The following extract might be of interest. It’s from a speech given in May by Theodore Dalrymple, titled The Paradoxes of Cultural Confidence. Dalymple touches on a range of issues, including the absurd denial and fragility inherent to Islamist belief, and the denial within Islam more generally; but I’ve highlighted a few passages that relate to recent discussions here on contrarian posturing and misplaced rebellion.   

“If you believe that the history of your culture is nothing but a catalogue of horror, massacre and the oppression of others, then you will not be very assiduous in its defence once it comes under concerted attack. Among intellectuals, at any rate, the history of crimes and catastrophes is more popular than that of achievement; and this view eventually communicates itself to society at large, to the point when it is not even realized that there is any achievement to record. In any case, there is a natural tendency, at least in the modern world, to take progress for granted the moment it is made, but never to accept problems as being an inevitable part of human life… 

Strangely enough, complete scepticism about the possibility of reaching truth – this denial that there was any truth independent of human interests to be reached – was not incompatible with the strongest moral views, though these moral view were always in diametrical opposition to established moral traditions. The connotation of the notion of transgression changed from negative to positive. It was a moral duty to challenge everything, and to overturn as much as you could.

This resulted in a very odd psychological and philosophical attitude. It was accepted by many intellectuals as an unquestionable assumption that, in its confrontation with the rest of the world, the Western world was always in the wrong, ex officio as it were, because of its superior power; that because there was no such thing as truth, the claims of Western civilization to have developed methods for discovery of the truth, organized science for example, were merely a mask for its greed and power-hunger; and that therefore a sympathy for those outside the Western tradition who claimed to know the truth, moral and religious, was a sign of virtue, provided only that the moral and religious truth they claimed to know was in conflict with Western power. In other words, the test of virtue became the degree to which one was prepared to reject and revile one’s own society…”

The full speech can be read here. More Dalrymple here. Related, on “cultural cringe.” The notion that the ability to defend oneself denotes villainy and that weakness denotes virtue by default is also addressed here.

(H/T, Daimnation!)

Feel free to sponsor my counter-revolutionary tendencies.

Optical camouflage. Movie. Pdf. // The bold future of the Third Reich. (1941) // Solar lighting by Emi Fujita and Shane Kohatsu. More. (H/T, Xerxes.) // Make your own Eiffel Tower. (H/T, Drawn!) // Very small objects. The Collier Classification System. // Little planets. (H/T 30gms.) // The dunes of Mars. // Zimbabwe issues $200,000 note. Buys one bag of sugar. // 2012 Olympics will be inclusive and equal. Many, many staff will make sure of that. // New York City Councilwoman Darlene Mealy tries to ban the word “bitch”. Proposed ban is unenforceable, but “it would carry symbolic power.” // Miriam Cooke deconstructs the dominant discourse. “Islam is a female-friendly religion; to the extent that Muslim males have engaged in sexist behaviour, Europe, the United States, or Israel are to blame.” // Female novelist criticises treatment of women under Sharia. Islamic lawmakers assault her. “Nasreen backed into a corner as men threw objects at her head and threatened her with a chair.” More. // Mick Hartley on Saudi Arabia’s female-friendly religious police. More. // Science and the Islamic World. “Why is the Islamic world disengaged from science and the process of creating new knowledge?” // Pigman. “Submission? Eat me.” // Fourth-generation pig clones. // Bacon Salt. “Everything should taste like bacon.” And now it will. (H/T, Coudal.) // The Museum of Useful Things. Ballpoint pens, book darts, sponge caddies. // The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices. (H/T, Science Made Cool.) // Via Coudal, Dr Strangelove retold with everyday objects. // Air Force recruitment gets fab and groovy, circa 1950s. // Ben Goldacre on cannabis, so to speak. // The Eyeball Clock. The twitching veins are a lovely touch. // X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. (1963) A Corman classic. And, yes, here’s the party scene. // Herbie Hancock. Triangle. (1963)

The New York Public Library collection of Russian book jackets, 1917-42.

Also, the Museum of Russian Posters and the Socialist-Realist art of North Korea.

Caution: realism aspect somewhat doubtful. (H/T, Coudal.)

Update: I’ll be away for a couple of days. Back Friday with more ephemera. 

A reader, Wayne Fontes, has steered my belated attention to a Seattle after-school childcare programme, the Hilltop Children’s Centre, the staff of which are keen to ensure that children aged 5 through 9 have the correct kind of play and the correct kind of thoughts. In an article titled Why We Banned Legos, published in the Winter 2006/07 issue of Rethinking Schools magazine, two Hilltop staff recounted the pressing political issues raised by brightly coloured building blocks. The article’s authors, Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin, ominously related the details of an investigation sparked by the children’s building of a village made of Lego,

“…and the questions embedded in their play about resource sharing, authority, ownership, and power.” 

