Quote: On Writers committing Murder
“It’s a queer thing to know that a book-writer can imprison folks without a warrant and even kill them yet go unpunished.” – Told to Elbert Hubbard by Mr. Hawkins, a London Police Officer in the late 1800’s talking about Charles Dickens after examining the building where Dicken’s father was kept in debtor’s prison and later appeared in his writing.
The Inexactness of the English Language
The English Language is a strange beast. First you have the fact that one word can have multiple meanings. Or one object can be defined by many words that have extremely different origins. But not to be outdone, three different words with separate meaning and spellings can be pronounced the same. Then the English language absorbs new words at an outrageous and prodigious rate. With fanciful tales of twenty-thousand new words added per a year even in this modern day, it is a wonder that anyone can speak, read or write English even moderately fluently.
Yet three hundred to four hundred million people speak it as their first language. Actual numbers of writers is more dubious. Secondary speakers are estimated to be any where between two hundred million and almost one and half billion more.
The single most wonderful thing about the English language though is that it can be both very exacting, and very vague. Words can can be mixed and changed to bring new ideas to life.
Swift used the language to spear his detractors metaphorically.
“A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than yesterday.”
Mark Twain forced an entire generation to come to terms with their own racism and frivolities.
“I have no color prejudices nor cast prejudces nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse”
Emerson laid forth the simple truth.
“A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams. “
Shakespeare observed, reported, coined, and extrapolated human existence.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
Japanese and Greek are naturally resistent to new words. German embraces new words, but instead invents them out of seemingly thin air. Russian takes the English words and gives it an accent, maybe changing a few letters around. Chinese doesn’t even attempt to disguise it’s borrowing of the English word.
Yet only English embraces all these thoughts and massages it into a cohesive language. It adds another twist by taking a fairly dirty common word and by mere popular use gives it an entirely new meaning. A native speaker may not know even a tenth of the words in the English Lexicon, yet communication is effortless on spoken level.
For example:
“I’d rather have roses on my table than diamonds ’round my neck.” – Emma Goldman
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie
“The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.” – Salvador Dali
“A life with love will have some thorns, but a life without love will have no roses” – Unknown
“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.” – Alphonse Kerr
A mere five quotes about a flower. Yet each one quickly becomes profound in ways that you may never thought before. Such is the English Language. Even words strung together incoherently may have meaning far beyond their original intent.
Human Nature causes law breaking
The human concept of morality poses upon us some interesting quandaries. We create laws to regulate behaviors and protect the innocent, but in some cases these laws actually cause more issues then they solve.
As I pointed out earlier the economic impact of the Drug Trade alone is well into the Billions if not over a Trillion dollars a year in the United States alone. This is money that is spent because Federal Law says that the mere use and in some cases possesion of certain drugs is illegal due to morality.
The number of drunk driving deaths in the United States was 11,773 in 2008. This was a 9.7% increase from 2007. These are deaths that we live with because by 1933 the cost of enforcing Prohibition Laws, coupled with the sheer amount of illegal activities surrounding alcohol made it impossible to enforce. It is estimated that there were between 30,000 to 100,000 Speakeasies in New York in 1933. In modern day New York there are only about 20,000 bars AND restaurants in New York City. This is despite a nearly doubling of the population in the City itself.
Take a look at this map which covers 176 bars in the East Village alone. Now imagine what up to five times as many bars would look like. I’m pretty sure that Police Enforcement in that day and age must have consisted of walking down the street, looking for the unmarked “empty” storefronts and simply kicking down the door. The number of false positives under such a method would have been remarkably low.
“Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.” ~Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations
That certain laws inherently cause crimes has pretty much been a given throughout history. Speed Limit laws are a great example. I know that I regularly travel 5-10 miles over the posted limit. Even though it may be perfectly safe for me to travel at that faster speed, I’m still breaking the law. This happens so much that Police departments across the United States tends to give an unofficial 3-5 mile grace. Or if all the traffic around you is going faster, they’re more likely to pull someone over for not going with the flow of traffic.
