Anarchy

In my few decades in this world, I have seen a few kinds of would-be Anarchs, some less tiresome, some more. Here are some of them.

1. The simplest kind is the kind that covers its ears and yells loudly that it doesn't care and you can't change its mind. It is self-defeating sort, since it thinks to elude the rule of law by imposing an even sterner law on itself. So be it, then.

2. Another kind claims to be anti-establishment and pro-people. This political animal dresses in the robes of vendetta and the mask of anonymity; unfortunately, it overuses the former and abuses the latter. It really wants to bully or coerce, but retain moral high ground by presuming that individuals do indeed want to form anonymous mobs to take down social institutions, and that they will be led by such an animal.

3. A true anarch, such as Thanos the Mad, courts destruction of all things. This is the only philosophically self-consistent view. However, it is (to me) far better that this is combined with 1 above, in which case I will remain but the anarch will self-destruct, thus achieving mutually satisfying goals.

I first encountered Alexander Pope's Dunciad when I was very small; I think I was about ten years old at the time, maybe older. My aunt had lots of her old literature texts lying around, and I used to hide in her house and read when I thought I had nothing better to do after school. Almost forty years later, I recall these lines and find them an apt description of one perspective on our modern world:

See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heaped o'er her head!
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public Flame, nor private , dares to shine;
Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine !
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal Darkness buries All.

Law is a good thing. It is a facile (cheap, shallow, easy) argument to say that all law is repressive or oppressive. In a sense, it is, since it limits action (actual, potential, desired or desirable) by threat. But so too does awareness of the natural sciences. You know that ingesting chromic acid will kill you, that gravity and time are not your friends. This doesn't make you attempt to undermine them.

Yes, I admit that's an extreme position; after all, human law is not like nature. Well, humans do make laws for the governance of larger groups. A good body of law allows for law to be changed reasonably, whether this is onerous or not (there are arguments that seek to establish how onerous this should be — too easy and we get frivolity, too hard and we get draconism). Humans always get to where they're going, for good or bad, but there should be some degree of predictability. It gives a sense of security and mental well-being to know that you can carry on without the fabric of reality warping unpredictably around you.

So I am all for civil disobedience, but against uncivil and personal attacks. I am for the rule of law, but as a living thing with the bare minimum of stone pylons, tablets and other unyielding principles (or principalities and powers). I am not an anarchist, but I am not an overarchist. And there we leave it.

Redefining Murder

The current definition of murder is anthropocentric across all jurisdictions. You can kill any other animal and it wouldn't be murder. Human laws, for human interests.

But the growing body of research on cetacean brains, for one, shows that these brains are as complex as human brains but in a different way. While the human brain is somewhat more layered, cetacean brains are less layered but with more 'vertical' connections through layers. They are clearly intelligent, perhaps more so as a class than any other kind of mammal, when we consider only mammalian intelligence.

Farther afield, we come across the anomalous cases of corvid intelligence — ravens for example — where birds show strong evidence of forward planning, co-opting other animals as partners in an enterprise, and facial recognition with emotional response. And as we metaphorically walk out even farther from home, we meet the cephalopoda; an octopus keeps two-thirds of its neurons in its arms, shows strong evidence of structured memory and observational learning, and comes from the only class of invertebrates which uses tools — in 1986, the octopus became an honorary vertebrate according to UK law, and enjoys the same protections as vertebrates as far as animal rights are concerned.

What is it, then, to willingly (and intentionally, and deliberately) terminate the life of a crow, an octopus, or dolphin? It is the termination of a thinking, emotion-bearing, mind-using organism. These creatures had hopes, fears, ambitions — until they were killed. It is nothing less than murder, but it is not murder yet — for humans still define murder in terms of human-termination.

