Je Suisse Charlie Hebdo -- Behind the news.

Friday, January 09, 2015

Je Suis Charlie Hebdo -- Behind the News

THE ABSURD TIMES

Behind Charlie Hebdo

Illustration:  The cartoon by Carlos Latuff appeared on CNN Thursday.  Why he sent it to CNN instead of us is beyond us, but here is another, above, guaranteed not to offend anyone.

            But as soon as the news of the attack on Charlie Hebdo was announced, the Absurd Times snapped into action on Twitter. 

            We announced our intention of printing all of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons as an expression of solidarity. Then we warned that Mississippi was likely to ban Sharia Law in the U.S. to retaliate.  Then the Huffington Post published the cartoons.  Then Vox did.  Six others did as well while we were pointing out that France at least had the courage to defy the U.S. by supporting the Palestinians at the Security Council. 

            So, if you want to see the cartoons, just go to Google, click on "images," and then Type in Charlie Hebdo, and you will see thousands of such cartoons, tens of thousands.  There is no point using bandwidth here to imitate.

            Anonymous has announced that it will attack all so-called "terrorist" sites (no idea if that includes Fox).  this should make most armchair patriots feel a bit like "Christian Scientists with appendixitus," (You figure out how to spell it, stolen from Tom Lehrer.)

            News stations announced that the killers were on the no-fly list.  Follow up question "Do you think they will come here?"

            MI-5 announced that there is more danger so "be careful".  One newscaster said "You don't have to tell me to be careful.  I'm careful, ok?"

            Some really brilliant news-coverage.

            Now, so far as can be learned, Anwar Al-Aw-Laki in Yemen is behind this whole thing.  What Obama need to do is kill him and then things will get better.  Oh?  He did kill him?  Well then who do we kill, then?

            One of the amazing things about this is that the attack on Charlie Hebdo gave rise to such a backlash and an increase of Islamophobia.  Can anyone explain why the murder by Israel of 2,000 innocent civilians, mostly women and children as it that makes any difference, was not blamed on Judaism?

            Or why the Oklahoma City bombing was not blamed on Christianity?

            Or why the guy in Israel went into a Mosque and killed several dozen worshippers and it was not blamed on Judaism?

            Yet two of the killers in Paris hid in a Kosher food store and all of a sudden it is an example of anti-Semitism?

            With all these rapes in India, shouldn't we be sending drone attacks against Hindu shrines? 

            Whatever the Chinese are up to, you can bet Confucius has something to do with it.

            When that guy in Norway killed all those people on the island, why didn't we blame Thor or Odin?  Or Jesus? 

            Are we sure that North Korea did not have anything to do with this?

            I would not, especially after the past few days of dealing with Sony customer service, put it past Sony. That's it, Sony is responsible for the killings.

            On this whole thing, the most cogent statement I heard was from a respected journalist who said "I'm a journalist -- how do you think I feel?"

            Well, here is some discussion that presents the reality of the situation in a sane manner:

           

Gilbert Achcar on the Clash of Barbarisms from the Massacre in Paris to the U.S. Occupation of Iraq

196

SHARED

     

French police have surrounded a building in a northern town near Charles de Gaulle Airport as part of a massive manhunt for the two men accused of carrying out the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Police say they believe the suspects, Said and Chérif Kouachi, are holed up in a small printing business where they have taken a hostage. Meanwhile, French officials are now saying there is a link between the two brothers accused of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the heavily armed man who shot dead a French policewoman on Thursday. That man is now holding five hostages, including women and children, at a kosher supermarket in Paris. Sources told Reuters the three men were all members of the same Paris cell that a decade ago sent young French volunteers to Iraq to fight U.S. forces. Chérif Kouachi served 18 months in prison for his role in the group. At the time, he told the court that he had been motivated to travel to Iraq by images of atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib prison. We speak to Lebanese-French academic Gilbert Achcar, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: French police have surrounded a building in a northern town near Charles de Gaulle Airport as part of a massive manhunt for the two men accused of carrying out the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Police say the suspects, Said and Chérif Kouachi, are holed up in a small printing business where they have taken a hostage. The brothers reportedly told police they wanted to die as martyrs. Earlier today, shots were fired as police chased a car believed to contain the suspects. The two brothers have been accused of carrying out Wednesday’s attack on the office of the satirical magazine, killing eight journalists, two police officers, a maintenance worker and a visitor. Eleven people were also wounded, four of them seriously.

Meanwhile, French officials are now saying there is a link between the two brothers accused of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the heavily armed man who shot dead a French policewoman on Thursday. That man is reportedly now holding five hostages, including women and children, at a kosher supermarket in Paris.

AMY GOODMAN: Sources told Reuters the three men were all members of the same Paris cell that a decade ago sent young French volunteers to Iraq to fight U.S. forces. Chérif Kouachi served 18 months in prison for his role in the group. At the time, he told the court he had been motivated to travel to Iraq by images of atrocities committed by U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib prison. Said Kouachi was reportedly in Yemen in 2011 for several months training with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. government sources told Reuters the two brothers were listed in two U.S. security databases—a highly classified database containing information on 1.2 million possible counterterrorism suspects called TIDE and the much smaller no-fly list maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center.

