Violence in Victoria

I thought of this in terms of violence in modern North America or contemporary society, but unlike most of my posts it is an observation based on, well, actual observation. Hence I will limit my claim. BC, Canada, is a violent place. Victoria, BC is a violent place. A convenient limitation as I can include some of my own pictures this time. The pictures included here were taken last year, around sunset. I don't bike in the downtown core. I wouldn't lock my bike down there. As a female, I should be down town at night because I could be a target for rape. My male friends also find it dangerous to go downtown because fit, healthy males are the target of people who simply want to fight someone. They are targets because they can look after themselves. I over hear things about the clubs downtown, about underage drinking, fights, and people being beaten by the cops.

Why is this of interest? Because it is Victoria, BC. Victoria is a tourist town, and the capital of the provincial government. It is kind of fake, a tourists trap. It is without a doubt a beautiful little city. It is a little city. Vancouver is big, dangerous, a real big city like you read about in books. Victoria is the most European city in BC. It isn't a bad place. Isn't it strange that there is so much danger?

My second interest is the Vancouver hockey riot. It happened. Set cars on fire, fought, looted, mob mentality type stuff. In Vancouver. Canada is supposed to be a peaceful, up right sort of place.

These things got my thinking. I started to wonder if there was something wrong in our world. Everything seems calm and peaceful and yet famous people are murdered in the middle of downtown Vancouver. How is this an okay place to live? Shouldn't I be concerned?

It reminded me of lyrics from the song "Slipping" in Doctor Horrible's Sing along Blog --a brilliant superhero/supervillain musical by Joss Whedon if you have not encountered it before.

"I bring you pain,
the kind you can't suffer quietly.
Fire up your brain
remind you inside your rioting
society is slipping.
Everything's slipping away..."

It does seem, from what I see around me, that society is slipping. And yet, I don't want to associate with the villain of the piece. I do not want to have those views. I do not want to see society in that way. I must see it differently because I cannot afford to think that this is the end. People have always thought that, but we aren't in the middle ages anymore, there is no definite end. Therefore I can ask, is it really slipping?

No. There has always been violence. Cities have always been dangerous places. Paris is a beautiful city, a night city, and you should not go into the alleys. That would be stupid. It was the same in the 1800s as today. Things are actually under control. The riots occured one day, and the next day people apologised and went back to business as usual. We may have robbery downtown but we do not have a curfew and you are really rather unlikely to be shot by an enemy of any sort when walking downtown. Of course it isn't okay, and we have a long way to go before it will be, but I can still consider Victoria a sleepy tourist town even with the violence.

The slippery slope

In 1927 the Pope claimed that cigarettes would lead to "the deterioration and destruction of a Christian society and civilization."1 Today we claim it will lead to the deterioration and destruction of your lungs, but that isn't the point. The point is I think the Pope was right. I mean, I am sure it is a collection of factors which have led to a greater freedom of religion and a acceptance of a secular way of life, but all those things put together, they were right! Those people who said that allowing women the vote would lead them to be less womanly were right. I'm certainly not womanly. That might be because standards have changed: I would probably fit better in a world where womanly did not require quite so much make-up. I certainly would not fit well in a world where educated females were considered odd and out of place. I feel like no one comments on this, and I often wonder about it, because often these peoples slippery slopes seem ridiculous, but are actually correct. It doesn't need to turn out this way but in the end it does. The trouble is we cannot see it like that, because what we have now is a good thing. Maybe talking about it is dangerous. We can say 'oh, don't be silly, gay marriage will not destabilize gender norms.' It might be true that it won't, but the trouble is there are lots of people who support gay marriage because it does exactly that. It makes husband/wife a little less clear, a little less the only way to be and we think that's a good thing. It's strange, because their fears seem so ridiculous but are in the end valid. Maybe in the end what is ridiculous is that people feared those things.

1("The Pope's Appeal to Men to Reform Women's Dress," Literary Digest 72 (January 29, 1927): 27-28, 57-59.)

My last year of university

My last year of University begins in September. I feel that I have put it off long enough.

I spent the first two years living at home and moved out in third year. Part way through third year I realised that if I wanted to cook myself proper meals and remember all the classes I was taking I would have to take less classes. I can do 15 hours of class a week, but 9-12 hours I actually remember and enjoy. I loved learning, so why was I 'suffering through' it? So four and half years became six. Six years is a long time. I feel ready to be done now. Five would have been enough I think, but this way I can be awake for my final year. It certainly feels like a finally year. I will be graduating next June with a double major with honours in Philosophy and History. I wish my mother was alive to be proud of me; I will have to be especially proud myself to compensate.