Grounds for Refusing to Register a School

In the hallowed temples of the Law in Atlantis are many tablets of Law. Tablet 87 is oft ignored. On Tablet 87, in section 24, one can find these hieroglyphs, or their equivalent. They can be translated as follows, and make interesting reading:

Grounds for refusal to register a school:

24. The Hierophant of the Temple of the Book may refuse to register a school if —

(a) adequate educational facilities already exist in the area in which it is proposed to open the school;
(b) the proposed school premises constitute a dangerous building or are or are likely to be structurally unsuitable for use as a school;
(c) the fire precautions in the proposed school premises are inadequate;
(d) the proposed school premises are insanitary or for reasons of health unsuitable for use as a school;
(e) the area provided for the open air recreation of pupils is inadequate or unsatisfactory;
(f) the proposed school does not conform to the regulations made under this Act;
(g) the proposed fees are excessive, having regard to the cost of maintaining and conducting the proposed school and the standard of education to be provided;
(h) the qualifications and experience of the proposed teachers are not adequate to ensure the efficient conduct of the proposed school;
(i) the proposed salaries of the teachers are not adequate to ensure the efficient performance of their duties;
(j) the proposed school is designed to accommodate more than 1,200 pupils in any one session;
(k) the constitution of the proposed committee of management is not such as to ensure the efficient administration of the proposed school;
(l) the supervisor recommended by the proposed committee of management is not a fit and proper person to act as a supervisor;
(m) the proposed school has previously been refused registration or the registration thereof has been cancelled either under this Act or under any previous written law relating to the registration of schools;
(n) the proposed school is likely to be used for a purpose detrimental to the interests of Atlantis or of the public;
(o) the proposed school is likely to be used for the purpose of instruction detrimental to the interests of the public or of the pupils;
(p) the proposed school is likely to be used as a meeting place of an unlawful society;
(q) the name under which the school is to be registered is against the interests of Atlantis; or
(r) in the application for registration a statement has been made or information has been furnished which is false in a material particular or by reason of the omission of a material particular.

Don't you find these criteria both interesting and amusing? Wednesday 21 December is especially a good day to remember Tablet 87.

Morality, Ethics and Law (Simplified)

Morality is the product of individual choices of action concerning other people, synthesized into a whole that is endorsed (either in practice or in breach) by a larger group. Where these individual choices of action come from, and how they are synthesized into a whole, and how they are endorsed, and by what groups — these are all important questions.

Ethics is the other way around: a group with a commonality decides to set out a common code of how they ought to behave collectively in view of that commonality. This commonality can be as general as 'we are all human, hence we base our ethics on human rights, howsoever defined' — or as specific as 'we are all doctors, hence we base our ethics on our commonly agreed view of our profession'.

Law is when a code is a) converted into explicitly worded formulae with penalties for breach (and rarely, rewards for observance) of the rules expressed by these formulae; b) the formulation is based on some form of jurisprudence; and c) special authority is created for the interpretation and execution of these formulae.

There you go...

Dharmaratna

It was many years ago that I first came across this particular term. It is Sanskrit in origin, and I encountered it because I had a friend who bore it as a name.

Dharma, of course, is a concept of that which is right and hence supports what ought to be the nature of things. It is duty, devotion, discipline; it comes from the Sanskrit root dhri, 'to uphold or sustain'. Ratna means 'jewel' or 'gem' — it is something that is crystalline and bears its essence in the most exact and excellent way.

The idea of dharmaratna, then, is the idea of 'the essence of universal law'. It is that in which we live and move and have our being. Some things never change.

This is one such thing.

Elegant Argumentation

Sometimes, people write stuff. Most of the time, it is badly-written stuff. Occasionally, it transcends that and becomes lucid, well-designed stuff. In some cases, I wish I had written something like that, especially if it concerns a domain that could do with lucid, well-designed prose arguments.

That's the case with Yawning Bread's pair of articles on legalism. [Part I] [Part II]

I once wrote a piece on jurisprudence, but it wasn't a lawyerly piece of work, either for good or ill. It was just philosophy, I think.

Now, I have many former students studying to be lawyers. And many friends who are lawyers. They would probably laugh. Or worse. And deploy some elegant argumentation of their own in my direction.

Marriage and Casinos

It was the late, much-lamented Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, the last independent MP for Oxford University and extreme lateral thinker, who examined the definition of 'gaming transaction' and decided that marriage closely resembled a game of chance. His conclusion, therefore, was that the law should not assist people in settling their marital problems, since these proceeded from what in essence were wagers based on chance. He spent his latter years in Parliament agitating for the reform of divorce laws.