Vigils are continuing to take place across France to remember those killed. Last night, the lights on the Eiffel Tower were turned off as a mark of respect.

For more on the attacks, we are joined again by Lebanese-French academic Gilbert Achcar. He’s a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. His most recent books are Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism and The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising. The French newspaper Le Monde has described him as "one of the best analysts of the contemporary Arab world."

Gilbert Achcar, thanks so much for joining us again today on Democracy Now! So the situation is thousands of French police have surrounded this printing press right near Charles de Gaulle Airport. They are saying that the two brothers are inside, that they’ve got a hostage with them. Police say that they have made contact with the men, that they say they want to die as martyrs. That’s according to the police. Can you just talk about the developments of the last few days, from the attack on the newspaper,Charlie Hebdo, to where we stand today?

GILBERT ACHCAR: Thank you, Amy. Well, I mean, the obvious thing—and it should be said to avoid any misunderstanding—is that, of course, this was an appalling attack and a really barbaric act to, you know, slaughter like this these journalists, whatever disagreement one may have with their kind of drawing and their kind of perspective. That, I should say, is the obvious.

Now, again, what we are seeing now unfolding is, unfortunately, something predictable, which is trying to blame Islam, actually, for this. And there are so many pronouncements in this direction now in Europe, in the West, and all that—of course, not official pronouncements, but you have a deluge of far-right and, let’s say, vulgar kind of racist attack on Muslims, in general. And that’s why I think it’s very important to put such events in context.

And, well, yesterday when we spoke, I tried to remind the viewers that, well, on the scale of rampage killing, this appalling killing in Paris comes, you know, after—I mean, beneath, I mean, on the list, the Islamophobic mass killing by the Norwegian, Breivik, if I remember his name correctly—

AMY GOODMAN: Anders Breivik.

GILBERT ACHCAR: Yes, and the—which, I mean, made something like over 75 people killed, young people in Norway—and the massacre perpetrated by also ultra-Zionist killer Baruch Goldstein in Hebron in 1994, which made something like 29 or more people killed. Again, these are, I mean, appalling acts of what I described some years ago as a clash of barbarisms, because that’s what we are getting—the barbarism of the strong, of course, being the primary responsible in this awful dynamics. And it leads—it leads, you know, to a counterbarbarism on the side of those who see themselves as the downtrodden, the oppressed.

In the case of Iraq, this was—I mean, this is something that I said immediately after 9/11 and even before the invasion of Iraq, and what we saw in Iraq was the best illustration of that. You just mentioned how these killers, the French—the two French killers, or alleged killers, let’s say, had even been affected by these developments in Iraq and had fought or been connected with networks fighting in Iraq against U.S. troops. Well, what you had in Iraq is that the barbarism that—represented by the U.S. occupation of that country, which went actually beyond what even one could expect, with things like the torture in Abu Ghraib or the massacre in Fallujah, of course, bred a counterbarbarism represented by al-Qaeda. And the Bush administration invaded Iraq in the name of eradicating al-Qaeda, and it only managed to give al-Qaeda the largest territorial base they could ever have dreamt of in Iraq. And what we are seeing now in the name of the so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is the continuation of al-Qaeda, of this same al-Qaeda that the Bush administration was supposed to eradicate. So that’s what you get, because this kind of actions by the United States in invading other countries and, of course, acting as an occupying force, with all what this means, leads, of course, to such extremism on the other side, as we have seen.

Moreover, I mean, we have to take into consideration that for decades the United States, in alliance with its best friend in the Middle East, which is the Saudi kingdom, the closest friend, even closer than Israel in that regard, the Saudi kingdom, has used their kind of ideology, the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, which is the most fanatical interpretation of Islam, even against other Islamic—other branches of Islam. It’s extremely offensive. They use this ideology in the fight against anything left-wing, anything progressive in the region. That was in the ’50s and the ’60s and the ’70s, and ultimately, I mean, of course, it peaked in the war in Afghanistan, where such ideologically inspired groups were used by the United States in the fight against the Soviet occupation of that country. And ultimately, well, a chicken came home to roost, as you know, and tragically, with the appalling massacre of 9/11, but that was a direct continuation of that. And every—I mean, everyone knowing about the whereabouts of all this knew that, I mean, at that time, and it was very much emphasized, although it was, of course, blurred in the public opinion by the kind of characterization that we heard from the Bush administration: "They hate us because of our freedom and our democracy." And, you know, we hear the same, the same kind of tune now, and this is quite misleading, I would say.

