Year: 2012 (Page 3 of 3)

Child Deaths (Letter)

5th July 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

As appeared in Letters – Irish Independent – 29 June, 2012 edition

Reading ‘The Report of the Independent Child Death Review Group’, I could not escape the feeling that only the mad and the naive believe we will ever spend the kind of money required to keep all our children safe, happy, content and fully equipped with the emotional wherewithal to live their life to its potential. To even suggest the possibility is silly and so bedevilled with ideology that I doubt one could even get a consensus on what ‘safe’ means.

As for the other three? Well, good luck with that.

What I think we can safely agree on is that a social worker should maintain records to an agreed standard or risk censure. We can agree that the death of every child should be fully investigated and statistics collated, be they in or out of the notice of the HSE. We can agree that the in camera rule may be protecting the identity of individual children, but it is blinding the entire child-protection field, professional and academic, to what is happening to children in the courts.

We can agree, because it was agreed nearly 20 years ago, that any child who comes into the care of the State should have an individual care plan. A plan that is regularly assessed by a multi-disciplinary team. We can agree, or should agree, that the professional standards that social workers, teachers, doctors and judges apply to themselves in theory, should actually be applied in practice.

And we surely can agree that anyone who aspires to a management position in any of the child-protection professions should be able to recognise as failing any professional for whom they have responsibility.

Once recognised, they should be able to support or, if necessary, terminate the job of that failing professional. The job is just too important and too poorly resourced for bloody amateurs to be continually endured.

Anatomy of a Goal

2nd July 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

This evening as I was watching Spain play themselves into the history books, I was taken by the epic scope and beauty of their first strike. At the time I wasn’t paying close enough attention, but it appeared to me that the goal scored by David Silva, originated deep in Spanish Territory. I had been taken by the raking cross-field pass by Xabi Alonso, which was a pivotal and eye-catching part of the build up, but I wasn’t sure where it had all started.

Fortunately I was able to look at a replay on the internet and discover the full story of this epoch defining goal. Yep, I said epoch defining. I won’t apologise, I admire this Spanish side that much.

If I wished to write a book on the subject of this goal, I could get altogether melodramatic and write an opening chapter on General Franco. If it were a thesis, I would most likely begin with Cruyff. An article, would begin with the pressure being exerted on this fine and only recently lauded Italian side. But this a blog post, written at 2am, on a school night, so I will start at the only beginning that really matters.

It begins with a rather aimless and uncharacteristic punt forward by the Italian defender, Leonardo Bonucci. He wasn’t being pressed particularly hard, but there weren’t many obvious options open to him. He was striding from his own box and possibly he could have found Andrea Pirlo to his left. Instead, he tried to hit a striker with a long ball.

His pass went directly to Iker Casillas, in the Spanish goal, or in the interests of accuracy, went directly to Casillas who was patrolling the edge of his box. The time elapsed was 12.45. He rolled the ball, to Sergio Ramos, about ten metres outside and slightly to the left of the box. Ramos, controlled the ball, turned and passed it to Xabi Alonso, a further 15 metres up the pitch. As Alonso was immediately pressed, he returned the ball directly to Ramos. He took one touch and then passed it further left, to Jordi Alba, who was just over half-way between his box and the half-way line, hugging the side-line.

Alba dribbled the ball to the half-way line, still hugging the side-line. Finding himself closed down, he turned and passed back to Alonso, who was more or less in the same position Alba had been when he had received the ball from Ramos.

Alonso, from his position close on the left side-line, hit a diagonal (approximately a 50 plus metres pass, I’m poor at judging such distances) pass to Alvaro Arbeloa, who was about half-way between the half-way line and the Italian box, ten metres in from the right side-line.

Arbeloa controlled the ball instantly, as is the Spanish way. At this point there were seven Italian outfield players in the Italian half. Of these, three were ahead of Arbeloa, who immediately passed infield to David Silva. Who again, almost immediately passed to Andres Iniesta, who was to his left. Iniesta with is first touch returned the ball to Silva and continued towards the Italian box.

At this point in the sequence, the ball is half way between the centre circle and the Italian box, more or less dead centre. The Italian back four are set and their middle four look like they are in the positions they should be in. This is a little deceptive, as the control being exerted by Spain in this passing movement and the pace of that control means they have a momentum, which we shall see later in the sequence, is irresistible.

Silva then passes out to Arbeloa on the right, who is now about ten metres closer to the corer of the Italian box, still near the side-line. Arbeloa then passes in-field to Xabi, who passes a few metres in front of him to Iniesta, who has doubled back on himself. Iniesta turns and spots that Cesc Fabregas is making a run into the box, to Iniesta’s right. Iniesta, when he passes is again half-way between the center circle and the Italian box. Fabregas receives the ball, in the Italian box, midway between the small and large squares, to the left of the Italian keeper.

The Italians are still in their two banks of four and look like they are set, but not once since Alonso’s pass into their half, have they gotten close enough to the ball to make a tackle. They are not even in a position to hurry whatever Spanish player is in possession.

Iniesta to Fabregas is the thirteenth pass in this movement. It has started in the Spanish box and is now with Fabregas, receiving the ball, on the run, in the Italian box. Here finally an Italian defender gets within shouting distance of the ball. Fabregas takes it to the end-line and cuts the ball back.

Here the Italian defense can possibly be criticized. I would contend however, that Iniesta’s pass and the speed at which Fabregas used the ball, meant that the Italian defenders were turned and chasing back, thus were unable to track the simple run of Silva. He, a rather small player, ran down the centre of the Italian box, between two Italian defenders, and met the crossed ball from Fabregas. He headed the ball from the line of the small box, to the far corner, his left. The ball having come from his right.

Nine different Spanish players touched the ball, in this sequence of fourteen passes. Silva’s goal was clocked at 13.21, 36 seconds after Casillas had gathered the ball in his own area. It is, to my mind a perfect goal. The only real Italian mistake was giving the ball away so cheaply and needlessly in the first place.

Once given away however, they were never allowed the opportunity to take it back and once Alonso had changed the point of attack so dramatically, the Italians, while appearing prepared, were never quiet in this game i.e. that game the Spanish were playing for those 36 seconds. A game where only a Spanish mistake could have prevented the Spanish from winning. A game which defines this Spanish side. A game of short and long passes, of incisive passes, of controlling passes, of good runs and of ball retention. Of domination and of finishing.

36 seconds of total football. It is epic.

Child Protection in Ireland

24th June 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Reading ‘The Report of the Independent Child Death Review Group’ and seeing the oh so obvious reactions to it, has proven to be a rather frustrating experience. No, not frustrating, the reactions have made me sick to my stomach. I just can’t decide who appalls me more, the ignorant or the ideologues. Taken together, I can only describe the reactions as being, in general, self-indulgent buffoonery.

If we were a truly rational society, we would impose a decade long moratorium on reproduction, so we could decide what values and science we all agree to apply to the care of our children. What values and science we all agree to pay for and to monitor and what values and science we agree to pay to have monitored. Of course, even if we were to do something that radical, I would be very surprised if what that decade long exercise in navel-gazing produced, would be very much different from what we have today.

And what do we have today? We have a system of Child Protection based on charity i.e. alleviating and ameliorating the very worst, but essentially leaving things as they are. There is nothing wrong with that. We produce children because of animal desire and future economic need. There is no all-encompassing authority which says we must raise said children in emotional and physical luxury.

We pay lip service to the primacy of family, because statistically, a child does best in their family. Of corse, statistically the family is also the most dangerous environment for a child. So while I’m all for putting the boot into the Catholic Church for hiding rapists, let’s not forget that their Fathers did not ‘get at’ as many children as biological parents did and do.

And therein lays the most profound fallacy about Child Protection in this country. People think it is about finding the pedophiles. If only it was that simple. In truth the greatest enemy to a child’s welfare in this country, is poverty. It is this immovable object which so confounds Social Workers and their fellow professionals in Child Protection.

It is why we are content to keep our Child Protection system as reactive, as opposed to proactive, as possible. We are not looking for grand changes. Just keep the deaths down and the media focussed elsewhere. It’s not that we are heartless, it’s more that poverty is complicated. How does one even define it? And once defined, which method best eliminates it? Can it even be eliminated? How much will this cost? Why are we spending so much money, if we are not even sure we can eliminate it?

