A Trip to Planet Antiwoke

Let me take you on a trip to the Anti-Woke world. It’s a world I don’t really understand and one I’d like to explore. What strange beasties live there, how does their soceity work? What do they do for work? What are their value systems?

Firstly some definitions. what is this concept of ‘Woke’ we hear so much about these days. The simple definition is “Awake to the injustices of society”. So to be Anti-Woke is to want to sleep, to be ignorant to the injustices of society. Why would anyone want to be Anti-Woke?

Perhaps simply asking this question defines me as being a ‘Woke’ person. To be a member of the liberal educated section of society. Maybe it’s those of us that like asking questions: How does this work? Why are things like this? What would happen if we changed this or took that away? We are the kids who wanted to go away to university, to learn new things to gain new experiences to explore for the sake of exploration. We are the kids who kept pestering our mams and dads with questions, long past their ability to answer them.

Maybe it’s how we deal with unknowns. When we encounter an unknown, we almost straight away want to understand it. When we first hear about thinsg like racism, modern monetary theory, transsexuality, climate change, our response is to want to find out more about it, to ask questions, find out what the alternatives and solutions are, Even feel pangs of guilt for being ignorant about something.

As a teenager I was obsessed with Douglas Adams’ ‘Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”, the title suggested help in understanding the crazy world I was growing up in. Which is kind of what the book does, which is why I liked it. In this book there is something called ‘The Total Perspective Vortex’ a machine which you enter and are suddenly presented with the entire sum of knowledge of the universe and you and your importance as an individual within it, as an infinitely small dot within another infinitely small insignificant dot. It leaves everyone who leaves it mad… apart from one Zaphod Beeblebrox, because ‘I’m President of the Galaxy, baby”. Maybe Zaphod is simply President of the Antiwoke world.

The thing about being curious and having a limited life span is that it is not possible to know everything, to have read every book, to find every answer. Eventually it’s time for bed or you won’t be able to concentrate on anything tomorrow. You have to go about life, getting food, paying your bills, doing what your body needs to stay healthy enough to find the time to read more books, to find more answers. What happens if you don’t want to do that, to not be endlessly asking questions, to relax, chill out, to not be bothered about not knowing the answer? Arguable this is the function of religion, to help us find peace in a confusing bewildering world. The sense of, ‘We can deal with some of these things and leave the rest to God’. Except now religion is playing no part in it, there is no philosophical guidance to ‘How to be ignorant’. Welcome to the world of Antiwoke.

I was a vegetarian for fifteen years and am now fussy about what meat I eat. I have thought a lot about where my food comes from and done some research. I was in the pub and we were talking about eating fish and a friend said to me “I love eating fish, but I hate it when they leave the heads on, I can’t eat it then” The why was because it reminded him that this was an animal that was once alive, killed just so he could eat it. So rather than understand where the fish came from, make agonising decisions about whether I am happy to eat this particular fish knowing exactly where it came from, he simply chose to be ignorant of all that, so he could just enjoy eating fish in a temporary bubble of ignorance.

So, really, there does seem to be some justification for being ignorant. Moral qualms can be eased by being in the majority, most people do eat fish. Questions can be left for the experts to work out. We live in a complex society where it’s impossible for individuals to know everything. It’s why societies have specialists. We have doctors to spend years strudying medicine to help us when we get ill. We have lawyers who spend years studying our legal system. We have scientists working out how the universe works. Really, we have an option to accept that there is no point thinking about a specialist subject as there are people who are already way ahead of us in studying it. So why not spend out free time doing things we enjoy, helping other people, doing things that make us happy and not worry about the questions?

I have a postgraduate degree. Whilst I was studying for that I had the strangest sensation. I was asking questions and suddenly there were no answers, no books or research articles with those answers in. I spoke to my professor, he said something like ‘Well done, you have reached the limit of human knowledge in this area, you are now a scientist… it’s just our lab and a few others around the world. so maybe 20-30 people”. So soon? No-one has worked this bit out yet? The dawning of understanding of actually how little science actually knows and understands about the world is kind of scary and that we then provide expert advice based on what little we know, that humanity carries on wrecking the planet whilst knowing so little about it.