Let me also add another dimension concerning France, which was not part of the occupation of Iraq. But in France, I mean, the fact that you have had some young French citizen from Algerian background in the last few years behaving, I mean, in such extremist and fanatical forms, as we have seen, is something to be related also to the overall racism and Islamophobia that are quite, I would say, pervasive in French society, in French media. And this is a country that has not really cleared, you know, its memory—I mean, its past, the problem of its past, its colonial past. In France in 2005, the Parliament voted a law requiring that in the schools it should be taught—I mean, what should be taught is the positive role of colonialism in Africa, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Imagine. Imagine in the United States a law asking schools to teach the positive role of slavery. This is quite, I mean, unimaginable. One has to understand all this background, not of course as an excuse for these appalling murders—definitely not—and these guys belong to a completely crazy kind of ideological perspective. But one has to understand how, in a society which is supposed to be, you know, relatively wealthy and all that, you can have such hatred growing and coming to such extremes.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Gilbert Achcar, I wanted to follow up on that, asking about, now that we have gotten these reports that the two attacks—not only the attack on the magazine, but also the shooting of the policewoman—were individuals that had apparently had ties together, what’s your sense of the extent of support for jihadist perspectives and viewpoints within the Muslim community in France, a rather large Muslim community, and also your sense of the extent of these right-wing, Islamophobic movements within France?

GILBERT ACHCAR: Well, there are definitely much more Islamophobic-minded persons and militants in France than supporters of such appalling act as the one, this attack on Charlie Hebdo. And I would say, fortunately, that those who identify with this kind of jihadist perspective may be in the hundreds, out of a community of several—I mean, a community or a—let’s say, out of several millions of people in France of Muslim background. So, we are speaking here of a tiny minority.

But nevertheless, the risk is that the kind of victimization of Muslims in general, the kind of the targeting of Islam, the finger pointed at Muslims, requiring from them that they should condemn all that as if it were their problem and their specific problem, and not seeing that this is a problem of the French society and the French state in the first place, all this, you know, creates the risk of people finally identifying even with these two crazy guys, you know, as a kind of—I mean, think of what you had in the United States turning Bonnie and Clyde into heroes, you know? Although, I mean, if you look at the record, it’s not exactly a humanistic record. So, I mean, there is here a real danger, a real problem, of getting this dynamics of what I call the clash of barbarism going further, developing and all that.

AMY GOODMAN: Gilbert, we have to break, but we’re going to come back to this discussion, and we’ll be joined by a young French-Arab student who’s here in the United States. Also, the latest news is that in these two standoffs that are taking place, one near Charles de Gaulle Airport with the brothers holding a hostage, the other at a kosher supermarket—that one, it looks like two hostages have been killed. We’ll keep you updated throughout this show. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.

French Muslims Fear Backlash, Increased Islamophobia After Charlie Hebdo Attack

1,296

SHARED

     

Muslims across France are fearing a backlash after Wednesday’s attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine. Several mosques have been attacked. A bomb exploded at a kebab shop in Paris. We speak to Muhammad El Khaoua, a graduate student in international relations at the Paris Institute for Political Science. He grew up in the outskirts of Paris where he was involved with different grassroots associations, including Salaam, a student association dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue and a better understanding of Islam. Also joining is Lebanese-French academic Gilbert Achcar, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we continue to look at the breaking news from France. Agence France-Presse is reporting two people died after a gunman took five people hostage at a kosher grocery store. The gunman is reportedly the same man who shot a Paris policewoman dead on Thursday. Meanwhile, French police have surrounded a building in a northern town near Charles de Gaulle Airport as part of a massive manhunt for the two men accused of carrying out the massacre at the Charlie Hebdomagazine. Police say the suspects, Said and Chérif Kouachi, are holed up in a small printing business, where they have taken a hostage. Still with us in London is Gilbert Achcar.

AMY GOODMAN: Also with us here in New York is Muhammad El Khaoua. He is a graduate student in international relations at the Paris Institute for Political Science. He grew up in the outskirts of Paris, where he was involved with different grassroots associations, including Salaam, a student association dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue and a better understanding of Islam.

Before we go back to Gilbert Achcar, Muhammad, talk about the climate in Paris. And you hear the horror right now. You’ve got the two brothers. They’re holed up near the airport. They’ve got a hostage. Another man, not clear what their connection is, if there’s a direct connection, though they may have been years ago together, is—has killed two hostages, or two hostages have been killed in a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

MUHAMMAD EL KHAOUA: Yeah, I mean, this is a political nightmare for the entire French society, but particularly for the French Muslims, because those who killed those individuals really create a space, create a great opportunity for the most destructive Islamophobic, racist forces in France, which are already using this tragedy, this catastrophe, to justify more repression against the Muslims. So it’s a political suicide that they basically did in the name of Islam. And again, the condemnation has been really clear: This goes against the, really, foundation of Islam.

But I think we have also to be clear on this: We should not always expect Muslims to condemn as Muslims. I think they should condemn as French citizens, or as human beings. When, as Gilbert Achcar mentioned, this Norwegian individual, Breivik, killed those 77 individuals in Norway, he was not portrayed as a Christian, white Christian individual. He was not even portrayed as a terrorist. So it seems like when a Muslim commits a terrorist act, he is referred as a terrorist, but when a non-Muslim does the same, there is a double standard.

And it reminds me that I was watching NBC, and there was a former CIA official who was on the show, and he said that this terrorist attack was the most serious one in France since the—in Europe since the killing of this Norwegian individual by Breivik. But he forget that actually it’s not the case, because he didn’t include the killing of these Norwegian people, as if this individual is not a terrorist. So, there is a kind of identity politics here which is a bit disturbing for me.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And this whole issue of the, for now, for 30, 40 years, the uneasy situation of the Muslim—the growing Muslim population within France vis-à-vis the old established French white citizenry, what do you see—I mean, clearly this is a setback for those relations, but what has been the relationship now over the last several decades?