There is talk of a Constitutional Amendment which will elevate the rights of a Child to, at least, the level of the Family. This may make it easier to get recalcitrant Judges on-side, but I seriously doubt that there will be a Constitutional Amendment which guarantees a child’s right to never witness or experience disaffection, poverty, powerlessness, expendability and expediency.

Nor do I imagine a Constitutional Amendment will enshrine the principal that if a Public Servant fails to do their job to an agreed standard, they will be disciplined, even sacked, and their Union will facilitate this process rather than frustrate it. The ability of our State to intervene, fruitfully in the lives of our children is stymied by a lack of funding. That’s OK. Only a very small minority of Irish citizens would agree to the tax changes required to address that deficit. We do however, spend some money.

Money which this report shows was spent on incompetence, both individual and systemic. I’m not saying we should fire a bunch of Social Workers. No, I’m saying we should fire a bunch of Social Workers, Social Care Workers, Care Assistants, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Psychologists, Gardaí, Judges, Solicitors, Barristers, Politicians and sundry Civil Servants. Every profession in this list, makes some money due to their interaction with children. Do members of these professions routinely lose their jobs or even face serious disciplinary action because of shortcoming in their professional interactions with children? No, they don’t?

This is not because we don’t value children. We obviously don’t value them, but even if we did value children enough to put them at the head of the resource queue, our efforts would still be in vain because we suffer from another value. The value of non-accountability. A nasty nexus of mismanagement, Union amorality, political cowardice and conflicting aims allow precious resources bleed from our Social Services, meaning that what little we do allocate for the protection of children, is further reduced.

OK, perhaps firing a few thousand losers is a bit much, a bit ideologuey. I’m not anti Public Servants, be they Social Workers or pen pushers. I’m paid from the Public Purse and for ten years I worked with children who were in Residential Care. I have a lot of sympathy for anyone who works with children. It is a dangerous, thankless, stressful and often deeply unpleasant job. Everyone who works in that area knows that in the grand scheme of things, they are merely perpetuating a system of intergenerational damage and dependency. So one must focus on the individuals or risk insanity. One must embrace each individual horror story (and please know they are horror stories) because to contemplate the vileness that one cannot rescue too many children from, is to burn out, is to ingest bitterness.

Only the mad and the naive believe we will ever spend the kind of money required to keep all children safe, happy, content and fully equipped with the emotional wherewithal to live their life to its potential. To even suggest the possibility is silly and so bedeviled with ideology that I doubt one could even get a consensus on what ‘safe’ means. As for the other three? Well, good luck with that.

What I think we can safely agree on, is that a Social Worker should maintain records to an agreed standard or risk censure. We can agree that the death of every child should be fully investigated and statistics collated, be they in or out of the notice of the HSE. We can agree that the in camera rule may be protecting the identify of an individual child, but it is blinding the entire Child Protection field, professional and academic, to what is happening to children in the Courts.

We can agree, because it was agreed nearly 20 years ago, that any Child who comes into the Care of the State should have an individual Care Plan. A Plan that is regularly assessed by a multi-disciplinary team. We can agree, or should agree, that the Professional Standards that professions such as Social Worker and Teacher and Doctor and Judge, apply to themselves in theory, should actually be applied in practice. And we surely can agree that anyone who aspires to a management position in any of the Child Protection Professions should be able to recognise as failing, any Professional they have responsibility for. And once recognised they should be able to support and if necessary terminate their employment. The job is just too important and too poorly resourced for bloody amateurs to be continually endured.

Milky Tea (Part Four)

14th June 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Malachi strained with all his might as he lowered the less than svelte frame of Mother to the ground. He was on top of a high brick wall, behind him the shrill sound of police whistles made eerie threats from the thick fog. He looked down at his Mother’s face. Neither of them could see the ground under her, but both knew the score. She nodded and he let her go. The sound of her crash landing came in swift curses. Her anger was as a balm to Malachi’s nerves. He swung his legs over and gripped to wall, stretched himself to his full length. His shoulders screamed at him with the agony of over worked strain. He heard his Mother’s muffled voice.

“Drop you gobshite.”

He shook his head in annoyance and dropped. The split second stretched into seeming minutes, before his feet hit dirt. He staggered, a shooting pain going up his back. He muttered a curse of frustration. That jolt promised to pain him for months to come. His Mother caught his hand and they continued to flee further into the night fog of crowded New York.
They had been on the run for the last eight hours. As Mother had expected, they’d merited and excited a welcoming committee of uniformed coppers. She and Malachi had watched from an upper deck as the police went through every single steerage passenger. Any man or woman that matched or even approximated their description was pulled out for further questioning. Anyone who took umbrage at this man-handing was dealt a swift quietner to the temple via the vicious looking truncheons the coppers around here used. More than a few burly men, who didn’t like their women-folk being jostled thus, found themselves unexpectedly asleep and bleeding.

Since their encounter with Penelope, they had commandeered her berth in Second Class and had slowly acquired, through careful pilferage, entirely new apparel. Once Malachi kept his big, ignorant, bog man illiterate, savage mouth shut, as was his Mother’s exact admonishment, they passed as legitimate Second Class passengers. And on a ship this size, the absence of one woman was noted by no one and would pass unremarked until her cabin was cleaned. Of course, Malachi and his mother planned to be well away before the bare bones of their encounter could be picked over.

They calmly joined the other well to do passengers and made their way to the pier. The police presence here was both thinner and infinitely more respectful. Though The Mother’s careful eye was drawn to a plain clothed man, who stood like a copper and who was clearly smart enough to watch for his targets without having to continually refer back to a written description. She gave Malachi a gentle nudge and they discreetly parted company. Malachi walking next to a young couple in a way that could be construed as him being in their company. The Mother found a large and loud young man who was declaiming loudly to his sweetheart of his exploits to come in the savage interior of this vast continent. She casually shielded herself from the Detective’s eye with this vainglorious bulk.

They escaped the man’s notice but they were aware that they lacked the documentation to maintain their ruse for much longer. In front of them a queue was forming in front of long tables, manned by officious men in clean blue uniforms. Paper was examined, paper was shuffled, more paper was signed and eventually once suitably papered, America was opened. The queue moved, slowly but steadily. Malachi and Mother watched for their opportunity. The queue continued its inexorable progress and then they saw it. A door once guarded had succumbed to the exigencies of a weak bladder. Separately they moved towards it, being careful to nod and joke about the inconvenience of queueing with their fellow passengers.

Finally they were at the exit and without looking back they were through it. They found themselves in a stinking alleyway. They ran without pause. Only when they approached the city proper did they slow. They paused for breath and checked for sound and sign of pursuit. They shared a satisfied nod. All appeared to be going well. They linked arms and began to stroll leisurely into the city. They had money in their pockets and had to be nowhere quick. Then the whistles began.

Shrill sharp shocks to their senses. They hadn’t escaped. They darted down alleyway after dank alleyway. They stole clothes and changed their appearance twice. All day they had escaped capture and now the night and the fog promised to make their escape final. But these coppers seemed to take a personal interest in their apprehension. There was no let up and they were forced to begin climbing and once or twice wading for their lives.

They were close to exhaustion. Malachi limped in agony. Too tired to complain and his Mother too worried to mock his clumsiness. They were now just blindly going down streets. All that mattered was that they keep moving. Their ability to plan had been lost in the fog. More whistles and they misstepped. They found themselves in a blind alley. The whistles approached, they looked around desperately. There was little to see and even less light to see it in but they spied a glowing shape in the gloom. They move to it and saw that it was the outline of a door, lit by the escaping brightness from within. The whistles grew closer. She looked at him,

“If we go in here, you know what has to happen.” Malachi nodded a reply, a long silence followed, before she again whispered, but this time in appalled consternation, “If you nodded and you can’t even see my face I’ll hand you over to the police here and now, ya mutton headed moon child.”

Malachi blanched, “Sorry mother, I didn’t nod, I was thinking about what you said.”

The Mother snorted in disgust, “Don’t lie as well as being stupid.”

“Sorry Mother. I understand. Whoever we find, they have to be ended. ‘Tis that or the rope. So I say we go for it.”