I was in a Zoom Webinar this afternoon with some distinguished scientists we were putting questions to. The most common answers were ‘I don’t know’ or ‘My hunch is X but no-one has done the work on this yet”. I have worked in some “real world” jobs, but there it seems ‘I don’t know’ is not an acceptable answer, you need to have an answer of some sort. As human beings we kind of don’t like not knowing the answers to things, yet in science it is something we have all learned to do and accept. Having access to a scientific lab and to be able to answer your own questions is fantastic, but also tinged with the frustration of having to ignore some lines of enquiry as you have to restrict yourself to sticking to what your funding is for. We know we cannot answer all our questions or know everything, we have to accept ignorance, that we ‘don’t know’. I suppose scientists accept this state of affairs through the priviledge of being the world experts in some tiny bit of science, that most people don’t even think about. Like the fish eater, we embrace ignorance as part of the job.

Yet, this is not the world of Anti-woke, this is merely the Big Bang Burger Chef we’ve pulled into for light refreshments on the way. Antiwoke is a world of choosing ignorance seemingly without a reason for doing so. A world of England football supporters booing their own players for expressing solidarity for those who suffer racism. A world of ‘I’m not racist and deplore those who are, but there is just too much focus on anti-racism these days, that is what I’m objecting to” It’s ignorance as a cultural identity. A reaction against those clever sods who like finding the answers to things. a reaction against being told what to do and what to think.

And I do get that. I’m quite happy to be told I’m wrong, because being wrong is scientifically very useful and maybe non scientists haven’t got used to being wrong so much. A thousand dead ends have to be explored until the path to a solution can be found. However being told that how I think is wrong is much deeper. It’s a criticism that draws on our deepest most primeval fears, of monsters under the bed. Perhaps because the gap between experts and your average chap on the street is so large that a genuine resentment has sunk in. We live in a world where disparity in incomes and education has grown and grown and perhaps a backlash is forming. Expertise, specialism, even science itself is percieved as part of this “do-gooders telling adults how to behave”.

During Brexit we had government ministers saying “We’ve had enough of experts”. During the Covid pandemic scientific advice has been ignored by politicians. Perhaps the difference is the scientists know they are ignorant and the those on Antiwoke don’t know what they don’t know? I think it’s also Social Conservatism, valuing tradition, anything new is by default rejected. A world where value is placed on opposite sex relationships, so when same sex marriage comes out into general society it supposedly diminishes that special status of heterosexual relationships. People convince themselves that their holy books tells them this, it’s not actually there in the text, people just believe someone interpretastion of the text. It seem to take away a pillar that holds up the society of Antiwoke, the traditions that bind us together, so we don’t all go mad from not knowing enough about the world.

As scientists, we’d love to cure cancer, stop climate change, find a way to get rid of taxes, build spaceships to travel beyond the solar system, but we can’t do that in one go. We have to take lots of tiny little steps and sometimes a few paces backwards. Science is kind of telling people, ‘Look there is no magic lozenge we can produce in our lab, you lot just have to stop flying in aeroplanes, eat less meat, shut up and respect footballers kneeling, accept that Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are oafish egotists who should not be even near a position of authority, wash your hands, wear a mask’. The perception that liberal educated people are treating everyone else like spoilt children is real and as if we were a single all-powerful being.

And who created climate change and racism in the first place. It was the educated elite of earlier generations, developing technologies they expected would be replaced by something better long before they started causing damage to the planet. On the world of Antiwoke is a perception that the ‘elite’ are ordering the citizens of Antiwoke to fix the problems created by another elite. “Sort your own problems out” as if todays scientists are somehow responsible for the choices of the long dead.