MUHAMMAD EL KHAOUA: Well, as you may know, France has a largest Muslim population in western Europe, and the history of the Muslim presence in France is deeply connected with the history of French colonialism. Most of the Muslims come from the countries which have been colonized by France, namely North African and West African countries.

AMY GOODMAN: Where is your family originally from?

MUHAMMAD EL KHAOUA: From Morocco and Nigeria. So, to understand the treatment of the French Muslims in today’s French society, we need to look at the colonial legacy, which I believe continues to shape, influence the way France deals with Islam and Muslims.

AMY GOODMAN: Gilbert Achcar, can you comment on what Muhammad is saying?

GILBERT ACHCAR: Yes. I mean, I think—well, I agree with what he is saying. Until now, I can’t see any disagreement. I mean, he is exactly pointing to this problem of the double standard in reacting to such events when they come from Muslims nowadays compared to any other religion, because, after all, this wave of extremism and fundamentalism is affecting everywhere, you know. I mean, we mentioned this Norwegian crazy guy, and you have these appalling demonstrations of the far right in Germany, of all places, that’s really frightening. You had—you have Jewish fundamentalist extremists in Israel killing regularly, actually, and no one is saying Judaism is the source of all these killings. You have Hindu fundamentalists doing all sorts of appalling things, and again, no one is saying this is the problem of Hinduism. But when it comes to Islam, Islam is finger-pointed immediately. And that’s really here an issue of double standard in dealing with that.

And again, I mean, the freedom of speech is something, and I’m fully for the real freedom of speech, actually, which France is not a real country of freedom of speech, where you have a lot of laws hindering the real freedom of speech in France. It’s nothing like the First Amendment in the United States. But even in these limitations to the freedom of speech, you find double standards also.

And as I said, I mean, for instance, France, of course, the sense of guilt—for very good reason, which is actually an awful historical reason—about the Jewish genocide is not equalled by any sense of guilt with regard to the colonial past of France. And Algeria, for instance, is one of the most appalling episodes in the history of colonialism. You know, I mean, there are few worse cases, like the Congo, with the Belgians in the Congo, and such, but the history of French presence in Algeria, which lasted until 1962—that’s not that long ago, you know—is just appalling. And there is no—no real—I mean, at the level of the whole French society and the French media, this is not really integrated. And you have this kind of secularist arrogance towards Islam, which is a continuation of the kind of arrogance and colonial spirit that existed at the time of direct colonialism.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m going to just interrupt to say breaking news: The police have named two suspects wanted in connection with the second siege at the kosher supermarket in Paris: Amédy Coulibaly and Hayat Boumeddiene. Hayat is a woman. I want to turn to an imam of a mosque located in a Paris suburb, Drancy mosque. Imam Hassen Chalghoumi said France’s Muslim community fears a backlash in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack.

IMAM HASSEN CHALGHOUMI: [translated] We are also afraid of this twisting. That’s not to say we do not do our duty in renouncing this barbarism. No, we renounce it. We are one of the first victims. I am living 24 hours a day under police protection, faced with a minority. Unfortunately, all of the Muslim world are victims of 95 percent of terrorism. Currently, the acts of yesterday, there is also a wave of racism and insults that follow on the networks and on the Internet. We can understand the anger, but we cannot accept the hatred.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Imam Hassen Chalghoumi of the Drancy mosque in Paris, the French Muslim community fearing a major backlash in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack. In fact, the policeman that has become famous now, who was laying on the ground outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo, named Ahmed Merabet, was Muslim himself, when one of the two assassins came and shot him directly and killed him. And people are not only saying, "Je Suis Charlie," now, but they are saying, "Je Suis Ahmed." On Sunday, there will be a mass protest in France, a rally in Paris. But they will not have the National Party, which is Marine Le Pen’s party. If you could comment on this, Muhammad, and the organizing among the youth, people like you, groups like Indigène?

MUHAMMAD EL KHAOUA: Yeah, I would like to say a word about this hashtag, "Je Suis Charlie." I really understand the compassion, the natural compassion and respect and sentiment which the slogan represent, but I think Charlie—we need also to mention that Charlie Hebdo’s role in fostering this Islamophobic context has been very, very controversial, and especially since the early 2000s. They somehow recuperate—they use some of this rhetoric of the clash of civilization, and they apply it to the Muslims, who were always portrayed in the most degrading ways. So, we are very clear on the condemnation of these attacks, which are not—which cannot be justified in any way, shape or forms. But we also, as citizens, should be entitled to criticize the content of the newspaper and the shift in its editorial line since the early 2000s.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I’d like to ask you about that, because the way it’s been portrayed here, at least in the United States, is that the magazine was an equal opportunity satirist, attacking Christian—the Christian religion, Judaism, as well as Islam. But you think that that’s not quite so.

MUHAMMAD EL KHAOUA: No, I think when you target, you know, the weakest of the weak, when you target a population, a segment of the French population, which is already the target of institutionalized racism, this is not brave. I don’t think it’s courageous. Again, they have the right to do it, and it’s the law, so nobody puts into question the right to do so, but we should be also—without being, you know, afraid of being linked to this attack, question the responsibility of the newspaper and question their ethics in that matter.