As someone who has, recklessly, bought Lego as a gift for children (and played with the stuff himself, both as a child and more recently), I was shamefully oblivious to the distressing potential of this plastic construction toy. Thankfully, the Hilltop teaching staff has paid much closer attention.

“The teachers’ observations of the inequity and unintended unfairness that this play created led them to launch an in-depth study with the children about the meaning of power and ways to organize communities which are equitable and just. This investigation was anchored in… our commitment to social justice, anti-bias teaching and learning.”

Pelo and Pelojoaquin tell us, shockingly, just how focussed and possessive small children can be. 

“A group of about eight children conceived and launched Legotown. Other children were eager to join the project, but as the city grew — and space and raw materials became more precious — the builders began excluding other children.”

The horror continues. 

“The Legotown builders turned their attention to complex negotiations among themselves about what sorts of structures to build, whether these ought to be primarily privately owned or collectively used, and how ‘cool pieces’ would be distributed and protected… Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive. As we watched the children build, we became increasingly concerned.”

In his 2006 TED lecture, Professor of International Health, Hans Rosling, shows that, contrary to rumours, the end is not yet nigh. Complex global trends – in life expectancy, child mortality and poverty – are revealed in ways that may surprise. See the world changing. Marxists please take note.

Professor Rosling’s follow-up lecture, filmed in March 2007, can be viewed here. More here and at TEDblog.

(H/T, Vitruvius.)

Via 1+1=3, Peter Murphy’s VR panoramas. From Sydney New Year celebrations to the Dalai Lama tour. More. // Also, Japanese condom packaging. From monkeys and fish to mighty phallic robots. Something for every taste. // Implausible superhero origins and what would actually happen. Radiation mishaps, hair loss and sterility. // Comic cover browser. Over 77,000 covers, from Tales to Astonish to Howard the Duck. (H/T, 3:AM.) // Modesty Blaise. (1966) Espionage, shades, general fabulousness. (H/T, Coudal.) // Image Mosaic Generator. // Megunica. // The Electric Eel (1954) // The Pitfalls of Tele-Shopping. (1983) // The Large Hadron Collider, part 2, part 3. // World distribution of religious belief. (H/T, Stephen Hicks.) // Robert Spencer on toileting the Qur’an and unilateral “hate crime”. // Hitchens versus CAIR’s dissembler-in-chief, Ibrahim Hooper. // Links between CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. // Professor of linguistics calls nerds “hyperwhite”. And racist, naturally. // On horseplay, hysteria and lawsuit opportunism. 13-year-olds’ obnoxious prank equated with rape. Tearing of hair ensues. // Ancient Egyptian wig, circa 1550 BC. Human hair, resin and wax. // Via Coudal, bees. // What’s that bug? From Cyphoderris Monstrosa to the Silver Argiope. Know your bugs. // Millimetres Matter. Scaled-down slapstick. // How to make very small pancakes with a syringe, a spoon and a credit card. // Justinas Vinevicius’ promo for G&G Sindikatas’ Burning Snow. Lithuanian hip hop. // Or maybe a spot of Hank. Williams, not Marvin.

Thanks to Drawn!, I discovered Hans Bacher’s archive of Animation Treasures. Bacher collects, restores and annotates rare frame grabs and background paintings from classic animations. From What’s Opera Doc? to Max Fleischer’s Technicolor Superman cartoons. For anyone with an interest in animation, it’s a wonderful find. Even for mere mortals, it’s still rather lovely.

Head there now.

Fleischer’s Superman animations can be downloaded here and here. Magnetic telescopes, mechanical monsters, foreign people, Lois in a jam! Something for everyone. Related, and possibly NSFW, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.

I’ll be away tomorrow, but, please, dry your eyes; I’ll post fresh ephemera on Friday.

Via Mick Hartley, a collection of misshapen fruit and vegetables from Berlin farmers’ markets, photographed by Uli Westphal. Westphal describes his Mutatoes project as “documenting these last survivors of biological variety.” The peppers in particular are rather stunning; though I’m not sure I’d be quite so thrilled to eat them.

More.

Further to recent comments on rebellion, hostility to bourgeois values and art’s political lockstep, Fabian Tassano’s Iconoclasm by Decree seems relevant.

“Literature should be political and … should unmask the rottenness of bourgeois culture.” Lenin.

“Question: How do you know when a society’s culture has stopped being genuinely challenging and iconoclastic? Answer: When a government minister insists that ‘challenge’ and ‘iconoclasm’ are essential components of culture… A mediocracy has ersatz versions of everything related to intellectual or artistic independence: questioning, analysis, scepticism, radicalism, and so on. No real questioning or radicalism is involved, since that would be too dangerous.”

More.

Theo Jansen’s extraordinary kinetic sculptures and wind-powered walking machines. Made from plastic tubing, cardboard and tape. See them move. 

More here, here and here. (H/T, 30gms.)