The people of Antiwoke see a world of them and us, as the Woke world as one speaking with one voice, through a Giant loud-hailer suspended by Art in the atmosphere. They accept ignorance as an integral part of their culture to be defended and do not see that science is not one thing, but lots of different people all working on completely separate little problems, all hoping to persuade the decision making people that their problem is a little bit more desereving of funding than something else. A world where those decision makers are concerned about keeping their university going, even if it means investigating the wrong things or reducing research output to reduce costs.

On Antiwoke it all comes across as one thing, Simply it feels like one voice saying you should be doing this, a list of thousands and thousands of rules, just to keep going, just to survive. The people of Antiwoke just want their freedom to keep their traditions going, to not to be told what to do all the time.

At the very core of the planet AntiWoke, is a desire to just get on with getting along, to ignore the endless rules for this and that which seem to stop people being able to earn enough to get by.

Slartibartfast: On this new Earth they’ve given me Africa to do. So I’m doing it with all fjords again, I think it gives a nice Baroque feel to a continent, but ‘oh no they say, not equatorial enough’. Science has achieved some wonderful things. But I’d far rather be happy than right anyday

Arthur Dent: That’s a terrible philosophy.

Slartibartfast: Is it? I’m sorry I’m a bit out of touch, I have been asleep for 5 million years you know

[Remembered from ‘Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams]

Breaking the Silence #MeToo

Sexual harassment has been in the news recently and it is about time that this issue is more widely discussed. I’ve written on here before about how as a straight bloke it is very easy not to notice that sexual harassment is taking place right under our noses. I’m more aware of that now so I knew that there was a high likelihood of friends of mine suffering from sexual harassment. Yet it is a subject that is rarely discussed, or seems not to be with straight blokes.

So I wasn’t surprised to see on my Facebook feed lots of #MeToo postings. This social media campaign was a really good thing because it really brought the issue home when you know the victims personally, it’s no longer a statistical probability, it’s more real. Some of my friends were even brave enough to share details about what had happened to them.

Sexual harassment is perhaps the thick end and everyday sexism is the other. The everyday comments and banter just wears you down as it happens day after day.It’s a shame these things are not discussed more widely so there is greater awareness.

We are all different and sensitive to different things. As an anxious person, I too have suffered from the negative effects of everyday banter, which seems worse because it was nothing to do with my gender, so seems more personally directed.

I get the wearing down of everyday banter because I’m Welsh. When the Six nations rugby tournament is on, the banter of jokes directed between nations is part of the thing. However, being Welsh we get the jokes a lot of the time all through the year and mainly from men: The endless sheep jokes and attacks on our language, maybe be justified as merely ‘banter’ or ‘taking the piss but not meaning anything by it’ are really just tedious, but when we do get fed up of them we can usually find solace with fellow Welsh folk.

Maybe that is partly why women, the vast majority of victims of sexual harassment are women, seek solace with other women, rather than discuss the issue with straight blokes they know. and maybe that is why it is tougher on the anxious as there is no ready made group to seek solace in.

This isn’t saying that banter is wrong, it can be a bit of fun, especially between friends where we know where the limits of taking something too far are and it is established that we really don’t mean it. However men are generally more cautious about such banter with women, when they are not cautious then it is harassment. It is harassment because harassment is defined by the victim, they state when it is harassment, not the behaviour itself. Knowing the limits comes from knowing the people, which is why friends can take the piss out of each other, however when someone ‘wolf whistles’ at a woman in the street, they do not know the woman, so that is just pure harassment.

The issue with sexual harassment is that men generally don’t suffer from it, so men don’t understand it, so men are unable to know where the limits of banter are for women they know a bit from the workplace. In the same way banter affects the anxious because the non-anxious don’t understand anxiety. Really , if there were to be daily comments about how big our penises are, most men would quickly collapse sobbing in states of insecurity.