AMY GOODMAN: The organizing of young people, like the groups Indigène, Indigenous, how people have been organizing in the past?

MUHAMMAD EL KHAOUA: You know, the Indigenous party, the Party of the Indigenous People of the Republic, as it is called, Parti des Indigènes de la République, has emerged in a very specific context, that which Gilbert Achcar mentioned, the 2005 propositions of law which would make obligatory for the French educational system to emphasize on the positive role of colonization—this law has now been passed—and also the 2005 riots, which have been—which are a very interesting case to understand the way Islam is dealt and perceived in France in the post-9/11 context. So, this is the context under which this movement, which is now a political party, has emerged. Basically, the idea of this movement is to say that, well, France has denied its colonial past, it refused to deal with it, it refused to recognize how this colonial legacy continues to shape its relation with Muslim and Islam. And I believe they make a point in this understanding, in this analysis of French society, which is a very racialized society, which pretends to be colorblind, which is really haunted by its colonial past.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but of course we’ll continue to follow this issue. Muhammad El Khaoua is a graduate student in international relations at the Paris Institute for Political Science, grew up in the outskirts of Paris, where he’s been involved with different grassroots associations, including Salaam, a student association dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue and a better understanding of Islam. He heads back to Paris soon. And Gilbert Achcar, thanks so much for being with us, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, orSOAS, at the University of London. His most recent books are Marxism, Orientalism, Cosmopolitanism as well as The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising.

This is Democracy Now! 

---

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

-->

Just a Test

Test

A Change v. Spam

Spam

Everybody is so much after making money through somehow increasing posts on their blogs that too many Spamish comments have been posted and resent to the few serious people who commented and asked to be updated.  As a result, we have decided to use the word recognition and moderation features for the time being.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but this is the only way I can think of to reduce your own irritation.   

Politico refuses to publish rebuttal of Michael Oren’s anti-Semitism smear

Politico refuses to publish rebuttal of Michael Oren’s anti-Semitism smear

Julianna Forlano: The 'Absurdity' of Chris Christie

Noise, Focus, and the Conscious Mind

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 

 

 

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 











    Schopenhauer wrote the following in the 19th Century.  When I showed it to several people more recently, the remark was “My God, what would he do today?”
    At that time, I was in Chicago, on the Northwest side, and directly below the flight path for landings at O’Hare field.  It was there that many Chicagoans learned to stop in mid-sentence, wait for several minutes, and then continue, without any repetition, the rest of the sentence.   Contemporary “music” is only acceptable to most when it is louder and has much lower and thumping bass than is possible with any live instrument.
    It is well known, today, in Cognitive Science, that the conscious brain can only focus on one thing at a time.  Those who think they can multi-task are merely shifting consciousness from task to task rapidly, not performing many tasks at once.  Even our politicians are beginning to recognize this to some extent when banning texting while driving.  As a matter of fact, such drivers are less reliable than those who are drunk, as some real professional drunks know enough to cover one eye when double vision occurs.  Some hormone stricken adolescents have no clue as to how impaired they are at such times.
    The final footnote seems to me misleading as Nietzsche, in 1888, or so, threw his arms around a horse that was being whipped harshly.  Idiots point to this as a sign of his impending insanity, but it could also be seen as a bold humanitarian gesture.


ON NOISE.