The Mother took him by the hand, “You’re a good Son Malachi, thick, but loyal, a mother could ask for nothing more in a son.” She placed his hand on the door handle as she took her knife from her bag.

“On the count of three Malachi…One, Two, Three.”

They crashed through the door, but were immediately moved to stillness. They had entered a surprisingly large room, dominated by two wooden slabs, on one was a dead body, covered in hundreds of needles and on the other, another dead body, being carefully carved apart by a tall middle-aged man, with a long neat beard.

He hissed at them angrily in a haughty French accent, “Close the door yes. There are coppers everywhere tonight yes. What is it you want?”

The Mother hurriedly closed the door and made that mental leap which always amazed Malachi, “My son here, hurt his back Doctor, we heard you might be able to help.”

Malachi stood up taller, his neck cracking as he looked in horror at the dead bodies, the needles, the mad doctor and Mother.

“Ah sure now Mother, the pain is almost gone, we should be on our way and sorry for disturbing you doctor.” He turned and placed a hand on the door handle. He felt his mother move and then had to stifle a yelp as the knife that had recently disappeared up her sleeve was now being pressed against his kidney.

She spoke to the Doctor with careful gentleness, never once taking her eyes from Malachi’s, “You’ll have to forgive him Doctor, he’s a simple child and despite his great hulking size, a big cowardly baby. His back does need looking at, whatever the lummox may say.” Malachi yielded to the pressure of the knife and let go of the door. He turned and faced the Doctor.

“Yes Doctor, it is exactly as my mother says.”

The Doctor took his bloodied hand from the corpse he was dissecting. He wiped them carelessly on a rag, already filthy with dried blood and walked towards the pair of visitors. He looked Malachi up and down before addressing himself to Mother, “A simpleton you say?”

“As nears as makes no difference Doctor.” He nodded and turned away.

He spoke to them as he opened a door and took out a collapsable bench, “Please instruct your oaf to be removing his upper clothing please.” He assembled the waist high bench without waiting for rely or looking to see if his instructions were being followed. “How did you hear of me good mother?”

The Mother looked at Malachi and bared her teeth in threat. He relented and began to take off his jacket, shirt and vest. “I was down the Market Doctor and a dear old lady saw Malachi limping and recommended your name.”

“Yes, I do have a great reputation among the small people. But one day Kings and Queens will be clamouring for my attentions. Until then I will have to treat the dim-witted and poor. Speaking of poor, how will you be paying?”

The Mother didn’t miss a beat, taking Penelope’s purloined watch from her bag. It wasn’t very valuable, but would garner a few dollars, “Here you are Doctor, a gift from my sainted husband, but as he looks on me from heaven, I’m sure he will forgive me for making free with the bounty of his affection.”

The Doctor took the watch and after a cursory examination, threw it into a drawer, full of similar keepsakes, used to pay for his services. He patted the bench and looked at Malachi as one would an unruly child or recalcitrant farm animal, “Lay down here yes. On your front like a good boy.”

Malachi wasn’t unduly offended by the patronising tone, for the body covered in needles filled his mind. The Doctor looked at the hair covered musculature of Malachi’s chest.

“He would make a fine specimen good mother, please think of me if he should pre decease you.”

She looked at the Doctor for some time. Malachi waited, face down on the bench. “So his corpse would be worth something to you Doctor?”

He nodded and Malachi groaned, his discomfort may have been mental or physical. “Indeed good mother, valuable to me yes and valuable to science.”

She shrugged her shoulders and walked to the other side of the room slowly. She retrieved a chair and brought it back to Malachi’s side, opposite to the side the Doctor was on. “The lad is dear to me heart Doctor, a trial to my nerves, but around the eyes he’s the clearest picture of his father I have. To lose him would surely put a bruising on my heart that’d be the death of me.”

The doctor nodded at her sagely, “Of course good mother, I have a number of cadavers at my disposal, so please, take some time to consider my offer.”

She leaned over Malachi’s bare and clammy back to shake the Doctor’s hand, Malachi finally brought his mind to consider the content of the conversation being had over him. He wondered if cattle felt so much like meat when they heard the bargaining voices.

She spoke again, “So Doctor, his back? Do you think you can see to what is ailing him?”

Malachi felt his back being manipulated. Despite himself he began to relax. The room was warm, the kneading of his aching muscles wonderful and his eye lids increasingly heavy. He breathing shallowed, his body sagged and brawny arms fell away. Voices droned above him, as if heard through a dream and then only softly. Insensibility took him.

Mother was cut short by the first thunderous snore. She looked at her incapacitated son in consternation. This was no act, he was sound asleep. She glanced at the Doctor with a silent apology.

“That is quite alright good mother. I find that many times my patients fall asleep while I look for the cause of a malady.”

“And have you found his Doctor, other than his empty headedness of course?”

“I have. There is a blockage here yes, along his spine. I will need to manipulate his meridians to unblock him. Then he will be fully recovered.”

The Mother pursed her lips, showing how impressed she was at his quick diagnosis and her confidence in his ability to remedy the problem. Then her head turned, her eyes searching the room.

“Tell me Doctor, would you have a sup of tea anywhere in here?”

He answered her carelessly, “No good mother, I drink only the coffee.”

Mother nodded, “I had heard that was the habit of many in this land, perhaps you would instead oblige an old woman with some boiling water and perhaps a drop of milk. I am happily well provisioned in the area of tea leaves already.”

He looked at her, his patience already near exhausted, “If you must, there is a kettle in the back kitchen and some milk in the cooler. Now please, I must concentrate on my work.”

“Of course Doctor. Of course.”

She proceeded to carefully and ever so slowly prepare her tea. Finding the kettle, the milk, the stove, watching the water till it boiled. Minutes passed in blissful concentration until she was ready to bring a large mug of milky tea to her lips. She sighed in purest contentment, before turning to see how the Doctor was treating her son.

She stopped dead. Even for a woman of her special sensibilities, the sight that greeted her, gave her pause. Malachi was still out cold, snoring gently now, but his back had taken on the appearance of some grotesque pin cushion. The doctor had stuck what must have been a score at least, of needles into his unresisting flesh.

She approached the spectacle, taking her seat she took anther sip of her tea before addressing herself to the Doctor.

“Forgive me sir, but how pray does puncturing my son, aid his recovery?”

The Doctor’s face lit up, he never tired of an opportunity to explain this near miraculous treatment to the uninitiated.

“I will of course attempt to explain all to you good mother, but I fear your uneducated mind may struggle with the concepts this method of treatment rests on, yes”

“Yes I understand Doctor, you can only do your best with me, if I fail to follow you, then we know where the fault lies.”

He bowed in acknowledgment at her acceptance of his vastly superior intellect.

“To begin, you must imagine that through our bodies flows an energy which animates us. When this energy flows as it is meant to, then we are in perfect health yes, but if there is, how you say, a disruptedness, then a malady will happen.”

The Mother nodded, her free hand gently squeezing Malachi’s hanging arm.

“Please continue Doctor.”

“When that flow is in flux, men like me have studied how to fix it, by pressing these needles into special places in the body. These places once so pressed or prodded help to make the flow return to normal. It is a rare gift and it will make me my fortune.”

Mother looked at Malachi who was now looking back at her. Fear and confusion on his face. With the merest of glances she signaled that he remain as he was.

“And there is no pain Doctor?”

“None what so ever. A sensation yes, but no more than that.”

She stood and walked around to him. Standing at his side she looked down at Malachi’s back.

“You would be surprised Doctor at some of the people we’ve met this last year. Some of them would impress even a scientific genius such as yourself Doctor. And I think I know exactly what you are saying to me”

The Doctor laughed, “Of course you may think that good woman. But I’m sure you could not even in your imaginings know what it is I am doing.”

The Mother smiled. She saw that Malachi had discreetly turned his head so that he could see them both. She reached down and lifted Malachi’s hanging arms and rested it against his side. She then placed her mug in it.

“A moment Doctor.”

She returned to the stove and retrieved a spoon. She returned to the Doctor and placed the spoon in the mug.

“Imagine Doctor, that this mug is my dear simple boy here. Inside is a mixture of tea and milk and for those that like it, sugar. But ‘tisn’t as simple as just throwing them in willy nilly.”

The Doctor was intrigued despite himself, leaning closer to the mug.