I will outline his argument from the humorous piece 'Is Marriage Lawful?', first published some time in the 1930s, and then quote his conclusion. Herbert begins with stating that "the common characteristic of every class of gaming transaction is this — that a person makes a sacrifice in the hope of receiving a benefit, but the reception of this benefit depends on the operation of chance and not upon the exercise of his own skill and judgment."

He then goes on to talk about racehorses and pronounces: "...the case of the prospective husband is ex hypothesi completely opposite. He is backing a horse that has never run before, or if his fancy be a widow, has never run over the same course in the same company. The form of a racehorse is public property, but the form of a bride is of necessity concealed."

His concluding argument went: "It follows that no experience, however extensive, is a certain guide, and no man's judgment, however profound, is in this department reliable. In all matrimonial transactions, therefore, the element of skill is negligible and the element of chance predominates. This brings all marriages into the category of gaming, and therefore I hold that the Court cannot according to law assist or relieve the victims of these arrangements, whether by way of restitution, separation, or divorce. Therefore it will be idle for married parties to bring their grievances before us, and in short, this Court will never sit again... any persons who want a divorce will be compelled in future to divorce themselves."

There will be many who read this and wonder if I espouse (ahem) Herbert's interesting legal philosophy on the institution of marriage. No, I am quite happy with the institution as it currently stands. But I was greatly amused when I first read his work decades ago, and continue to enjoy the products of that fertile and perspicacious imagination.

613 >> 10

There are three places in the Book which mention the Hebrew words עשרת הדברים (roughly, Aseret ha-Dvarîm, or 'ten words'). The Greek translation of this is δεκάλογος (mostly transliterated 'decalogue'). For some reason, ever since the English got their hands on the Bible, these phrases have been translated 'The Ten Commandments'.

The problem, of course, is that these ten words are not numbered explicitly anywhere in the Bible. In fact, there is considerable dispute about what the Ten Commandments are supposed to be. Catholics, Protestants and Jews all count them differently, with most Orthodox agreeing with the Protestant stand. A summary of the whole mess can be found here.

One thing is for sure though. There are certainly more than ten commandments in the long form of the law laid down from the holy mountain by God. The full list, or 613 mitzvot, can be found here.

The account given in the Bible about the writing of these commandments is also quite interesting. Nowhere does it say that Moses wrote only ten words. In fact, by Exodus 24, it is already 'The Book of the Covenant' that Moses reads to the people after transcribing all God's words. And in Exodus 31:18, it is the finger of God that has engraved all of the Testimony (which would be every commandment given from Exodus 20 to Exodus 31) on two tablets of stone (traditionally, each tablet would have a complete set for legal purposes).

But in Exodus 32, the Israelites make a golden calf, and this angers God (32:7-10), who had just told Moses that one of the ten points of the covenant was not to make idols. Moses begs God to reconsider and God relents completely (32:11-14).

Then the unthinkable happens. Moses descends the mountain with the two copies of the Law in his hands, and then he completely loses his temper. He smashes the tablets and orders the deaths of 3000 people, saying that this is what God wants (although God says nothing of the sort).

In the aftermath (Exodus 34), Moses is commanded to receive another set of tablets, again engraved by God. It takes forty days and forty nights (34:27-28), during which God actually tells Moses to do some writing. This is certainly more than ten words. It is the entirety of the Law.

When Jesus, in the New Testament, refers to the Law, he means the complete set of 613 commandments. The ten words that start the set are a kind of summary, the main headings, so to speak. A careful reading of the sections of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy that follow the 'ten words' will show that the rest of the Law is the main body. Jesus, an assiduous scholar of the Law, knew every bit of it.

So for those who like quoting the Ten Commandments as if they are all of the Law, I'd like to challenge you to do the full set of 613. And if you can't, remember the grace of God is mighty indeed.

The Nanny State

It is indeed possible to enjoy life living in a country where anything bad can apparently be remedied by immediate recourse to a legal system that is armed with mighty codices, grimoires and tomes of high complexity. Such a place has many ways of spanking the evildoer for a multitude of crimeless crimes, with long and involved litigation at great expense to the taxpayers.