Kant has written a treatise on The Vital Powers; but I should like to write a dirge on them, since their lavish use in the form of knocking, hammering, and tumbling things about has made the whole of my life a daily torment. Certainly there are people, nay, very many, who will smile at this, because they are not sensitive to noise; it is precisely these people, however, who are not sensitive to argument, thought, poetry or art, in short, to any kind of intellectual impression: a fact to be assigned to the coarse quality and strong texture of their brain tissues. On the other hand, in the biographies or in other records of the personal utterances of almost all great writers, I find complaints of the pain that noise has occasioned to intellectual men. For example, in the case of Kant, Goethe, Lichtenberg, Jean Paul; and indeed when no mention is made of the matter it is merely because the context did not lead up to it. I should explain the subject we are treating in this way:
If a big diamond is cut up into pieces, it immediately loses its value as a whole; or if an army is scattered or divided into small bodies, it loses all its power; and in the same way a great intellect has no more power than an ordinary one as soon as it is interrupted, disturbed, distracted, or diverted; for its superiority entails that it concentrates all its strength on one point and object, just as a concave mirror concentrates all the rays of light thrown upon it. Noisy interruption prevents this concentration. This is why the most eminent intellects have always been strongly averse to any kind of disturbance, interruption and distraction, and above everything to that violent interruption which is caused by noise; other people do not take any particular notice of this sort of thing. The most intelligent of all the European nations has called “Never interrupt” the eleventh commandment.  But noise is the most impertinent of all interruptions, for it not only interrupts our own thoughts but disperses them. Where, however, there is nothing to interrupt, noise naturally will not be felt particularly.  Sometimes a trifling but incessant noise torments and disturbs me for a time, and before I become distinctly conscious of it I feel it merely as the effort of thinking becomes more difficult, just as I should feel a weight on my foot; then I realise what it is.
But to pass from genus to species, the truly infernal cracking of whips in the narrow resounding streets of a town must be denounced as the most unwarrantable and disgraceful of all noises. It deprives life of all peace and sensibility. Nothing gives me so clear a grasp of the stupidity and thoughtlessness of mankind as the tolerance of the cracking of whips. This sudden, sharp crack which paralyses the brain, destroys all meditation, and murders thought, must cause pain to any one who has anything like an idea in his head. Hence every crack must disturb a hundred people applying their minds to some activity, however trivial it may be; while it disjoints and renders painful the meditations of the thinker; just like the executioner’s axe when it severs the head from the body. No sound cuts so sharply into the brain as this cursed cracking of whips; one feels the prick of the whip-cord in one’s brain, which is affected in the same way as the mimosa pudica is by touch, and which lasts the same length of time. With all respect for the most holy doctrine of utility, I do not see why a fellow who is removing a load of sand or manure should obtain the privilege of killing in the bud the thoughts that are springing up in the heads of about ten thousand people successively. (He is only half-an-hour on the road.)
Hammering, the barking of dogs, and the screaming of children are abominable; but it is only the cracking of a whip that is the true murderer of thought. Its object is to destroy every favourable moment that one now and then may have for reflection. If there were no other means of urging on an animal than by making this most disgraceful of all noises, one would forgive its existence. But it is quite the contrary: this cursed cracking of whips is not only unnecessary but even useless.  The effect that it is intended to have on the horse mentally becomes quite blunted and ineffective; since the constant abuse of it has accustomed the horse to the crack, he does not quicken his pace for it.  This is especially noticeable in the unceasing crack of the whip which comes from an empty vehicle as it is being driven at its slowest rate to pick up a fare. The slightest touch with the whip would be more effective. Allowing, however, that it were absolutely necessary to remind the horse of the presence of the whip by continually cracking it, a crack that made one hundredth part of the noise would be sufficient.  It is well known that animals in regard to hearing and seeing notice the slightest indications, even indications that are scarcely perceptible to ourselves. Trained dogs and canary birds furnish astonishing examples of this. Accordingly, this cracking of whips must be regarded as something purely wanton; nay, as an impudent defiance, on the part of those who work with their hands, offered to those who work with their heads. That such infamy is endured in a town is a piece of barbarity and injustice, the more so as it could be easily removed by a police notice requiring every whip cord to have a knot at the end of it. It would do no harm to draw the proletariat’s attention to the classes above him who work with their heads; for he has unbounded fear of any kind of head work. A fellow who rides through the narrow streets of a populous town with unemployed post-horses or cart-horses, unceasingly cracking with all his strength a whip several yards long, instantly deserves to dismount and receive five really good blows with a stick. If all the philanthropists in the world, together with all the legislators, met in order to bring forward their reasons for the total abolition of corporal punishment, I would not be persuaded to the contrary.
But we can see often enough something that is even still worse. I mean a carter walking alone, and without any horses, through the streets incessantly cracking his whip. He has become so accustomed to the crack in consequence of its unwarrantable toleration. Since one looks after one’s body and all its needs in a most tender fashion, is the thinking mind to be the only thing that never experiences the slightest consideration or protection, to say nothing of respect? Carters, sack-bearers (porters), messengers, and such-like, are the beasts of burden of humanity; they should be treated absolutely with justice, fairness, forbearance and care, but they ought not to be allowed to thwart the higher exertions of the human race by wantonly making a noise. I should like to know how many great and splendid thoughts these whips have cracked out of the world. If I had any authority, I should soon produce in the heads of these carters an inseparable _nexus idearum_ between cracking a whip and receiving a whipping.
Let us hope that those nations with more intelligence and refined feelings will make a beginning, and then by force of example induce the Germans to do the same.[8] Meanwhile, hear what Thomas Hood says of them (_Up the Rhine)_: “_For a musical people they are the most noisy I ever met with_” That they are so is not due to their being more prone to making a noise than other people, but to their insensibility, which springs from obtuseness; they are not disturbed by it in reading or thinking, because they do not think; they only smoke, which is their substitute for thought. The general toleration of unnecessary noise, for instance, of the clashing of doors, which is so extremely ill-mannered and vulgar, is a direct proof of the dulness and poverty of thought that one meets with everywhere. In Germany it seems as though it were planned that no one should think for noise; take the inane drumming that goes on as an instance. Finally, as far as the literature treated of in this chapter is concerned, I have only one work to recommend, but it is an excellent one: I mean a poetical epistle in terzo rimo by the famous painter Bronzino, entitled “_De’ Romori: a Messer Luca Martini_” It describes fully and amusingly the torture to which one is put by the many kinds of noises of a small Italian town. It is written in tragicomic style. This epistle is to be found in _Opere burlesche del Berni, Aretino ed altri,_ vol. ii. p. 258, apparently published in Utrecht in 1771.
The nature of our intellect is such that ideas are said to spring by abstraction from observations, so that the latter are in existence before the former. If this is really what takes place, as is the case with a man who has merely his own experience as his teacher and book, he knows quite well which of his observations belong to and are represented by each of his ideas; he is perfectly acquainted with both, and accordingly he treats everything correctly that comes before his notice.  We might call this the natural mode of education.
On the other hand, an artificial education is having one’s head crammed full of ideas, derived from hearing others talk, from learning and reading, before one has anything like an extensive knowledge of the world as it is and as one sees it. The observations which produce all these ideas are said to come later on with experience; but until then these ideas are applied wrongly, and accordingly both things and men are judged wrongly, seen wrongly, and treated wrongly. And so it is that education perverts the mind; and this is why, after a long spell of learning and reading, we enter the world, in our youth, with views that are partly simple, partly perverted; consequently we comport ourselves with an air of anxiety at one time, at another of presumption. This is because our head is full of ideas which we are now trying to make use of, but almost always apply wrongly. This is the result of [Greek: hysteron proteron] (putting the cart before the horse), since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last; for teachers, instead of developing in a boy his faculties of discernment and judgment, and of thinking for himself, merely strive to stuff his head full of other people’s thoughts. Subsequently, all the opinions that have sprung from misapplied ideas have to be rectified by a lengthy experience; and it is seldom that they are completely rectified. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate.