It makes me queasy.

I am afraid without a constant affirmation of my ideals I will not remember what I believe in, that I will forget to be a good person and to pursue the things that I am passionate about, that I will stop writing and stop learning. I am afraid that I will become cynical and sour. I am old enough now to encounter those dreadful people who believe that they live in the 'real world.' I will say more on this real world of theirs later. Needless to say it is not the real world, but a very particular place. Everyone who lives in this place becomes obnoxious and narrow minded. This is because this reality of theirs is a very long but very narrow place and they must all squeeze past each other all the time. No one ever stands still and everyone becomes tired and overheated because it is unventilated and stuffy in this place. I do not want to go to this place. Growing up I was not interested in humans, except those who were my friends, and I would really rather not enter Sartre's hell if I can avoid it.

I am afraid also because I fear change. I fear what I do not know. It is a grand adventure but it is also frightening. I am happier to finish university then I was to finish highschool, but it still frightens me. Another town, different friends, a new life. These things scare me. What if I do not meet anyone? What if I do not pay the hydro bill and a collection agency hunts me down and drags me off to a laboratory somewhere in the underground of Toronto where they mainly do experiments on rats but sometimes on humans too? I wouldn't put it past the current mayor.

I am also the sort who likes ritual and sybolism. I am writing this because I need a last year of school. It needs to be something that I remember. I have already finished my philosophy degree. After this summer I have seven more courses to take and then I am done my history degree as well. I will audit some philosophy classes, but I will miss my friends and the group of philosophy students that I spent so much time with last year won't really be there this year. My roommates will, however.

I had a friend who I miss very much now. It makes me wish I graduated in four years because she had this special talent for making everything special and important. I need it to be special and important, because I am that sort of person. I will have to try hard to do it for myself. I will probably write more throughout the year.

Dante's Inferno Test

I took this test a few years ago. I expected I would be much more sinful now, since I have been a student for a few years and do terrible things like have sex with people who have different last names then I do. Apparently not.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!

First Level of Hell - Limbo

Charon ushers you across the river Acheron, and you find yourself upon the brink of grief's abysmal valley. You are in Limbo, a place of sorrow without torment. You encounter a seven-walled castle, and within those walls you find rolling fresh meadows illuminated by the light of reason, whereabout many shades dwell. These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle. There is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad.


Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

What better place for a philosophy student? Why would I ever want to go to heaven when I can meet Aristotle instead? And Socrates too. We could corrupt the youth together!

Marxism doesn't taste like philosophy

Neither does feminism**. Neither does capitalism. These -isms are what people call 'a philosophy.' Sam has a Marxist philosophy, which undermines her brothers capitalist philosophy, although they still manage to maintain a coherent feminist philosophy when going fishing on Sunday.

I do not fully understand these things, as I have not studied them. It is a dark area and I think it will come in time. Here are my thoughts on the matter, but I warn that they are strangely formed as the landscape for me is still dark and I cannot quite make it out.

I study in an analytic tradition, bias. Philosophy students today, I have been told, tend toward "eclectic." That is, like an apartment full of bookshelves where some of the furniture is modern, an old couch, an Art Nouveau lamp, an oak dining table. There is art on the walls but it shows no coherent interest. There are many things, and they are all in close proximity and it makes a sort of sense all put together but it cannot be read at a glance. Eclectic philosophy is taking the parts of each philosopher which are appealing and using them to build. I have been told that there are no more Kantians. I've heard that James R. Brown is a Platonist, but that does not mean he follows a school of philosophy which adheres to Plato, rather he himself has studied Plato and chosen to consider himself in line with enough of Plato's views to be called as such.

Maybe this is why Marxism doesn't taste like philosophy, because we have waged war on -isms and everything has to be between the person and the book. Maybe it is simply not what I am used to. People also call such things 'ideologies', which refers to ideas that relate to economy and politics. This seems more accurate. Do I delude myself in believing that philosophy is not ideological? No, it is, but there is a difference here. I suppose it is that, like the apartment full of books, it is not obvious what that ideology is, two different ideologies might exist simultaneously and contradict each other and that does not undermine philosophy because philosophy aims at knowledge, not just system. It isn't just a way of doing things.

That is why Ayn Rand is not philosophy. Ideology does not give you breathing room. It tells you what your values are, instead of asking. It dictates all further choices you make. Novels take you near the truth of things, but sometimes the writer is just as puzzled as to why Sam goes fishing with her brother every Sunday as I am. Ayn Rand does not leave any mysteries. There is nothing secret for her, there is no core that cannot be fathomed.