Such a place would be most of the United States of America. It is one of the few countries in the world that requires people to label anything potentially dangerous (even if this danger is patently obvious) as dangerous. Even then, using a product labelled in this way and inflicting such danger upon yourself still allows you to sue for mental anguish and suchlike.

I'd rather live in Atlantis. Frivolous lawsuits get thrown out really fast. Litigation clears quickly too. Sometimes, the justice system seems much too peremptory, too interested in efficiency. But when you look at it close-up, most justice is quickly and correctly delivered. The only problem is that some people think they are living in a nanny state.

No. Atlanteans should know by now that the priesthood has only one main goal for themselves and one main goal for the country: immortality and prosperity — the main difficulty in this formulation is figuring out which goal is for which entity.

Emergence

This is a brief note directed at some friends who have made queries about specific procedures in specific Atlantean institutions.

Essentially, Article 14 of the Constitution of the specified institution says that no member of staff may be dismissed without the following steps: a) recommendation submitted to Board, b) committee of inquiry appointed, c) committee to report to Board with their own recommendation if any.

However, it is clear that this is not a transparent process, and should the member of staff wish to say anything, there is actually no guarantee that a) he will get to say it, b) he will not face further disciplinary internal action because of saying it, c) that the public will come to know of any irregularities in said process. In fact, there is no guarantee that he will even know anything about the process which decides his fate, nor that he will get to defend himself at all.

In other words, if this kind of proceeding were to be held in other realms, it would constitute a lack of due process. But as we have seen before, Atlantis is a different place — there is a doctrine of Atlantean exceptionalism, and sadly, its institutions are not exceptional in that regard.

My advice to those who are advised to leave or be dismissed is that you should leave as quickly as possible. Transplanting yourself from a big pond to the sea is a wrenching step and a disorienting one, but it can be done. "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well / It were done quickly" as the Scottish play says.

There is another consequence. If you save your ammunition, you can use it later with less constraint. The a posteriori (or as some might call it with humour, ex post facto) defence is a safer one, because you can easily construct theory that fits prior facts, and reveal those facts as necessary. They have fired their ammunition and remain constrained by the institution. You, on the other hand, have a choice of lawyers and courts (including that of public opinion), and you need hold nothing back except for the personal restraint engendered by being a scholar and a gentleman.

To stand and fight merely impugns the honour of the institution, which is certainly a different thing from the honour of its executive officers. So my humble recommendation to those under threat, at whom irrational attacks have been launched with the flimsiest of reasons, is to pack up and go. Be like Abraham, and not like his nephew's wife.

And (as military reports are wont to conclude), that is all I have to say.

Not Right?

Since ex-Senator Obama became President-elect of the USA, a miniature cyclone has been brewing about the right that homosexuals are claiming: marriage identical to that of heterosexuals. I say 'miniature' because it is actually very small, and puffed up by numbers of people who do not understand what rights are, and 'cyclone' because it feeds circularly on itself.

I've already pointed out in several posts, such as this one, and this one, what basic human rights are. Any other rights (historically and philosophically speaking) must be established by an enforceable statute; that is, an explicit formulation must be crafted by some people, ratified by some people, enforced or protected by some people, supported by people until it becomes something considered to be similar to a natural right.

I am against the idea of homosexual marriages as legally identical to heterosexual marriages for a simple reason: you can't have it both ways. By giving dissimilar parties similar rights, you dilute rights and confuse the rule of law. It is like saying that bus lanes shouldn't exist because both buses and cars share the roads and carry passengers. Or like saying that all bridges should be rebuilt to allow M1 Abrams tanks to pass freely. Or that all vehicles should be designed to burn any kind of fuel that any other vehicle can burn.

Do I then deny rights to homosexuals by my position? Yes, and no. By creating bus lanes, we create a right for buses that cars don't have. Buses can travel on car lanes, but cars can't travel on bus lanes. Then again, buses can't use certain roads or parking lots at all, while roads and parking lots must be designed to accommodate cars. We have different sets of rights for buses and cars. We can (and often do) have different sets of rights for men and women, for homosexuals and heterosexuals.