       *       *       *       *       *

From what has been said, the principal point in education is that _one’s knowledge of the world begins at the right end;_ and the attainment of which might be designated as the aim of all education. But, as has been pointed out, this depends principally on the observation of each thing preceding the idea one forms of it; further, that narrow ideas precede broader; so that the whole of one’s instruction is given in the order that the ideas themselves during formation must have followed. But directly this order is not strictly adhered to, imperfect and subsequently wrong ideas spring up; and finally there arises a perverted view of the world in keeping with the nature of the individual—a view such as almost every one holds for a long time, and most people to the end of their lives. If a man analyses his own character, he will find that it was not until he reached a very ripe age, and in some cases quite unexpectedly, that he was able to rightly and clearly understand many matters of a quite simple nature.
Previously, there had been an obscure point in his knowledge of the world which had arisen through his omitting something in his early education, whether he had been either artificially educated by men or just naturally by his own experience. Therefore one should try to find out the strictly natural course of knowledge, so that by keeping methodically to it children may become acquainted with the affairs of the world, without getting false ideas into their heads, which frequently cannot be driven out again. In carrying this out, one must next take care that children do not use words with which they connect no clear meaning. Even children have, as a rule, that unhappy tendency of being satisfied with words instead of wishing to understand things, and of learning words by heart, so that they may make use of them when they are in a difficulty. This tendency clings to them afterwards, so that the knowledge of many learned men becomes mere verbosity.
However, the principal thing must always be to let one’s observations precede one’s ideas, and not the reverse as is usually and unfortunately the case; which may be likened to a child coming into the world with its feet foremost, or a rhyme begun before thinking of its reason. While the child’s mind has made a very few observations one inculcates it with ideas and opinions, which are, strictly speaking, prejudices. His observations and experience are developed through this ready-made apparatus instead of his ideas being developed out of his own observations. In viewing the world one sees many things from many sides, consequently this is not such a short or quick way of learning as that which makes use of abstract ideas, and quickly comes to a decision about everything; therefore preconceived ideas will not be rectified until late, or it may be they are never rectified. For, when a man’s view contradicts his ideas, he will reject at the outset what it renders evident as one-sided, nay, he will deny it and shut his eyes to it, so that his preconceived ideas may remain unaffected. And so it happens that many men go through life full of oddities, caprices, fancies, and prejudices, until they finally become fixed ideas. He has never attempted to abstract fundamental ideas from his own observations and experience, because he has got everything ready-made from other people; and it is for this very reason that he and countless others are so insipid and shallow. Instead of such a system, the natural system of education should be employed in educating children. No idea should be impregnated but what has come through the medium of observations, or at any rate been verified by them. A child would have fewer ideas, but they would be well-grounded and correct. It would learn to measure things according to its own standard and not according to another’s. It would then never acquire a thousand whims and prejudices which must be eradicated by the greater part of subsequent experience and education.  Its mind would henceforth be accustomed to thoroughness and clearness; the child would rely on its own judgment, and be free from prejudices.  And, in general, children should not get to know life, in any aspect whatever, from the copy before they have learnt it from the original.  Instead, therefore, of hastening to place mere books in their hands, one should make them gradually acquainted with things and the circumstances of human life, and above everything one should take care to guide them to a clear grasp of reality, and to teach them to obtain their ideas directly from the real world, and to form them in keeping with it—but not to get them from elsewhere, as from books, fables, or what others have said—and then later to make use of such ready-made ideas in real life. The result will be that their heads are full of chimeras and that some will have a wrong comprehension of things, and others will fruitlessly endeavour to remodel the world according to those chimeras, and so get on to wrong paths both in theory and practice. For it is incredible how much harm is done by false notions which have been implanted early in life, only to develop later on into prejudices; the later education which we get from the world and real life must be employed in eradicating these early ideas. And this is why, as is related by Diogenes Laertius, Antisthenes gave the following answer:
[Greek: erotaetheis ti ton mathaematon anankaiotaton, ephae, “to kaka apomathein.”] (_Interrogatus quaenam esset disciplina maxime necessaria, Mala, inquit, dediscere_.)