While being a victim of abuse is horrible, that such harassment is commonplace also affects blokes. To not be an anxious person I decided to be a lot more open about my feelings, which includes being open with women. Often I prefer to talk about my feelings with women as generally they listen more. However sometimes that openness can be misinterpreted as seeking a deeper relationship, or trying to get into their knickers. This troubled me because surely it was obvious from my words and how I expressed them that that wasn’t my intention. However, it took me years to realise that you can accidentally harass someone, when you don’t understand what the daily lived experience of being a woman is like.  The thing is I have been a harasser of women, but the blame for those events lies with the whole widespread commonality of sexual harassment.not anything i did or said specifically.

I’ve always been reluctant to touch women to express empathy and support because it may be inappropriate. Now I know the reason for that , because the woman may not know that I am not trying to take advantage of the situation to cop a feel. Yet straight blokes always desire copping feels, because women’s bodies are ace, yet we learn to restrain ourselves, it’s not something worth doing. Because of this blokes miss out on so much of warmth of human physical contact, to the extent that some men seek ways to slyly cop feels or worse to make up for this missing out. The solution has to be talking more about these issues, for abuse to be recognised, so these men don’t end up raping or otherwise abusing women.

Even today, there still seems to be a reluctance to take on board that everyone is different and jokes about gender, race, sexuality, nationality, mental health, religion, anything and everything else cause a lot of harm and there is too much casual banter.

This doesn’t mean that straight blokes have to somehow try and not be fascinated by women’s bodies, or that we are not allowed to talk to women we are attracted to, even if we do want to get into their knickers. What it means is simply respecting other people and realising that we can easily hurt people without realising it because we don’t know who they are. and who has been harassing them in their personal history.

 

Believing in Evolution

There is a substantial difference between knowing something and believing it. Belief is much more powerful as it goes beyond logic and connects with peoples sense of self.

This idea helps make  clear why there is a stigma about mental illness. The anxious person or the depressed person can know that they are ill, that it is possible to not be ill, often the problem is that they don’t believe that they can be well. I suffered from anxiety, there were brief times when I wasn’t anxious, instead of knowing I was well, I believed it was merely a temporary respite. It was when I believed that there was nothing wrong with me, when I believed what I already knew rationally, did I become well. so the mental illness stigma is perhaps because healthy people don’t recognise the difference between knowing something to be true and believing it. Perhaps for the healthy, they believe they are well before they have developed an explanation for why they are well, belief comes before knowledge in this instance.

As a scientist I both know and believe in the theory of evolution. I know, because I have studied, read and observed the evidence and accept evolution as a rational, empirically produced explanation for the diversity of life on Earth. I believe,  because I also accept the scientific process for discovering the laws of the physical universe, I accept the process as a valid way of generating truth.

Many scientists have difficulty understanding why those of religious faith lack a belief in evolution, indeed some of faith have difficulty believing in evolutionary theory. Religious faith is different to simple belief. Belief in God is different to beliefs about the physical universe, because belief perhaps comes before knowledge, rather than coming after knowledge. Religious belief connects to the self, before any empirical process of gathering knowledge. Faith concerns something beyond understanding of relationships in the physical observable universe. As a scientist I believe that it is possible for science to explain what God is, but that humanity may never establish a theory of everything. Sometimes, it is perhaps dangerous or less open to truth if belief comes before knowledge.

It is accepted that such theories as evolution or gravity are true. such truths can be established from raw data acquired from the physical universe. I believed these truths before I became a Christian and I know that there is no conflict between holding these beliefs in addition to religious beliefs, such as God having a role in the creation of the universe. The issue is perhaps that for some people the religious belief is more powerful to themselves than a mere rational piece of knowledge. To the atheist scientist, belief in scientific theory is more powerful than mere knowledge or understanding of religion, often atheists struggle looking beyond mere empirical understanding of the physical universe. To someone of faith, these powerful ideas can make the concept of evolution seem less important and hence less true. Yet people are not robots, they all harbour non-rational thoughts and ideas, the belief of humanists that there is perhaps, simply, that there is a physical explanation for these mental phenomena, but their belief may not be as strong as these less easy to break down logically ideas are not as fully explored, perhaps mentally acknowledged or as strongly believed. No individual person has a fully coherent explanation of themselves or the wider universe, yet every individual is on a journey to discovering truths.