Ha, this is where the outrage multiplies. What do I mean by different sets of rights for men and women? I mean, factually and empirically, that the law makes different provisions, in some cases and in some jurisdictions, for men and women. In some places, women are favoured with a right to take maternity leave, while fathers are not. In some places, both have that right. This is where the last part of my second paragraph comes in. Society tends to weight these rights in ways that the law doesn't quite touch. The law can't force you to approve of something. It can only make it legal until people don't disapprove.

In general, because of human history's course, we tend to be more upset when women's rights, now mostly equal (and in some cases superior) to men's rights, are transgressed. It is perceived as unfair to a group who in the past, especially under certain lenses, have been less-advantaged or disadvantaged. At the same time, there have also been female-dominated societies. But equal rights based on gender are not all basic human rights; we need to understand and accept that. The way society is right now, the politics of victimhood make it easier to target a man for being anti-anything than a woman for saying the same things. It is the same for any group of victims, past victims, or perceived victims.

That is what made the US elections this year so entertaining. One of the odd questions thrown up was whether it was easier for a woman or an African-American to become President. Actually, we still don't know...

Finally, I have to say that since I'm not homosexual, I can't put myself quite in such a person's shoes. But I can't quite imagine myself exactly, completely and convincingly as a cat, a Brazilian, a god, a parrot, a turnip, a cow, an egg or anything else that I am not. Am I a bigot? No, I don't think so. I like cats, but not so much dogs; I like eggs, but not so much turnips. I discriminate out of individual preference, in individual cases.

Human Rights & Government

Having a chat the other day with the Hierophant, we went over some old ground. I realise that I've not actually explicitly said much about basic human rights, except perhaps in places like here, where the context was how human professions cater to the support of human rights.

Let's apply some simple reasoning based on human politics. This isn't new, and many people have wandered down these roads before, so bear with me (and that includes Wolfberry, whose study of the law is related). I'm not considering moral issues via a religious perspective per se.

All political states consist of people and subsist in people. Without people, there would be no state. Since the first implicit duty of a state has to be self-preservation (or it wouldn't exist to have any other duties), the state has a duty to preserve its people. The main duty of law is to regularise and/or formalise the transactions between people for the good of the state.

This means that basic laws deal with the support and maintenance of basic rights. As I've said before, one plausible definition of a basic human right is the maintenance of a condition that, in general, all humans are born with and that a human would be considered deficient if born without. The most obvious right, and the most basic, is therefore the right to supported life outside the womb. If life exists on birth, the right to have it continued is paramount.

This is why there are laws and social barriers against killing in general, indiscriminate killing, and deliberate killing. There should also be laws against negligence or other behaviours that result directly in death.

The next step down is to have laws which protect the individual against physical incapacitation. The individual can't really be protected against the state of which he is a part, but the state can be protected against individuals who have become renegade elements. Law, after all (and in the long-term view), is created and sustained not by individuals, but by social groups (and at the political level, states).

At some level however, the choice becomes one between protection of all individuals and discrimination between some individuals and others. This was the choice that faced Athenian democracy — pure democracies discriminate as little as possible, while republican democracies discriminate 'for the greater good'. In the former, a distinguished physician would be treated with the same weight as a peon; in the latter, the rights of the physician would be considered to some extent superior to the rights of the peon, or might be better defended, or might have laws defending certain things the physician might be able to do (or not do) as opposed to the things a peon could do. There are no pure democracies.

This means that the duty of government essentially is to enforce (and secondarily, maintain and/or support) interactions that are beneficial to survival of the state in a form which allows for continued enforcement of interactions that are beneficial to survival of the state...

The more private an individual's behaviours and the less they have to do with interacting with other people, the less important they should be to government. Reading a book of any sort should therefore not be as constrained by government as sharing the contents of that book in such a way as to provoke disruptive behaviour against that government. In this, I do not make any judgements about the type or kind of government involved; I am only saying that this is the perspective a rational government should have.

