Richard Chappell has been pondering claims of victimhood in a pseudo-sensitive age. 

We’ve developed a disastrous social norm according to which anyone can win instant brownie points by claiming to be a “victim” – and doubly so if their claim is made qua membership in some “community” (“As an X, I’m offended…”). Maybe the thought is that all communities are equal, so if one is feeling a bit hard done by, this must reflect some injustice, and certainly not any shortcoming on their part.

Indeed. As we’ve discussed here several times, there’s apparently no end of people who want us to feel their pain before we do exactly as they say. It’s the passive-aggressive approach to coercion, and it’s enormously popular among shameless opportunists and the terminally dishonest. The appeal to hurt feelings is particularly noxious as it implies – at least to some who see themselves as champions of the underdog – that the complainant is entitled by default or is somehow being oppressed. Insofar as “communities” are often ideological groupings with unrealistic, even ludicrous, ideas about the world, and with rules regarding what members of said group are permitted to say and do, then “communities” are unlikely to be equal in their merits or their fostering of success. The woes of a given group, whether real or imagined, may depend in very large part on the ideas and beliefs shared by many of its members. 

There’s no more vicious character trait, we’re taught, than being insufficiently “sensitive” to others’ feelings. Manipulative liars are hunky dory – nobody cares about intellectual honesty – but the moment you make someone feel bad, social disapproval is sure to follow. Maybe this is legitimate when it comes to personal interactions: as private individuals, we should of course be considerate of others. But the public sphere should not be governed by the same norms.

Well, civility is generally a good thing and one should, wherever possible, avoid being a horse’s arse. But in the public sphere, one may well be obliged to explain why it is one doesn’t belong, or wish to belong, to a particular “community”, or why one doesn’t accept irrational or unilateral demands, not least regarding the range of facts that can be stated and questions that can be asked. And, however civil, a realistic exchange may still upset those who choose to be upset, prompting howls of indignation and the rending of garments. But hurt feelings aren’t arguments; nor are they proof of wrongdoing. Regardless of how much howling is involved, and regardless of how many people choose to join the howling, some feelings are simply unwarranted, or dishonest, or just thuggery disguised.

Speaking of which. 

Here’s something for fans of Ennio Morricone and his soundtracks for Westerns made by Italians, filmed in Spain. The Spaghetti Western Orchestra. 

Update: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain offers a slightly more genteel rendition.

Related. And. Also. Plus. (h/t, 1+1=3.)

Comics are above all a visual medium and how they look is a matter of no small importance. Lapses in writing can to some extent be redeemed by very strong artwork, but a badly drawn comic is much more difficult to forgive. Thankfully, Frank Quitely draws very well indeed and is once again working with Grant Morrison, whose writing is often rather good. Quitely’s previous collaborations with Morrison, on New X-Men and We3, are among the finer examples of the comic book form. Their latest collaboration, All-Star Superman, lends subtlety and charm to what is, for me, an otherwise tedious character. Quitely and Morrison manage to give the well-meaning man of steel a measure of personality, and mortality, and pleasing emphasis is placed on how the central characters relate. The overall tone is one of affectionate nostalgia, with small character details set against amusing spectacle.

The most recent instalment finds our hero usurped by a pair of long-lost Kryptonian astronauts, Bar-El and Lilo, whose detachment from the “squalor” around them is refreshing in its candour and logic. (We also learn that the influence of Earth’s new champions extends to fashion, with Jimmy Olsen taking inordinate pride in his new Krypton-style “overpants”.) The inevitable tussle between Superman and his replacements is brief and visually witty, not least when Superman is hurled into the Moon, cracking it rather badly and prompting a hasty repair job involving several national landmarks. It’s a moment of pure visual whimsy, one of many. All-Star Superman doesn’t have the psychological grit of New X-Men or the emotive edge of We3, but Quitely and Morrison spin an engaging yarn that’s always a pleasure to look at and that even makes Superman an interesting character. Which is something Bryan Singer failed to do, armed with $200,000,000.

Dr Zeus and his musical Tesla coil. More. Video. // The sound of Durex. // Live webcam sunsets. Follow sunset around the globe with 280 webcams in 52 countries. (h/t, Discarded Lies.) // The Shakespeare Country Park, with duck pond, maypole and stocks, in Maruyama, Japan. // Thames Town, China. “Authentic British-style town.” (h/t, Things.) // The global incident map. Terrorists, doomsday cults and suspicious goings-on. (h/t, Maggie’s Farm.) // “Transgressive” artists keep quiet about radical Islam. “I would be lying if I said we would show something like the Danish cartoons.” // Taking pictures from your window seat. // Atomic flight not entirely successful. More. // Nuclear tests, French Polynesia, August 24th, 1970. // Burnt offerings. Cigarette paraphernalia. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus.) // Playing card architecture. (h/t, Coudal.) // Further to this, pencil sculptures. // The pencil museum. (h/t, The EQ-ualiser.) // Via 1+1=3, a minor history of giant spheres. // The Big Bounce. (1960) // Conversation clock. // Teeth. Not for the squeamish. // Comic book movies that must be stopped. // Bat Thumb. (h/t, Protein Wisdom.) // The Hulk goes shopping. // Massimo Silenzio’s 10,000 globes. // Tattered posters on the Paris metro. // WWII propaganda posters. // New Labour, New Liberty™. // Jonathan Kay on anti-racism dinosaurs. “Challenging the received pieties of identity politics renders you a presumptive racist.” // Christopher Hitchens on Martin Amis, discrimination and the Guardian’s Ronan Bennett. // Burble. // Pig Olympics. // Ten space videos. Rockets, meteors, the Hubble Deep Field. // And, via The Thin Man, the mighty Herb Alpert.