“The more laws the more offenders.” ~Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732
In another example, Oregon’s Cell Phone law goes into effect January 1st, 2010. In short, talking on a cell phone without a hands free device will result in a Class D traffic-violation with a minimum $142 fine. The fine amount and exact classification will change depending on the jurisdiction.
Both my wife and I believed this law already to be in effect. But I also found that it only marginally changed my cell phone usage behaviors in the car. Now that I know for sure that the law goes into affect tomorrow, this may be a different story.
Another example is Age of Consent laws. In the United States the age of consent is defined between 16 to 18 depending on the state. Yet in Europe and Latin America, the age is 13-16, which Chile being the only country at 18. Here is where things get weird. According to this chart in 1880, the Age of Consent in almost every State was either ten or twelve, with Delaware at seven! Universally that age increased to the 16-18 range by the 1920’s, but in many cases it was moved from 18 back down to 16.
The Age of Consent is aimed at “protecting” innocent and immature children. The definition of innocent and immature is at best a crap shoot as it varies from person to person. Even what actions would make someone immature or mature vary and could be seen in the same person within a few minutes of each other.
Not counting in the Morality arguments, Age of Consent still has one more huge factor to take into account. This being human nature AKA basic psychology. In 1943 Abraham Maslow wrote “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Included in this paper was the theory of the hierarchy of needs.
This chart was borrowed from Wikipedia. I have been utterly facinated with this theory ever since it was introduced to me in High School. There are hundreds of variations on this chart, which all pretty much manage to differ only on wording and color. To interpret this chart the needs at the bottom have to be met before the next level can even be met.
Note that the third level puts sexual intimacy before needs such as self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of self and lack of prejudice! To be fair not every need on every level needs to be met by every person to advance to the next level. Add in the fact that in the past ten years it’s pretty much become accepted in Psychology that both sexes are hardwired to be attracted to younger members of the opposite as a matter of Evolution, and we have a recipe for disaster in light of these Age of Consent Laws.
So in this case people are torn between three things, their morality, societies laws, and their own psychological needs. People can barely keep to the speed limit which is a fairly black or white issue in comparison! Who in their right mind really expects the average person to be able to wrestle with questions on this level when philosophers have been asking these kinds of questions for thousands of years?
The primary reason in the slippage of the Age of Consent from 13-14 to 16-18 being fictional news reports in a British Newspaper about forced child prostitution in 1885. But what continues to be covered up is that the primary factor behind child prostitution (and prostitution of any form) is economic. Prostitution drastically decreased during the 1870-1910 period due to Industrial Revolution which grew fastest in the United States and led directly to a higher amount of wealth across all sections of the population. This had to have a much bigger effect then any laws put in place.
So now we have a supply and demand situation that leads directly to child abuse and it’s associated side effects. And worse of all, Child Prostitution hasn’t gone away. It’s simply been moved to third world countries were it once again makes economic sense.
The key point here is that humans will break the law after a risk analyst and nothing is going to stop that, no matter the punishment. Millions of years of Evolution can not be stopped in a couple of hundred years, and it can be argued that doing so could be more detrimental to the individual then anything else.
I’m not sure what the answer is. Perhaps 1985 type mind control techniques do make sense for the betterment of society. Or perhaps the Golden Rule or the Ethics of Reciprocity should become law unto themselves. Maybe the Age of Consent should be revised downwards and parents forced to take a more active interest in their Children’s lives and development?
Quote about Libraries
“Every library, no matter how decrepit, has more great thinkers present then are found in the grandest of universities.”
Ralph Friedman – Tales Out of Oregon
Great book talking about the history of Oregon as seen through the author’s eyes who hitchhiked all over Oregon in the 1930’s. Also includes interviews with people who lived history, including a Portland Lawyer named Erskine Wood who spent two summers living with Chief Joseph.
Quotes: Revenge
From the web comic, Looking for Group:
“Revenge isn’t a noble pursuit. Yet there is a certain satisfaction to it.”