“If the mixture just sits there, it is not a proper mug of tea. So one takes a spoon, or a needle in your case, and moves the mixture, the energy, along the road it’s supposed to be on.”

The Doctor grinned excitedly.

“I think perhaps your words work better if we understand each meridian as a mug of this tea.”

The Doctor reached for the mug, but as his fingers brushed against it, his eyes glazed over. His knees buckled and he dropped straight down. His head hitting the dirt floor hard.

Malachi carefully raised himself a few inches from his bench and looked down at the Doctor, a knife jutting out from the base of this skull.

“I think you impressed him Mother.”

“I think so too boy. We’ve come across a lot of doctoring recently.”

“Do you think you can take these needles out now?”

The Mother took back her mug and sipped at it.

“In a moment Malachi. It has been a fierce long day and my thirst has my throat cut ragged raw.”

“Of course Mother, of course.”

She continued to sip in silent contentment as Malachi rested his head on his hands, relaxed despite the needles.

“So whats the plan Mother?”

“Well my boy, we must head west. We seem to have overstayed our welcome in civilisation.”

Malachi considered her words then nodded in agreement.

“At least we have meat for the road.”

THE END

Ethics: Foreign and Domestic

3rd May 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

I criticise the country I live in, on an almost daily basis. It is mired in so much self-inflicted catastrophe and neurosis that I sometimes can’t help feeling contempt for it. It is healthy for me then, to occasionally remember why I still live in Ireland. I live here because I am free. I would be equally free in the UK and just a tiny bit less free in the rest of the EU as I am a citizen of an EU nation. That freedom is easy to take for granted, so it really is healthy to remind myself how privileged I am to be Irish-English-European. I may have no emotional attachment to these three labels, but I feel giddy every time I get to vote in this country.

It is so easy to forget how rare a thing it is, for an individual to be consulted on the affairs of their State. It is a thing almost non-existent in the annals of history and it is a thing still restricted to but a privileged portion of today’s world. I don’t have to worry about the Security Forces kicking down my door at night or the State dealing with me in an extrajudicial manner and there is nothing, but my own incompetence, preventing me from standing for public office. That is a remarkable thing.

Remarkable and rational. There are two ways to look at our species. We are fallen angels, constantly fighting the forces of evil, internal and external, so one day we may ascend into heaven. The other is to see our species as rising apes, capable of great reason but still subject to our animal nature. As an atheist I obviously see more reality in the second view.

When we look at our closest relations, the other primates, we see that successful leadership and dominance are not the preserve of mere strength alone. Intelligence and the fostering of loyalty through kindness also play a part. We see that reflected in the best of our society. Kindness is built into our species. Why else would we hate beggars? For the vast majority of us, there is a little wrench of emotion as we walk past a beggar, pretending to not see them or muttering a lack of change or bitterly dropping a few cent into their cup. We may eventually learn contempt, but to learn that contempt, we must first unlearn something innate, compassion.

We may also scorn our politicians, but they do some amount of buttering us up, to get into the positions of power we put them in. They smile and they promise and they remind us of what kindnesses their father did for your father and we desperately want to believe them because even now, being lied to face to face, seems like something unnatural and even, despite all the evidence, unlikely.

And what do we elect them for? We elect them with only one purpose in mind; that we may leave the security of our little castles, cross our moats and safely navigate the world beyond. I deride the State for many things, but I will never question its importance in denying the biggest among us, the freedom to behave as we imagine the creatures of the jungle behave. An all powerful silver-back maintaing order is no longer practical, so we’ve created a collectivised notion of a silver-back and called it the State. It is a big, mostly dumb and prone to being a very greedy creature, but it only exists and persists because it works for the majority of us. We have institutionalised altruism and reciprocity i.e. we are civilised.

The persistence of civilisation has paid off in ways beyonds safety. We have invented rights. Again, think about voting rights. Think about democracy and the obligation to cater to minorities. Think about all those politicians and their fake smiley pandering. Really think about it because it is beyond wonderful. Every nation in the Western World is a liberal democracy. It is our gift to the World, a World which we were so recently robbing blind.

Big L Liberals and big C Conservatives may battle for the hearts of our democracies, but we remain liberal democracies in that we all vote, men and women, rich and poor, non-caucasians, non-Christians and even those people who persist in voting for the smaller parties. Everyone is included and we have systems that seek (with varying degrees of competence) to cater to and manage the mishmash of aggregated and conflicting, social and economic and cultural values that make up our multifarious nation-states. So many contradictions contained within all our neat and not so neat borders. All with one thing in common, the perceived right to walk the streets unmolested by the State and other bullies, real and imagined.

We are so free that we protest when members of our police force speak about us behind our backs, or when our politicians smirk at us or when private clubs don’t have rules which reflect our values or when foreign parades don’t include people we want included. Now I’m a liberal, a dyed in the wool, marriage equality supporting, anti-prohibition, proud feminist and welfare state loving liberal, but even I can’t take seriously some of those issues. I do however feel a great deal of gratitude for living in a society which is so liberal, that people feel entitled to object to what people say about other people behind their backs.

The alternative is a society where liberal becomes a term of abuse. A society so opposed to progress, that equality can be objected to on principal, rather than someone having to go to the effort of constructing a coherent and viable argument against it. A society of unreason, where the strong are unrestrained and where even our castles are unsafe.

We must then return to the beggar. Those of us who do not suckle at the breast of Ayn Rand, tend to not want beggars intruding upon our streets. We may just not want to see them and are happy with; out of sight out of mind, or we may have a genuine wish to have their plight ameliorated in some fashion, up to and including the transfer of wealth from our pockets into the pockets of a cohort of professionals who will care for the beggars. Criminalising or socialising, both have the same result, we don’t have beggars messing with our emotions or more importantly, we don’t have a visible manifestation of our civilization’s shortcomings showing us its open palm, on our daily work commute.

Short of experiencing poverty oneself, nothing shouts out societal problems, like seeing poverty asking us for help so directly. For the most part, poverty is as hidden as child abuse. Most of us can get by without unduly worrying about the frayed edges of our society, of our civilisation. There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing even impractical about that. Poverty is still not prevalent enough to endanger the status quo. And we have enough shame left that the majority of those in poverty stick to living lives of silent despair. Suicides may be up, but again, shame keeps us out of that issue too, we are much more comfortable talking about car safety. Fingers crossed, we will get through this recession before we have to start digging mass graves for the casualties.

The beggars though, they can come into our castles now. We inadvertently invite them in. Our exposure to a multiplicity of media, fed to us through a plethora of different platforms, means we have to work very hard indeed to harden our hearts to the out-stretched hands, from all across our planet. If we would move beyond compassion, if we would learn to be harsh, then let us do so. Let us develop a philosophy of non-compassion. A philosophy that we are comfortable teaching to our children. Let us teach them that we are richer than the all the rest, ah well, aren’t we financially and genetically and politically fortunate and/or entitled.

When we boast of our weakened State and we compare it to, let’s say, the Chinese State, which routinely puts bullets into the heads of criminals, just before harvesting their organs, we need a ready answer for our children’s inquiry as to why we are happy, no, eager, no, coquettishly and obscenely enthused, by the prospect of doing business with China? Why are we playing nice with Russia while they prop up the murderous regime of Assad in Syria? And why do we have diplomatic relations with nations which continue to treat women as cheap brood mares?

We can lie to our children and say that the tenets of Cultural Relativism require us to give equal deference to all different societal values, especially if that culture is predominately dark-skinned. Or we tell the truth, that money and jobs and raw materials come from foreign lands and if we wish to get our grubby and increasingly desperate paws on those materials, then we are going to have to accept that we only value human life where and when it is convenient. And anyway our dead ancestors were mean to their equally dead ancestors so we get to keep our eyes fixed firmly on our feet, because we are conveniently embarrassed by what dead people did.

It is this learned cynicism that keeps us sane when we encounter that bloody beggar. The learned cynicism that comes with embracing helplessness. It is a seductive feeling. It allows one to retreat to the cocoon of one’s own intellectual and emotional castle. What can ‘little Ould Ireland’ do against the might of international scum-baggery? What can an individual do against the multitude of tiny evils that cause girls to have their genitals mutilated, homosexuals hanged, dissidents blown up, apostates beheaded and of course that whole thing of explaining to our fat children how malnutrition kills children every single minute of every single day on our planet?