Following this logic, growing of cannabis sativa for personal research (and consumption) is a 10,000-year-old hobby that has had little negative impact on some states. However, the dissemination of the plant to others is a legitimate concern for some governments, since it is an interaction between individuals within the state. This is why the possession of small amounts of certain drugs for personal use is considered allowable or less of an offence than the possession of larger quantities beyond the typical amount an individual would be expected to use. Trafficking in such drugs is most definitely a province of government, whereas personal consumption is normally (but not always) only indirectly so.

That said, some governments also consider it their duty to protect individuals from themselves. This is probably based on the idea that not all humans are able to determine whether something is good for themselves or not. This is a terribly grey area. For example, what if the government of a state decides that any other form of government would be fatal to the continued optimal behaviour of the state? That opens the door to restricted participation in the governance of the state.

As you can see, once we stray away from basic human rights and start considering second- and third-order interactions and beyond, the law rapidly convolutes and metastasizes into something rich and strange. It is a wonderful world we live in.

Thinking Schools = Learning Nation?

This is probably the hardest thing I have to say to many people I know, so I shall keep it short.

I've decided that students should not have the primary right to free speech or freedom of movement. Yes, they are human rights, almost universally so – go ahead and look it up in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, that document is flawed in that while it assigns rights to 'everyone', it also distinguishes between parents and children (see article 26). It also hedges all this freedom with caveats regarding what can be said (compare article 12 with articles 18 and 19). Articles 27, 28, 29, and 30 all create further hidden clauses which raise legal issues even if we were to claim that we respected the entire Declaration.

This is not new. It has all been said before. What's new is who talks about related issues, when, and why. On 25 June 2007, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered this very interesting majority concurring opinion concerning free speech in schools. In it, he explains why he thinks that students having the right to free speech in schools in unconstitutional despite the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

I agree with him.

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There, now I've decimated my blog readership. Oh well. I will continue if anyone wants me to, but perhaps I have said enough.

Rite Of Examination (Part 3)

To the Candidates at the Rite of Examination, the interplay of rituals and officers might seem complex, for the exact order in which minor rituals are performed is circumstantial and liable to change at short notice. Here, therefore, before we present the last part of the Examination Rite, we examine the rules which bind the Praetor and the Lictors.

1. The Praetor presides over the Examination. In the sphere of examination, his authority is supreme and he reports directly to the Imperator (or the Principes, in this context). He may have a deputy or two deputies appointed by the Consuls or the Legates.

2. The function of the Praetor is to ensure smooth running of the Rite of Examinations for the level of Candidates to which he is assigned. He ensures that all Candidates have equal opportunites available during the Rite, for each day that the Rite is to be executed.

3. The Praetor must therefore have two priorities in mind: a) all Candidates must be treated fairly and equally, and where this is not possible due to extenuating circumstances, it must be made obvious what the terms of redress are; and b) all Candidates must be deterred from malpractice while being reassured that their practice will not be hindered in any way.

4. The Lictors, or Invigilators, are to watch over the daily Rites of Examination. They must be active and alert, continually monitoring the flow of the Rite and making appropriate response. They must deter and if necessary detect malpractice, ensure a ready supply of material, protect the sanctity of the Great Hall, and help Candidates perform well by seeing to their critical needs (such as silence, climate control, and the need to void oneself in the face of fear).

5. The Praetor and Lictors therefore hold a sacred trust. If a Collegium does not hold the Rites properly, then there is no appropriate Test and therefore no assessment of knowledge that is worth the reputation of that Collegium. In view of that, no communication between Praetor and Lictors should take place except for matters regarding the performance of the Rite. Neither should Lictors behave in any way or carry out any task which is not a necessary function of the Rite.

6. On the other hand, given the variability of the situation, the Praetor and Lictors must have discretion to alter or amend the Rite in emergencies. This discretion must be treated with utmost reverence and care, for it is not to be applied lightly or taken in hand without due responsibility.

7. In the event that anyone partaking in the Rites breaches the spirit or letter of the law, penalties must accrue accordingly. This has not always been so in the past, but where will and power are one, so mote it be, as our great master Vergilius has said.