I think I should point out, that I am in no way declaring any superiority for religious faith over atheism. What I am saying is that faith is worthwhile exploring. It is a question of balance, people choose what to invest our mental energies upon, there should be space for rational scientific inquiry as well as reflection on the question of faith.

Seeking Relationships or Not

Beginning heterosexual relationships is a weird, complicated, fraught, scary process. There is perhaps only one reason for this, that there is the possibility of a romantic or sexual attachment.

I’ve always been somewhat jealous of the ease with which my gay friends establish friendships with women. I think that the reason is purely and simply that the possibility of romantic attachment isn’t there. I have many female friends, with whom there is an ease with each other, this has occurred as at some point the possibility of a romantic attachment was settled and moved on from, this settling usually happens sub-consciously, it is perhaps a product of time and getting to know the person. some women who I meet sometimes start acting dismissively as if I am seeking a relationship with them. What has disturbed me is sometimes men, even heterosexual men, start acting strangely towards me as if I am seeking a romantic relationship with them.

The thing that has troubled me about this is that it seems that everyone deals with this issue differently, and sometimes distressing situations can occur whereby individual systems clash. In Western society this is a particular problem, the society is so socially liberal that etiquette has been largely rejected, anything goes. Etiquette is a essentially a set of social rules to make social interactions easier. So, why has Western society adopted a position of making social interactions harder?

This has been an issue for me as I suffered from anxiety for so long that it has perhaps warped my own interaction system. Basically in my system I don’t seek relationships. I enjoy communicating with people, sometimes things click and there is a kind of understanding of who the other person is, sometimes there is a liking of that person,there are then three possibilities: 1/ Nothing, 2/ a friendship begins to form, 3/ a romantic relationship begins to form. For me, these things just happen.

It seems as though everyone has, perhaps it’s another personality spectrum, a degree to which interactions are monitored for the seeking of relationships, perhaps people always invest some effort in interacting in seeking a relationship. If this is the case, then perhaps I am at an extreme end of this spectrum.

What I have struggled with is that I am sensitive to people thinking that I am seeking a relationship, because it annoys me, as conversation dries up, the question you are asking is is no longer about the question but responded to as if by asking you are seeking a relationship. I feel like crying out ‘I’m not seeking a relationship, I’m just talking to you”. It seems that people once they get the idea in their head that you are seeking a relationship, normal relations are no longer possible, that can be very awkward, particularly in environments where you spend time together, such as a working environment. I find it quite ridiculous as both parties then go out of their way to avoid each other.

It is quite understandable how this situation arises. I do speak to women just because I am attracted to them. Fairly quickly one realises that they are not interested in a romantic liaison, I immediately take that on board and move on (Well I might find a corner to cry in at some juncture). However, some men, continue to seek relationships after this point, this continuing strategy does work, sometimes, as it is possible to change your mind after getting to know someone better. Such a strategy is generally acceptable, however if it continues it becomes harassment, how much to employ such a strategy varies as people are different, it is a grey area. Once members of a population use a strategy, there then arises a counter-strategy, the women develop strategies for dealing with unwanted attention, to monitor people for seeking relationships to trigger the defensive response. Really, the whole ‘game’ of finding a sexual partner is complicated and some people actively play this game.

This is perhaps why it becomes problematic for people such as myself, who are very low level relationship seekers. This group don’t seek relationships, so such people don’t really know what is going on when people are analysing a situation for relationship seeking. It is possible to think that this group are victims of being in a game they don’t know the rules of. It is tempting to join in and simply ‘play the game’, however fighting against your own personality is dangerous.

