the fact is that this twostep is leading nowhere. Both sexes need the other to survive so we can only fix our problems together, it's just tough.
And finally, one inspired by the practices and nature of the ALMO(1) I work for:
IF a private company performs better than a public sector organisation
THEN the public sector organisation should try to be more like a private company
Yep, this one could just run and run, there's a whole lot to be said to be said here. Unfortunately I'm having to work extra long days at the moment to make up the flexi time I've had to take to visit the dentist. The result of this is I can't be arsed to get into this whole thing now so here's the short and the skinny of it.
There's some great stuff about economics, and in particular why economists refuse to include political or social factors in their work, in the current issue of ADBUSTERS, everyone go buy a copy right now.
Got one? Good.
The glaring error with this one is a spectacular omission, namely the complete refusal to acknowledge that private companies and public sector organisations have inherently different aims. This means that their performance cannot be measured or compared on a common scale.
A private company's prime objective, ultimately overriding all others, is to make money. This is something that can be very accurately and easily measured. This also means that overheads have to be kept as low as possible to ensure as much profit as possible. The quality of products and services is a consideration but only within the limits of what will sell in sufficient volume.
For a public sector organisation the quality of product and service is the prime objective. This is very difficult to measure, not least because the better it performs the more it blends into the background. When it comes to giving some little girl a heart transplant it's about providing the BEST POSSIBLE service, not the most cost effective or competitive.
What it comes down to, and the reason public institutions always struggle, is that there actually are some things more important than money, despite what some people will tell you. This twostep, in one form or another, has devastated the globe and continues to do so.
Yet another idea that sounds so simple it must be true, easy to latch on to with plenty of prejudiced bells and proud whistles. Under the slightest serious scrutiny however, the whole thing just falls apart because, like all other twosteps, it's utter nonsense!
You may as well put a fish and a puppy on a race track and declare that the fish could be in the race if it would just stop thrashing about and get up and run. (I thought about that other way round but I find the image of a dying fish less upsetting than that of a drowning puppy.)
So, in conclusion, I guess I could have saved us all a great deal of time and effort by simply typing:
don't trust easy answers.
footnote
(1) ALMO - Arms Length Management Organisation, a private company wholly owned and run by the city council, a kind of half privatised council department basically. It seems to me by the way that the only thing being held at arms length is liability, a pretty cosy setup for the council.