And that is it. It is not modern analytic philosophy only, but also my belief in mystery that leads me to think Marxism is not philosophy. In philosophy there are questions which may not have answers. Sam's brother, who is a very clever person and has many degrees, could spend his entire life arguing that chairs are chairs because we call them chairs and not because of their essential nature. He could make a very important contribution, and Sam would certainly be very proud to have such a clever brother, but it would not settle the problem. It might settle a new area of scientific study, but it would not prevent some other brother the next day or ten years later from writing something just as certain on the other side of the conversation.

Ideologies seem so certain. You learn the system. You look at the world and see the system in it. The system is confirmed and you proceed to take down the feudal system, cut taxes, divorce your lover. These are useful tools. But I do not quite understand how they are philosophy.

**Feminism, not feminist philosophy.

25 dollars a week on food

University means debt, grad school means more debt, and I do not have a job at the moment. I joined my partner in thinking that maybe I should keep a tighter hold of my spending, particularly on food because that is the only thing I really buy. I eat quite healthy and rarely go out to restaurants, but nonetheless I have been living a bit beyond my means lately. I like to own various different oils and Asian sauces. Sometimes I want chocolate or rhubarb pie, or cookies with half a cup of butter in them. When I first moved out I would never buy ice cream. Now I buy a 4 l tub when it is on sale at a dollar per litre. This is more sensible then purchasing it at a higher rate, but can I afford it? Am I willing to sacrifice my present happiness knowing that I will be in difficulty in the future when I finish school.

To some degree I am, otherwise I wouldn't be in school. So long as the economy doesn't not fall apart so completely that there is no job for me, I can do okay. I do not have a disposition to suffer unduly. Being poor will not overwhelm me. For one thing I am not willing to risk my health in order to eat more cheaply. That to me is foolish.

So what I will be doing is pulling in my finances, taking a look at what I am buying, and limiting the luxury goods like ice cream. I might up date on this from time to time, but honestly I do not think it is that exciting. I have discovered that various blogs are dedicated entirely to eating cheaply, who report their receipts at the end of the week. Although it is somewhat interesting to know what people are eating it is not something that would keep my attention.

Imagination and logic

There is a particular style of thinking which annoys me. This style of thinking advocates the imagination/logic binary. It often advocates other binaries along with it, such as women=emotional/men=rational. I never accepted this binary. I did accept that some people are simply not suited to logical, rational thinking. I believed this because I did not understand math. It just did not work. Other things came naturally, but not math. It was not easy and I did not trust myself, as I do now, to struggle with it and succeed. This is to say that the imagination/logic binary is something I consider to have done me some personal harm.

There are a few ideas associated with this style of thinking. Firstly, logic is limited. It can only get you so far. It allows you to get you into a rut and it cannot get you out again. People who use logic are close minded and frightened to go beyond it. Second, logic is dangerous. It can shut people down. If I tell someone they are not being logical it puts all that they claim into question. It is a tool of the bad people.

To the first, yes, it is limited. It can only get you so far. For the second, logic is a tool. But it is not a tool of the bad people, those nasty bureaucrats, who ever it is you want to attack. It is a sword. It is a sword because it can be equally used to fight for freedom against an oppressor, or to oppress the oppressed who are fighting for freedom. Today we do not think killing is ever right and I really ought to use a hammer, but I like to use a sword better because using a hammer to do harm is not using it for it's proper purpose and as such the metaphor is weaker.

From what I can understand when people attack logic they really mean to be attacking particular people. They want to attack bureaucracy, the scientists, and suchlike. Sometimes they want to attack the philosophers. With the other attacks I do not have personal experience, but as I have knowledge of philosophy I can see that their attacks are usually quite ill-managed. Philosophy is not easily understood. Sometimes their points are somewhat valid, but for the most part any complaint made about the use of logic has also been made, more cleverly, within the discipline itself.

By saying this I do not mean that people should not keep talking about logic and imagination. What I mean is that it would be better to seek allies then enemies. My mother, being a non-academic poet, would sometimes discuss how the academic poets did not take her seriously because she did not have a university degree. Logic is present everywhere. She saw them as overly logical. They see philosophy as overly logical.

Most of the time I might agree with half of what the person is saying, but as they are making an attack I have yet had the presence of mind to turn the discussion to more fruitful directions, addressing the problems inherent in logic. These are interesting questions. The imperative that we do away with reason and it's ruler ship over the passions is not a discussion, it is an order given by someone who has not bothered to find out if I have any association with either of those things. Being told that I should be less logical is similar to being told I should "batten down the hatches, and levy the tug rope". I'm just not sure what you mean.