I stumbled across Bob Truby’s impressive collection of brand name pencils. From Fila and Royal Sovereign to classic pencils of WWII.   

More. (h/t, Things.) 

On identity politics in the classroom. From Education’s End, by Anthony Kronman.

The more a classroom resembles a gathering of delegates speaking on behalf of the groups they represent, the less congenial a place it becomes in which to explore questions of a personally meaningful kind, including, above all, the questions of what ultimately matters in life and why. In such a classroom, students encounter each other not as individuals but as spokespersons instead. They accept or reject their teachers as role models more on account of the group to which they belong and less because of their individual qualities of character and intellect. And the works they study are regarded more as statements of group membership than as creations of men and women with viewpoints uniquely their own.

Related: On Humanising the Humanities. And.

Photographs taken from the space shuttle Endeavour, August 2007.

Fabian Tassano ponders dumb culture and its causes. 

If cultural deterioration is acknowledged in a mediocracy, it is blamed on marketisation. The implication is that cultural products are somehow traded more than they used to be, which is specious. Culture has always been bought and sold, and would not get produced at all without someone to pay for it. What is different about a mediocratic market for culture is that purchasing power is in the hands of the mass consumer and the state, rather than those of a small elite. The characteristics of the prevailing culture will therefore reflect the tastes of the mass, and the ideological preferences of the political class, rather than the tastes of the bourgeoisie. This point — that it is empowerment of the mass and of the collective which drives cultural change in a mediocracy — is ideologically unpalatable and therefore suppressed. It is more convenient to blame the market, especially as this can be used to justify intervention.

More. 

Further to recent comments on Muhammad and how one might view him, here’s H.G. Wells on the same subject, from A Short History of the World, published in 1922.

Then for four years more until his death in 632, Muhammad spread his power over the rest of Arabia. He married a number of wives in his declining years, and his life on the whole was by modern standards unedifying. He seems to have been a man compounded of very considerable vanity, greed, cunning, self-deception and quite sincere religious passion. He dictated a book of injunctions and expositions, the Qur’an, which he declared was communicated to him from God. Regarded as literature or philosophy the Qur’an is certainly unworthy of its alleged divine authorship.

Wells goes on to concede that “when the manifest defects of Muhammad’s life and writings have been allowed for, there remains in Islam… much power and inspiration.” But what catches the eye is how sharply Wells’ estimation of Muhammad and the Qur’an contrasts with modern affectations. It’s hard to imagine a similar view being expressed quite so freely by a public figure today, when much smaller improprieties often meet with sudden inhalation and calls for apologies.

Karate Monkey. // TV detector vans. “It’s in the front room… and they’re watching Columbo.” (h/t, Biased BBC.) // Climate change and the alignment of the planets. No, really. (h/t, The Thin Man.) // Tunguska revisited. // Space History. (1962) “Red spacemen keep coming!” // Is my starship bigger than yours? Death stars, cubes, birds of prey. // The Islamic car. // The bicycle vending machine. (h/t, 1+1=3.) // 5000 London Transport posters. // 25 photos taken at exactly the right time. (h/t, Stephen Hicks.) // Origami insects. // Robo-bug. // Marvel digital comics. // Unintentionally amusing comic strips. Mary Worth, angel of death. (h/t, An Insomniac.) // The world beard and moustache championships 2007. Including the partial beard freestyle. // The art of Travis A. Louie. // Terminal thrill-seeking. // New hate crime discovered. “Research suggests that you are four times more likely to be a victim of blogosphere satire if you are a Socialist.” // Leftwing novelist wants to “de-Europeanise” Paris. “To make space for dissident voices.” (h/t, The Thin Man.) // The world’s longest underwater pipeline. 746 miles. // Wind dam. // Calculator watch prototype. (1970) // A brief history of LED calculator watches. // Via Coudal, the slide rule resource centre. // The museum of horology. // 100 movies, quotes and numbers. // The golden age of the boombox. // Dance like James Brown. Hot damn. // And finally, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Johnny Cash.