Of course, this non-relationship seeking is a strategy in itself, it is simply not purposefully used as a strategy. I have many male and female friends whom I’ve formed relationships with precisely because I wasn’t seeking a relationship. I like having relationships, I just hate all the faff involved in getting to a point of mutual trust and respect. The thing that perhaps bothers me is that social groups form due to social type, one only socialises with people like yourself. There are positives to only socialising with like minded souls, but it is also limiting, the perception is missing out on understanding other types of people.

Non-relationship seeking does tend to be the preserve of introverts. Because introverts are really happy to be alone, there is no need for social interaction to be fulfilled. Introverts simply like social interaction, but are equally happy doing things by ourselves. Then there is this low self-monitoring issue, whereby low self-monitors don’t change their behaviour to suit others.

 

Depressing misunderstood music

People have often criticised sections of the music I like, because it’s ‘depressing’. There is no such thing as “depressing’ music, only music that you don’t get or don’t understand, perhaps people don’t want to say: “Turn this off because I don’t understand it”, which would be more accurate.

Generally the music referred to, lyrically, deals with sad topics, the plight of the alienated from society, with the expression of quite specific negative feelings. Such music concerns the feelings of a minority in society. This music has very positive functions. Most importantly it allows the listener to recognise and relate to an expressed emotion, from this comes a sense of validation, that those thoughts are not unique and are those of a wider community of people. This association with the negative actually helps allow the listener to escape from negative feelings as a focal point for the negativity is provided, so the feelings can be appropriately compartmentalised. it is no surprise that the purveyors of such music, never achieve super stardom, but often have large, loyal very dedicated groups of fans. for example Leonard Cohen sang “We are ugly, but we have the music”, to me this means that whilst outsiders may feel outside society, at least they/we have understanding of a great collection of music.

I stressed in a recent post, how human feelings consists of happiness, sadness and a neutrality. Art should concern all possible states of human conciousness. I don’t understand the call for more happy music. It is harder to express happiness artistically I feel. However you can’t force happiness on people (though it would be wonderful if this was actually possible!). I am a massive fan of ‘The Cure‘, In the late 1980s they suddenly started producing a string of poppy, happy songs, that gained more widespread success, ‘Lovecats’ reached the giddy heights of number 7 in the singles chart in the UK. These worked wonderfully as very rare expression and explorations of happiness. More recently with ‘Happy’ by Marina and the Diamonds

It would be wrong to suggest that this music is better or worse than other music, by which I mean music that concerns more general widely felt thoughts and feelings about the human condition. Whilst this kind of music can be amazing it will always fail to provide the keenness of resonance of a more rare or specific emotion. However, good music of this variety is harder to distinguish. Often an artist will write lyrics that are so general and lacking any real insight, that they are dull and boring.

What has always flummoxed me, is that pop music that becomes hugely successful, seems to bare little relation to it’s quality, whether lyrically or musically. I’m aware that music lovers and lovers of insightful lyrics are the minority and don’t determine popularity. I wonder whether there is something special that people who don’t feel like outsiders or a developed sense of music pick up on?

However it may be something less profound. sometimes an artist will emerge for popularising a new style of music. Usually the new style will already have developed in the underground by experimental artists. To fans of the experimental sound, the popularisation will sound dull and boring, but to the uninitiated it may present the expression of that musical idea for the masses.

I’ve mainly been discussing lyrical content in this discussion, as i hinted almost the exact same argument apples to musicality. However musicality is different. Being an outsider is something that happens to an individual. Musicality can be developed by anyone, through active listening to music. For example, the popular works of a classical composer, most people will like, you then play another less popular work by that artist, and the listener won’t get it. However if they have developed musicality, they will be able to appreciate the less popular work  just as much as the popular one. Composers, don’t know what is going to be popular. Perhaps popularity occurs when a musical idea is very simple, it is the simplicity that resonates, to the composer the simplicity may not be apparent at the time of writing.

Generally Separate

When people get into a fight, there is often a cry to separate, to step back, provide both parties to stop and reflect upon their actions. Many arguments and conflicts are caused by misunderstandings. Many misunderstandings arise from a tendency to generalise. People generalise to make help make sense of the world, to simplify.