Truth be told, there is nothing I can do to convince this Government and a critical mass of Irish people, that it is a damning indictment of our democratic values to even have diplomatic relations with a nation such as China, never mind the nauseating spectacle of our elected officials rolling over to have their bellies tickled by the Chinese Government, just so they’ll throw us some of their custom. I may despise it, but my mortgage repayments, my responsibilities and my family situation all mean I have not experienced desperation and even if I eventually lose my house, I still will not suffer any emotional damage. How then do I preach solidarity with a Syrian, who’s name I can’t even pronounce, to my neighbour who is facing the loss of everything he/she have worked so hard to accumulate?

The problem with our freedom and with our economic depression is that we are now, more than ever, as a bag of cats. Our population is divided by those who feel robbed by the State and those who feel robbed by the Wealthy and we are also all points in between. We are divided by those of Faith and those of none. We are divided by those who agree with basic human rights, or authentic human rights or that human rights are a nonsense. We are divided into europhiles and europhobes. And we are now either beggars with our hands out for help or beggars with our hands out to help.

No wonder then, that if an ordinary nation like Ireland can be so conflicted about its values, that a plurality of nations would be so utterly incapable of finding a consensus. How can we be surprised that the United Nations would find itself tied in knots as it haplessly attempts to address the despotic suppression of dissent in Syria? There is no rational reason for us to think that the UN should be able to intervene usefully in Syria. The UN does not exist independently of the nation states that are its membership. And like every democratic international organisation, the biggest members, with the largest armies and a proven willingness to use said military prowess, cannot be gainsaid.

Small-fry like us? Well we did almost as much to facilitate the United States in its illegal (if one takes the UN seriously) invasion of Iraq as we are now doing to support the legal (again, if one takes the UN seriously) occupation of Afghanistan. I’m one of those few people who once supported both invasions. My mind was not changed by any moral break, but by the sheer incompetence of the occupation of Iraq. The fascinating thing though, was that despite the protests, our Government did not lift a finger to hinder the use of our airports and airspace by the United States and again, despite all the protests, not a single TD lost their seat due to their/our tacit support for that illegal invasion.

We knew then, what we know now; the side of our toast on which we’ll find the butter on. It is on the same side as almost every other small nation. We will vote to condemn or to support or to resolve, but we are not going to act against our economic best interests. I wish it were different, but then, I was for the invasion of Iraq and the majority, were softly softly against.

So not only am I trying to convince people who face economic ruin, that they should care about unpronounceables out foreign, but also that they should entertain the idea of not only offending possible economic benefactors, but that they should also consider the possibility of actively involving themselves in activities that harm the interests of those big and mobile monied nations.

For example, I want the EU to invade Syria and impose democracy. Further, that the EU guarantees the independence of Syria against all-comers. The list of reasons why that is never, ever, you’re dreaming man, it’s just not going to happen, is about a mile long. And at the very top of that list is the lack of military might and competence within the EU, to impose our power (and thusly our values) beyond our borders. Second on the list, but even more importantly, the citizens of the EU, do not want the EU to, in principal, possess that kind of power, neither do they want to have to pay the huge sums of money required to attain that level of military competence. And they definitely don’t want to, nor even can they imagine, killing and dying for the entity known as the European Union.

So Syria? So the plight of women in Islamic Nations? So that statue of C.J. Haughey in Dingle? So smoking in cars? So the weather? Too much, just too much. So we switch off our brains and then compassion soon follows. We can’t demand that the Chinese and the Russians forego their interests in the Syrian regime and not expect to have to endure economic consequences. Why suffer for people we stopped caring about the moment complexity reared its head? Now a tsunami is OK. We can dig deep for that. It is a simple exchange of money for relief. Helping flood victims is not going to threaten anyone’s livelihood.

That dichotomy does not anger me. I’m an adult and I know how narrow one’s horizons get when the mortgage needs paying, but I am no longer content to remain cynical about our species. I despise feeling powerless. And the intellectual dishonesties and illusions required to deal with that powerlessness have begun to lose their efficacy. I blame having too much time to write or perhaps it is the grey in my beard reminding me that soon I will cease to exist, but for whatever reason, for the last few months I have been rediscovering the energy required to care. I have begun to reengage with organisations I was once active in, I am trying to set up a new one and I am contemplating joining others.

I am never going to be able to save a woman from misogyny disguised as religion. I’ll never be able to put anti-tank ordinance into the hands of Syrian rebels. And I am never going to be able to save a child from starvation. I can’t even live in a county free of Haughey statues. What I can do is fall back in love with democracy. All I can do is become again an active participant in this tiny, achingly self-conscious, little democracy. It is an unlikely aspiration, but perhaps one day, I will convince one other citizen that there is such a thing as tainted money and perhaps there are good reasons to sacrifice one’s immediate economic interests for something more discreet. Perhaps to fully appreciate the awesome dimension of democracy one must accept the responsibilities of being the protected beneficiary of democracy. And if those responsibilities do not include the protection and propagation of democracy, then surely we are nothing more than economic units and consumers, with nothing separating us from the lumpen, but time.

It takes the wind out of you when you discover you will never be able to change the world, but wait a decade or two and that desire may return and that idealism, tempered by cynicism is the kind of thing that can sustain one through the unpleasant task of fruitless effort.

Gender Quotas in Kerry

26th April 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

As appeared in Letters – Kerryman – 25 April, 2012 edition

Henry Gaynor (April 18) disputes the necessity and justification for Gender Quotas in our Elections. He does this by asking some very intelligent and searching questions; are women interested, if they are what’s keeping them back, where will they find the time, will they not lose some credibility if part of a quota and what happens to the men affected by quotas? Fortunately there is research on this topic so we know why since 1801, Kerry has only ever sent four women to represent our interests in London and more recently Dublin.

Simply put, women are prevented from enjoying the same level of success as men in the political world, because the system as it is now, was designed by men, for men and continues to be dominated by men. This may be the 21st Century, but when family commitments involve caring for children, elderly parents or sick relations, the responsibility still falls mostly on women. A fact made worse by the ridiculous hours politicians have allowed become the norm for their profession. Knocking on doors on a Monday, sitting in Dublin on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, followed by Clinics on a Friday means a woman (and in a civilised country, a man) with a young family, cannot hope to have her talents as a public representative, used at a national level.

This anti-family system has led to many women, not only shying away from participating in Party politics, it has became the norm to think women are uninterested and/or incapable of competing in the Political Arena. This notion has been around for so long now, that even many women have begun to think it is true. This despite the fact that almost every organisation; voluntary, religious, charitable, political, sporting etc, relies almost entirely for their continued existence on the energy, wit and enthusiasm of women.

How do we change this culture? How do we instill confidence, make up for the lack of cash, address the inequality of caring responsibilities? We’ve two choices. We can continue as we are, which is a valid option but it has been estimated that it will take at least three centuries, at the present rate of progress, for us to have a Dáil that truly represents the men and woman of this nation.

Or the second option, which is Politicians so reforming their profession, that a woman from Kerry, with the talent to best promote the interests of Kerry people, is not prevented from doing so, just because as she is putting her children to bed at 8pm, her less talented Party colleague is happily pandering to any and all enquiries at any time of the day or night. This reform can only be undertaken by politicians. Only politicians can change their operating procedures. And a first step in this transformation is to give the politicians a bit of a shove. Encourage them to find enough women to add to the ballot papers, so that the choice of the voter is enhanced. This is not so we can have token women in the Dáil. No, it is so that there are enough women in the Dáil that they will finish the job of transforming Irish politics to the extent that quotas are never again needed.

We all pay for the politicians and we all pay for the Political Parties so I don’t think it is expecting too much of them, to at least try to give everyone a fair go at trying for the responsibility of governing.

Good Abortions?

23rd April 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Who could not be moved by the plight of the three brave women who related their story on The Late Late Show (20 April 2012)? To be told that their unborn babies were incapable of living outside the womb. That they were incompatible with life. I can’t empathise with something so fundamentally horrific. It is tragedy on so many levels that my imagination fails me.