       *       *       *       *       *

Children should be kept from all kinds of instruction that may make errors possible until their sixteenth year, that is to say, from philosophy, religion, and general views of every description; because it is the errors that are acquired in early days that remain, as a rule, ineradicable, and because the faculty of judgment is the last to arrive at maturity. They should only be interested in such things that make errors impossible, such as mathematics, in things which are not very dangerous, such as languages, natural science, history, and so forth; in general, the branches of knowledge which are to be taken up at any age must be within reach of the intellect at that age and perfectly comprehensible to it. Childhood and youth are the time for collecting data and getting to know specially and thoroughly individual and particular things. On the other hand, all judgment of a general nature must at that time be suspended, and final explanations left alone. One should leave the faculty of judgment alone, as it only comes with maturity and experience, and also take care that one does not anticipate it by inculcating prejudice, when it will be crippled for ever.
On the contrary, the memory is to be specially exercised, as it has its greatest strength and tenacity in youth; however, what has to be retained must be chosen with the most careful and scrupulous consideration. For as it is what we have learnt well in our youth that lasts, we should take the greatest possible advantage of this precious gift. If we picture to ourselves how deeply engraven on our memory the people are whom we knew during the first twelve years of our life, and how indelibly imprinted are also the events of that time, and most of the things that we then experienced, heard, or learnt, the idea of basing education on this susceptibility and tenacity of the youthful mind will seem natural; in that the mind receives its impressions according to a strict method and a regular system. But because the years of youth that are assigned to man are only few, and the capacity for remembering, in general, is always limited (and still more so the capacity for remembering of the individual), everything depends on the memory being filled with what is most essential and important in any department of knowledge, to the exclusion of everything else. This selection should be made by the most capable minds and masters in every branch of knowledge after the most mature consideration, and the result of it established. Such a selection must be based on a sifting of matters which are necessary and important for a man to know in general, and also for him to know in a particular profession or calling.  Knowledge of the first kind would have to be divided into graduated courses, like an encyclopædia, corresponding to the degree of general culture which each man has attained in his external circumstances; from a course restricted to what is necessary for primary instruction up to the matter contained in every branch of the philosophical faculty.  Knowledge of the second kind would, however, be reserved for him who had really mastered the selection in all its branches. The whole would give a canon specially devised for intellectual education, which naturally would require revision every ten years. By such an arrangement the youthful power of the memory would be put to the best advantage, and it would furnish the faculty of judgment with excellent material when it appeared later on.

       *       *       *       *       *

What is meant by maturity of knowledge is that state of perfection to which any one individual is able to bring it, when an exact correspondence has been effected between the whole of his abstract ideas and his own personal observations: whereby each of his ideas rests directly or indirectly on a basis of observation, which alone gives it any real value; and likewise he is able to place every observation that he makes under the right idea corresponding to it.
Maturity of knowledge is the work of experience alone, and consequently of time. For the knowledge we acquire from our own observation is, as a rule, distinct from that we get through abstract ideas; the former is acquired in the natural way, while the latter comes through good and bad instruction and what other people have told to us.  Consequently, in youth there is generally little harmony and connection between our ideas, which mere expressions have fixed, and our real knowledge, which has been acquired by observation. Later they both gradually approach and correct each other; but maturity of knowledge does not exist until they have become quite incorporated. This maturity is quite independent of that other kind of perfection, the standard of which may be high or low, I mean the perfection to which the capacities of an individual may be brought; it is not based on a correspondence between the abstract and intuitive knowledge, but on the degree of intensity of each.

The most necessary thing for the practical man is the attainment of an exact and thorough knowledge of what is really going on in the world; but it is also the most irksome, for a man may continue studying until old age without having learnt all that is to be learnt; while one can master the most important things in the sciences in one’s youth. In getting such a knowledge of the world, it is as a novice that the boy and youth have the first and most difficult lessons to learn; but frequently even the matured man has still much to learn. The study is of considerable difficulty in itself, but it is made doubly difficult by novels, which depict the ways of the world and of men who do not exist in real life. But these are accepted with the credulity of youth, and become incorporated with the mind; so that now, in the place of purely negative ignorance, a whole framework of wrong ideas, which are positively wrong, crops up, subsequently confusing the schooling of experience and representing the lesson it teaches in a false light. If the youth was previously in the dark, he will now be led astray by a will-o’-the-wisp: and with a girl this is still more frequently the case. They have been deluded into an absolutely false view of life by reading novels, and expectations have been raised that can never be fulfilled. This generally has the most harmful effect on their whole lives. Those men who had neither time nor opportunity to read novels in their youth, such as those who work with their hands, have decided advantage over them. Few of these novels are exempt from reproach—nay, whose effect is contrary to bad. Before all others, for instance, _Gil Blas_ and the other works of Le Sage (or rather their Spanish originals); further, The Vicar of Wakefield, and to some extent the novels of Walter Scott. Don Quixote may be regarded as a satirical presentation of the error in question.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] According to a notice from the Munich Society for the Protection of Animals, the superfluous whipping and cracking were strictly forbidden in Nuremberg in December 1858.