In my recent conversations with people about the murder of journalists in Paris this week, I have often found myself as the standard barer of the idea of separating and not generalising. It is wrong to cast aspersions on an entire group of people, or people who identify with a particular belief. It is also wrong to suggest that all ‘members’ of a group are responsible for the actions of individuals with whom they share some label. For example if a murder occurs in Wales, as a Welshman I am not to blame for the murder, nor should I apologise to the world on behalf of Welsh people. Whilst all Welsh people are Welsh, as individuals we all define that sense of identity in a different way.

People often get upset or angry by events. When  we become upset, there is a tendency to blame others, there is often no immediately apparent cause of the problem so people look for generalisations, and the labels generated from generalisations come to the for. One might, for example blame all women for a relationship floundering. However, it is perhaps neglected that when there is a misunderstanding it is due to the failure of the generalisation, than some more rare personality trait is not understood.

There is a sense of the tyranny of the perceived majority, which is often heightened by the media. For example that men are only after sex and not committed relationships. Sometimes, people take comfort from the logic of using generalisations to form conclusions for a communication breakdown, it gives a sense of a matter being settled. i would argue that often misunderstandings arise from people making generalisations and a disregard for the separateness of individuals, for ‘exceptions to the rule’. Really because as humans we generalise, we often fail to be aware that we are dealing with an individual who is different and not all generalisations apply to any individual.As a society we are not less homogenised, we live in a multi-cultural society, yet still retain the trappings of class, the traditional form of difference in a society.

This loss of social rules and social conformity is a triumph. It has freed individuals from feeling that they should act or think in a particular way. It also places a burden on the individual to assess the morality of their thoughts and actions individually and often there isn’t the time and space to do this thoroughly. Often a solution is to adopt or buy into a particular philosophy as a general way to simply exist and get on with things, whilst recognising that every system has it’s flaws and weaknesses as well. However following the dictates of any particular creed or rule system, will inevitable cause the followers of another system harm, inadvertently at some point.

For example, wearing of the burka. To me, as a western feminist, women should be free to wear what they want and not have their choice of clothes  dictated by any particular greed or gender group. Men should respect women by not harassing them for any choice of clothing they may make. So, if I were to completely adopt this creed I would be disapproving of women wearing the burka, advocating that the burka has no place in society. This is wrong, as I would be applying my creed to someone else. Women have the right to wear the burka if they wish to. in any case, the feminist creed has not fully succeeded in removing the harassment of women in the street in society, no creed can claim any superiority over the other.

I was once involved in a rather farcical clash of cultures once on a London bus. I got onto the bus, there was only one spare seat, next to a woman, which I sat in. The woman got up from her seat, presumably as her creed was that she shouldn’t sit next to strange men. My creed dictated that I should give up my seat for a woman, so I got up and indicated that the lady should resume her seat, which she did. On my last visit to London, on the tube (underground railway), the lady opposite who was nursing a young child, gave up her seat to an elderly lady who had just got on the train. I then gave up my seat to the lady with the child!

I am British, the British are often criticised for apologising whenever things go awry. Actually this is healthy thing to do, it is a correct admission that no-one is perfect, that this lack of perfection has caused some trouble to someone else. That the reasons or a difficulty is that we are all different and working out the exact thing we are apologising for is most of the time not worth trying to work out, or at least should be remembered for when the person has to time to stop and reflect.

My own problem was that I would overly worry and assess my own failings, rather than admit to never being perfect and get on with living, to accept that people are always going to misunderstand me and I others, with no intended malice. I didn’t do this partly as I allowed the differences and misunderstanding to effect me, when it is something that just happens. Learning to tolerate the differences in others is something i could always do, what i lacked was freeing myself of the fear of my own status as someone separate of inadvertently offending others.

People should be less hasty to judge both other individuals and labelable groups, not try and dictate how others from different backgrounds should behave (all our backgrounds are different), but rather accept the separateness of us all as individuals and do our best to get along with one another.