There is however an aspect of their story that I can grapple with. Due to the morality of others, they were forced to leave the country to seek terminations. You see Ireland is very strict about some things. What individuals may or may not do with and/or to their own bodies, is right up there at the top of things the State feels obliged to legislate for.

This arrogance did not form in a vacuum. As a former outpost of orthodox Roman Catholicism, the hierarchy of freedom in Ireland, was clear to all. At the top were good middle-class Catholic men, who were free-ish, then there were all other men, after them were foetuses and at the bottom were women and children. Don’t forget that until 1990, a husband had unrestricted access to his wife’s body and children of single-mothers were treated as State/Church property.

Thus the State has a long history of thinking itself enjoined to tell people what they could do with their own bodies. That habit of power is as difficult for citizens to break as it is for politicians to give-up. So we remain a nation which exports women who wish to have terminations. An anachronistic position protected fiercely by a loud and powerful minority.

Now I’ve explored my thoughts on abortion in an earlier post, so I am not going to dwell too much on the rights and wrongs here. Suffice to say, I am pro-freedom of choice. In saying that however, this particular case, is not a clear cut argument for abortion on demand. It is not even a cause célèbre for abortions that protect the lives of women. This is specifically about women who are carrying foetuses which will not survive.

We are in good abortions versus bad abortion territory. Abortions to end ‘real‘ suffering versus ‘social‘ abortions. It is a distinction I find nauseating, but for some it is a real moral line in the sand. I had assumed three sides to the freedom of choice debate, those for freedom, those against freedom and those who had yet to decide. Apparently there is a fourth side; those who want freedom for some, in particular situations, sometimes, here’s a list of hoops the women must jump through, etc.

One would have to be a cold cold bastard to have the capacity to feel any kind of moral superiority over those women, but those bastards exist. People who would call these women murderers. Others that speak of ‘perinatal hospices’ and think this sufficent. These are scary people and worse, they have a crawling body politic on their side.

There can be no compromise in this. It is freedom or nothing. Women are given full autonomy, or their bodies remain subject to the morals of others. But there is nothing to stop those who support freedom, to be a bit cold in their efforts. Just because I am a liberal does not mean I have to be nicey nicey all the time. Incremental steps are the key to freedom more than a revolution will ever be.

So I will wholeheartedly support the efforts of those who are campaigning for ‘good’ abortions. Let’s get that door unlocked. Let’s help the politicians eventually do the right thing, by helping them first do the easy thing, legislate for women who are forced to travel to the UK as their unborn babies are incompatible with life. It’s not heroic, but freedom is more important than heroism.

Two and a Half Men

3rd April 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

Deep down, I am an incredibly shallow person. I really am. I enjoy Two and a Half Men. It may not be my favourite sit-com, but I never miss an episode. To be honest, I rarely miss any episodes of any sit-coms, once it’s piqued my interest. But it isn’t liking Two and a Half Men alone that makes me shallow, it’s that I love sit-coms above all other art-forms. Worse than that, I think the Americans make the best ones.

The earliest sit-com that I can remember following (though how one followed anything before the the advent of those little magic boxes that ‘series link’ I just do not know) was Family Ties. It was a programme that annoyed me greatly, but I was almost immediately addicted to the format. The combination of the episodic, the story arc and laughter. A 20 to 25 minute peek into the lives of people, that if well written become part of one’s own life, combined with humour, is to my mind, an unbeatable experience.

The first sit-com I really loved was Roseanne. It was loud, brash, working class and remained very funny up to its jumping the shark moment i.e. the lottery win. I was able to watch people’s lives, married couples bickering, children growing, money problems, romantic problems and incisive humour. I also followed The Cosby Show at the same time and while enjoyable, it was a tad dull and middle class. The format however, did keep bringing me back to it.

Then I saw Fawlty Towers and I realised I had been setting my standards too low. Well, that’s what I thought for a while. No 12 episodes of any sit-com ever made, could stack up against Fawlty Towers. It is peerless. Yet there are 236 episodes of Friends. How does one compare 12 episodes of genius with 236 episodes of good to excellent? I’m sure there are some people reading this who are now experiencing rage that I have put Fawlty Towers and Friends in the same paragraph and not used the opportunity to pour scorn on Friends.

I understand that emotion. Fawlty Towers is a precious thing and the ubiquity of Friends has all but poisoned our memories to its better moments. But I cannot dismiss the disparity in the number of episodes produced/created; 236 versus 12? They are both sit-coms, it is not like differentiating between Fantasy and Science Fiction. It is not even comparing Star Wars with Star Trek. It’s Star Trek Voyager versus Battle Star Galactica (the newer series obviously)(though to be fair, in this scenario Voyager would have to be imagined as being much much better than it was and Galactica as only 12 episodes long). I think you get the picture. Apples and oranges, but apples being a citrus fruit.

It is through watching the career of John Cleese that I came to fully understand the difference between British and American sit-coms. As part of a relatively large team of writers, Monty Python, Cleese helped create the genius that is Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the equally genius films that followed. He was part of a team that produced 45 episodes, 5 films, numerous albums and books and that toured NorthAmerica like rock stars. He then wrote Fawlty Towers in partnership with Connie Booth. There was no one else. They filmed the series on a shoe string and that was it. I often ponder what would have happened if Cleese and Booth had been given American levels of support and resources. Cleese famously disliked working in teams and Friends had more writers than Monty Python, so I can’t help thinking he would have been fired by the end of Season2. He would have retained the credit ‘Created by’ but the series would have continued without him.

The disparity in resources available is not just a quirk of personality. The money generated by American sit-coms is phenomenal. Seinfeld has made billions of dollars. A successful sit-com is a cash cow, a money spinner par excellence and a goose that lays golden eggs. British sit-coms continue to be short run little gems. The pay-offs are simply not there to risk investing a great deal of money in a British sit-com. Instead there are occasional world beaters like The Office (UK Office = 2 writers. US Office = 17 writers) and the cheaper to produce, sketch show.

Back in the day when I presumed Americans did not get irony or self-deprecation, this would be a thing to be regretted. In this time of 30 Rock, Modern Family and The Big Bang Bang Theory however (and there are others I have yet to see but have heard good things about) I know that I am living through a Golden Age of sit-coms. Just one of those mentioned, would fill me with glee, but there are three of them on together. It’s stunning.

So why Two and a Half Men? I’m currently watching Season9. I was curious to see if they could fit Ashton Kutcher into Charlie Sheen’s boots and they’ve done so quite successfully. I’ve watched every episode of every season and it took me two seasons (yep, my addiction is matched only by my slowness) to work out why this nasty piece of work, works? Season1 just screamed misogyny. Every female character is shrill, conniving, slutty, grasping and vile. I was continually stunned by just how unpleasant ‘all’ the female characters were. Even Berta, the outsider, the one I’d assumed would act as the show’s conscience, turned out to be repellant.

In Season2 however, it clicked. Two and a Half Men is not misogynist, it is misanthropic, it is downright un-American, it is subversive and it is dystopian. There is not a single attractive character in the entire show. Not one, male or female, child or adult. All are equally the villain of the piece. I am unaware of any sit-com which is so resolutely unheroic, unsympathetic and causes one to feel grubby if one identifies with any of the characters.

In contrast, Modern Family is a conservative paean to the importance of the family in American society. It is in every way a positive and joyous celebration of family values. The addition of two Hispanic, two gay and an Asian character merely makes it appear more modern. It is so obvious yet its quality saves it from being hokey and cheesy. It is possibly the best written sit-com I’ver ever had the pleasure of laughing at. I look forward to Fridays, just because Modern Family will be on.

I do not have that same affection for Two and a Half Men (I’d worry about anyone who would) but I still won’t miss it. It’s subversiveness can be seen in the contrasting economic fortunes of Charlie and Alan. Charlie does little and is richly rewarded for that minimal effort. Alan works himself to distraction and is rewarded with poverty and scorn. But is there a moral to this? No! Charlie engages in consequence free hedonism and Alan disgusts one and all with his cheapness.

Even at the end of Season8, when life imitated art with Charlie Sheen being fired for his behaviour, he received a $25million pay-off and is expected to earn another $100million in syndication fees. Unless they start making coke out of gold, Sheen’s money will outlive his liver, heart and lungs.

That is what is so un-American, so subversive about Two and a Half Men and ultimately why I watch it, it shows only what is small in people. There is no idealism, no hope, no aspiration beyond the next act of self-indulgence. It is squalid and yet so few people realise that the bile on the surface merely disguises the true cesspool at its heart.

They are a dysfunctional family without any redeeming features (other than a beautiful house in a beautiful location), it is the anti-Simpsons. It is purist anarchy. It consistently avoids lecturing, avoids hectoring, avoids any teaching, any moralising, any hope and any attempt to inspire. It is in fact unique and it will prove impossible to emulate. It is so wrong, but I will continue to watch it, because if you’ve nothing to mix the vodka with, you’ll still just hold your nose and horse that harsh swill back.

My Thoughts on Abortion (In Ireland)

8th March 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

When I first came to the realisation that all is grey, I thought myself most mature. I was slow getting there and it still doesn’t come naturally to me, but it certainly makes engaging with issues more satisfying. I now find stridency off-putting and arrogant (unless, of course, I’m the one being strident, a fault I hope to one day overcome) and I am no longer comfortable interacting with those who confuse opinion with fact (again, one day I hope to stop doing this too). Outside of science, all is relative and that uncertainty is bracing.

When I realised I was an atheist, I did feel it necessary to have one all-encompassing value, by which to lead my life and on which to base all other philosophies. I didn’t go for The Golden Rule. Instead, I chose the primacy of human life. With death being final, what could possibly be more important than our individual existences? As possibly the only self-aware species in the Universe or Multiverse, to extinguish any of our lives, seems appalling to me.

So that is my jumping-off point, as it were; the primacy of life. Well not exactly. Within that ‘primacy‘ are lesser and greater primacies. The first and foremost life, is my own. Followed by the lives of my close friends and family. Beyond them are the other seven billion or so of you. As my life is of such vital importance, I’m forced to choose how best to preserve that wonderful life. I either buy seven billion bullets and a weapon’s platform that can efficiently deploy said munitions, or I succumb to and encourage the social nature of our species. I chose the latter due to a surfeit of emotion and a deficit of resources.

An attachment to life is found in all species. Living and breeding and all that contribute to those goals, is existence in its entirety. Our species just happens to have evolved such huge brains, that we have gotten into the habit of rationalising everything. We have been forced to invent a myriad of distractions, to alleviate what we all know to be inevitable i.e. death. We invent wildly to protect ourselves from the inevitable and worse, how entirely meaningless life is. As steadfast in my atheism as I may be, I am still not immune to this. I am 37 and I have planned my funeral. There is nothing so devoid of relevance as one’s own funeral, but it does help with the fear, by providing one with a false sense of control and post-mortem relevance.

So I am a mere vector for mindless genes. So what? In the last week, I laughed, I cried, I had sex, I wrote, I ate well and I scored a goal at football that was borderline cheating as I did nudge the defender in the back, but the goal stood and it felt great. I am profoundly grateful for my existence and the opportunity it affords me to experience, but we have become far too intelligent to live and experience naturally.

We no longer live in little family groups, with a dominant male. We no longer hunt for food, nor do we really need to fear the unknown. We live in the millions and tens of millions. And in place of a dominant male, we have dominant males and we invent unknowns. And we require rules. We require rules and we require principals on which to base those rules. As I’ve already said, my most cherished and fundamental value, is life. Not because my life has any intrinsic value, but because it is all that I have.

There are two ways I can interpret that principal. The first is that the preservation of my body’s ability to oxygenate my organs is all that matters. The second way is that the preservation of my ability to experience life is paramount. I choose the second, as life is only life, if it can be experienced.

So, life above all else, but my life first and life means that which is experienced, not merely inhaled. That’s the easy part. Now my philosophy has to contend with and accommodate the seven billion other lives who are also entitled to their primacy. Seven billion individual lives, but not really individual, as we are social animals and we are all packed onto this one little planet. This is where I struggle to make sense of the apparent contradiction between autonomy and interdependence. It descends into political philosophy at this point; the individual versus society.

Unfortunately, political philosophy is not a satisfactory method of dealing with this problem. The Right versus Left dichotomy doesn’t work as there are contradictions on each side of the political spectrum. The Left speaks of freedom but makes us subservient to the State and the Right speaks of freedom but makes us subservient to tradition. I would be a Libertarian, if only there were no children. In the place of political philosophy then, I will revert to personal prejudice. I’m allowed do this as I am discussing my own beliefs, but I must attempt to show some logical underpinning to those prejudices and then perhaps, I might get to the point of this article i.e. abortion.

If life is to be experienced, then one must be free to experience it. This freedom includes innate, learned and external conditions, that contribute to and facilitate an individual in fully engaging with their reality. Of course this freedom cannot be total, as there are billions of competitor/cooperator experiencers. Political philosophers have grappled with that balance for centuries and yet they still can’t agree on an answer, but they can pick up followers fairly fast. If it wasn’t for their inability to definitively address this conundrum, we wouldn’t have the ‘political spectrum‘ and all its attendant nonsense and division.

I look at the problem on three levels; the economic, the social and individual ability. Economic; I have yet to come across a better method of economic interaction than capitalism, but the only way to eliminate the problems associated with losing badly, is to eliminate the possibility of unlimited winning. Social; in every conceivable circumstance leave adults the hell alone. Individual ability; screw all political philosophies when it involves the health and welfare of children, or adults with impaired mental, intellectual or physical abilities.

Yes, there is a contradiction between freedom and providing care for those who require it. This contradiction can only be resolved by invoking a purist ideology or by choosing a muddle. First World nations generally choose to muddle through this problem. Our wealthy nations choose to look after those who require it, but each nation has a different idea of who deserves what and within each nation, the political parties also disagree on this issue. Thus the line shifts at every election, in every nation.

Do we expend resources on others due to altruism (learned or innate) or are we engaging in enlightened self-interest? No one knows for sure, but the philosophers, theologians, psychologists, anthropologists and the evolutionists will all offer their views. Ultimately it doesn’t matter as the number of people who would admit to having no qualms about stepping over a sick or starving child is very small. The more important issue is; maximising personal freedom within a system that is empowered and even enjoined to intervene.

I equate personal freedom, not to mere taxation, but to physical autonomy. The problem is that I get to vote on my taxation at regular intervals. In issues of physical autonomy however, I usually have to wait for a referendum or a European Court decision or the uncertainty of social progress. My physical autonomy is as dear to me as my own life and it ranks second only to my life in importance. Further, I don’t believe one can really have a life without freedom and without freedom, there is no life. There is nothing truly controversial about that. People have been killing each other, in the cause of freedom for centuries. Freedom from oppression, freedom for a country, freedom for or from an idea.

We have also fought for personal freedom. We make it difficult to send people to prison and we are making it more difficult to force adults into care. This is progress. It is progress, but slow, so very slow progress. Adults are sill largely denied physical autonomy. The inviolability of our bodies, the freedom and protection from intervention, by the State, regarding our bodies, remains far from being the reality.

Suicide is a good example of this. In the past, suicide was both a moral and civil crime. Church and State combined to keep the prevalence (reported anyway) of suicide to a minimum. It was taught to all, to be a taboo. A shameful thing, the price of which would follow the wretch into the after-life. It was an effective method in its own way. It may have increased the collateral damage caused by a suicide, but it was at least a clearly understood and cohesive reaction to a phenomenon that was thought of as wrong and unnatural. Indeed, there are those who would prefer this condemnatory method reapplied to the tragedy of suicide.

Now both fashion and science demand a more empathetic response to suicide, both in its prevention and in its aftermath. It is no longer a criminal act and in the place of eternal damnation, there is counseling. It is a more humane response. Will it prove more effective? While there is pain, there will be those among us who would escape that pain. For some, that escape will necessitate suicide. At what point does one surrender physical autonomy to the State? If the answer to that comes easily to you, then you and I have little in common.

Escaping emotional pain is an area of purest grey as it generally involves otherwise healthy people. Assisted Suicide and the related area of euthanasia are somewhat easier issues to discuss as, despite the unpleasantness of the contrast, it generally involves older people, suffering obvious ill health. Medical science, over the last century, has been a veritable boon to our species. What we now can avoid, overcome or endure would amaze our nineteen century ancestors. Any death suffered before one has reached their 70s or even 80s, is now considered tragic. It is a wonderful time to be sick.

There is however a downside to this medical revolution; we are now expected to endure, what were once conditions never borne. The vile irony is that the healthy young can find the means to end their pain, but the sick and infirm must endure agony beyond reason. Society and the State deny physical autonomy and instead inflict their values as a form of torture.

One can argue that despair is a mental malady, an infirmity that warrants intervention to protect the life of the sufferer. I can argue both sides of that. An adult in full command of their faculties, demanding ultimate relief from an inescapable disease? Well that is different. When strangers condemn you to a slow death, are they entitled to your loyalty? Are they entitled to one’s respect? Can they ever be seen as a legitimate authority, even if they have the weight of numbers behind them? I say no. My body, my rules, my choice, always and in every circumstance.

Do I support abortion? No! But do I feel entitled to tell a woman what she may or may not do to her own body? Never! Does life begin at conception? Yes! But that life is in somebody else’s house.

If you have, thus far, merely skimmed this article, you may feel entitled to accuse me of rank inconsistency. Life above all else, except when it’s not? I am not inconsistent, nor am I justifying abortion. I am attempting to explain my definition of life, a definition which has freedom, physical autonomy and the ability and willingness to experience life, as integral aspects of life.

The real weakness of my stance on abortion rights, is that it is ultimately meaningless. I may embrace the grey in all, but I have to recognise that in this instance, it is a black and white issue. If one believes a life begins at conception and that this life is entitled to all the rights we give the already born and further, it has the right to be endured in all circumstances by the carrier, then abortion is always wrong.

If one thinks the carrier has superior rights (as I do), then abortion is justified. There are those who attempt to argue that foetus and carrier have equal rights, but this is an unsustainable nonsense. The contrast in power and dependency is too vast to make equality a viable argument or position.

The problem with being on the side of Choice is that many of us do not have the luxury of seeing this as a black and white issue. Those against choice, are against choice in all situations. That is consistent and easily argued and explained. It took me 2000 words to explain why I support choice over life, or more specifically, why I choose freedom over life and I’m not going to win any arguments with my unwieldy logic and prose. Arguing against choice, well that’s easy, pithy and logically coherent.

My logic allows for abortion up to the second before birth. My logic allows for abortion for any reason. My logic allows for any and all manipulation of the foetus. I’m back in the grey here. Prochoice? Antichoice? Easy choice for me. Now why do I recoil at the idea of aborting a foetus just because it is female? The only reason I could offer for limiting choice, would be for tactical reasons i.e. strict limits would make it easier to get prochoice laws enshrined in our Constitution and realised in legislation. Take that self-serving logic away and I am left with only one argument against 100% choice and that is; it doesn’t feel right to me. Ickiness however, is no basis for a law that seeks to put fetters on a woman’s right to exercise her physical autonomy.

I would struggle to argue the merits of abortion as distinct from the issue of freedom. I am a supporter of euthanasia, so I could, in certain very limited circumstances, justify an abortion to spare the foetus becoming a short lived and pain filled infant. It doesn’t really matter though as too few people are open to being swayed on the life versus freedom debate for argument to really matter anymore. Philosophy and principal and politics have failed. Now we are left to tot up the numbers,

We are left with the crude mechanisms of democracy. In Ireland our politicians run scared from the issue. Complexity for them is deciding who best to promote to maximise votes in subsequent elections. And referendums are seen as too decisive and too unwieldy and too definitive for this issue. I now think that because this issue is so decisive, it is only referendums that will suffice. Not because they are definitive, but because they inform legislation. Choice versus Life will remain an issue of bitter contention until our contraceptive technology progresses to the point that even a raped child has ultimate control over conception.

Referendums will not decide forever what we think the correct balance between freedom and life is. No, what a referendum will tell us (and our politicians) is what the majority of people think about the issue at that time. This will constantly change, so I think a referendum should be held about this balance, every ten to fifteen years, until such time abortions are no longer necessary.

This referendum should have several questions. Abortion in the Republic of Ireland; yes or no? If no, then should those who travel abroad for abortions have their procedure and travel expenses covered by the Irish State; yes or no?

If yes to abortion; restricted or unrestricted? If restricted, should grounds include: Contraceptive purposes; yes or no? Health of pregnant women; yes or no? Damaged foetus; yes or no? Disability; yes or no? Gender’ yes or no? Should genetic manipulation be allowed; yes or no? And finally indicate to what week terminations should be allowed?

Every referendum would be bitter. Every referendum would be hard fought. But every referendum would be necessary as this is a black and white issue. There can be little or no compromise. So we are stuck with petty democracy. We have to hope that one day we can prevent all unwanted conceptions, because we are just never going to agree on how to deal with unwanted pregnancies.

Yet I support Gender Quotas

18th February 2012 / Paul W.S. Bowler

(This is a guest blog I wrote for the 50 50 Group)

It surprises me that I support legislation which insists political parties run more women candidates. It surprises me because it is an example of something I should find insupportable. It is State intervention and interference. I tend towards the notion ‘that government is best which governs least.‘ Yet I support Gender Quotas.

Not only is this an example of the State intervening in our lives, it is based on another ongoing interference. Our political parties are funded by the tax payer. Without holding the purse strings, the State could not impose its will in this instance. Yet I support Gender quotas.

As a man, I will gain nothing and may, hypothetically, lose a great deal. I have yet to completely abandon all hope of one day, entering Public Life. As things stand, there are few obstacles, other than my own inadequacies. This legislation will mean that the bar will be raised for me. Yet I support Gender Quotas.

I am a capitalist. I may not believe in the ‘tooth and claw’ capitalism espoused by some, but I embrace the necessity of free enterprise. Is this the first step in an inexorable campaign to allow the State to decide for Corporations, who will sit on their Boards? Yet I still support Gender Quotas.

Can a feminist really be in favour of preferential treatment? As a feminist, I’m uncomfortable with discrimination, be it positive or negative. Two individuals of equal talent, separated only by gender? Of course that should cause one to pause. Yet I support Gender Quotas.

Is this an affront to democracy? Are we insulting those fallen millions who gave their all for the principal of ‘one man, one vote?’ How can a democrat favour a diminution of this most civilised and civilising ideal? It is totalitarian states who decide who can and cannot run. Yet I support Gender Quotas.

One could say this legislation indicts men as being incapable of representing women and logically then, that women are not able to adequately represent men. If we are all free to stand and we are all free to vote, surely the result must always be representative? Yet I support Gender Quotas.

If this legislation has the desired affect, then the next Dáil will have many more women than the current one. Will these new TDs be called the quota women? Will the women who preceded them lose status by association? It might prove difficult for them to be taken seriously. Yet I support Gender Quotas.

The charge is also made that if women are to be given preferential treatment, then why not special help for the other minorities; the Africans, the Gay Community, the Red Heads? This legislation implies women are a more important minority than other minorities. Yet I support Gender Quotas.

Finally; what is the point? It’s a free country after all. We are all equal. Women are free to run or not run and our Dáil has operated reasonably successfully for decades. It had weathered existential threat and strife. This could be seen as fixing something that isn’t broken. Yet I support Gender Quotas.

These are all reasonable objections. Objections that any feminist could make. Then why do I support Gender Quotas? It’s simple really. The Dáil, our National Legislature, is 85% male. And that’s on a good day. A century after gaining legal equality, women remain a minority in their own Parliament. Women continue to lack the power and wealth of men. How can this not be seen as a failure of democracy, even a failure of men?

Should we persist with the status quo, hoping and believing that women will inevitably catch up? Men are not suddenly going to take on their fair share of caring for the young, the infirm and the elderly. Men are not going to forgo their greater wealth. Men are not going to fall in love with house work. Men are certainly not going to lose that confidence which only power imbues and male dominated political parties are not going to decide to empower women, when one of the old boys is in the firing line.

These are the elements of the status quo. This is what militates against our democracy being truly representative and participatory. This situation is not going to change organically. Only by transferring (surrendering) a portion of power, from the male dominated Dáil, to women, can change be accomplished. Only by ensuring that a critical mass of women are elected to our Dáil can power begin to be wielded by women. Only by ensuring women are in positions of power, can Gender Quotas become quickly obsolete. That’s why I support Gender Quotas.