normblog

The Picasso in perfumery

She's Sophia Grojsman, and she's the creator of scents for the likes of Calvin Klein, Estée Lauder, Lalique, Lancôme and Yves Saint Laurent. Think Trésor. On the accompanying video, Grojsman says, 'You cannot be the creator for smells without having a nose - it's a given gift by God'. She also says that the optimal spot for perfume is the back of the knees. I haven't been so surprised since learning that Jonah Lomu used to take time off from rugby to produce luxury fragrances.

Holding off Mrs Jellyby

It's possible I've got the wrong end of the stick here, not having read the book from which Gary Gutting's discussion takes off - namely, Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature - but, taking that discussion cold, so to speak, I have the impression that Gutting conflates two different things: on the one hand, an assumption of moral equality dictating that one should refrain from harming all persons (and, I guess, that the rules of social life should not discriminate unfairly on grounds of status); on the other hand, an assumption that 'morality requires treating everyone equally', such that 'it's wrong to privilege, say, my spouse, children, friends, or neighbors over others'. You what? Gutting's own example is of being faced with the choice between trying to rescue a loved one and trying to rescue someone else from a fire. But you can multiply examples at will. Morality doesn't, or at least it shouldn't, override either special obligations or moderate self-interest. Does a belief in moral equality mean you should take the same care for the welfare of your children as you do for the welfare of other people's? Or be as focused on the health of strangers as you are on your own? Or love your bus driver like you love your sweetheart? Evidently not. Call it a division of labour.

Where do you stand?

I mean where do you stand in the long human chain that runs from the beginning of time until this second? According to the Beeb (so who could doubt it?) when I was born I was the 2,370,723,400th person alive on Earth, and the 75,070,137,317th person to have lived since history began. You? (Via Sonya.)

Ill-chosen words of apology

Deborah Orr has now issued an apology of sorts for her anti-Jewish slur of a week ago, concerning the immensely greater value attributed by Zionists to 'the lives of the chosen'. I say it's an apology of sorts because, though Orr does use the word 'sorry', this is one of those expressions of regret in the diversionary mode - drawing attention away from the thing supposedly being apologized for and towards other matters.

This is how it works. First, her words were badly chosen, Orr now says - but 'accusations of antisemitism have also been intemperate'. As if, so directed, at the very worth of different people's lives, the chosenness trope might have been other than anti-Semitic. Is this merely the now familiar plea that, whereas other forms of racial and ethnic prejudice may inhere in modes of address, discursive stereotypes, institutional practices and such, anti-Semitism is never present unless there is active hatred in the mind of the speaker; and who could ever suspect this particular speaker of anything so vulgar as active hatred? In any event, Orr says sorry without even facing squarely what she ought to be sorry for. None of that anti-Semitism stuff in this quarter, no.

That's step one (three lines). Step two (thirteen lines): talk about everything else under the Jewish-related sun. One can accept Israel's right to exist while believing there were unforunate features of its creation. Jews are neither more nor less capable of making political mistakes than anyone else. Humans typically do make mistakes and they are often reluctant to accept criticism. And the relevance of all this to the would-be apology? Hey, Debs, why not throw in that Jewish acrobats have no reason to think themselves better than non-Jewish acrobats? Or that there are other kinds of fish you prefer to gefilte fish?

In Syrian hospitals

The indices of the moral character of a regime are many and various. Here, in the case of Syria, is one that is about as damning as can be imagined:

The Syrian government has turned hospitals into instruments of repression in its efforts to crush opposition, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

The 39-page report[,] Health Crisis: Syrian Government Targets the Wounded and Health Workers[,] documents how wounded patients in at least four government-run hospitals have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, including by medical workers.

Hospital workers suspected of treating protesters and others injured in unrest-related incidents have themselves faced arrest and torture.

"It is deeply alarming that the Syrian authorities seem to have given the security forces a free rein in hospitals, and that in many cases hospital staff appear to have taken part in torture and ill treatment of the very people they are supposed to care for," said Cilina Nasser, Amnesty International Middle East and North Africa researcher.

"Given the scale and seriousness of the injuries being sustained by people across the country, it is disturbing to find that many consider it safer to risk not having major wounds treated rather than going to proper medical facilities."

Amnesty International found that patients have been assaulted by medical staff, health workers and security personnel in at least the National Hospitals in Banias, Homs and Tell Kalakh and the military hospital in Homs.

The rest.

Conclusive proof of human limitation

You believe in the possibility of a better world, right? Right. I'm simply assuming that'll be your answer, because you wouldn't be SO cynical as to deny the very possibility of things being made better than they are, by at least some margin. OK, then. Utopia, what do you think of that? Here I believe ways will divide: between (1) those who want to allow for utopia as a really really good, maybe close to perfect, future; (2) those (like me) who want to allow for the possibility of utopia only in the more limited sense of a much better world than we've got but still with lots of conflicts, problems, blemishes; and (3) those sceptical even of this, but who just think things could maybe be non-utopianly a bit better.

I have decisive evidence today that no one should place themselves in category (1) above. Here it is: not war or genocide, not bigtime stuff of any kind. Instead, neighbours falling out and going to law over what is termed, delicately, 'unscooped dog poop'. The dream of eternal harmony makes no sense in light of such low-level, everyday frictions. Read (under the link) about PooPrints before making up your mind.

Morality of war?

In what can only be called a rant, Jonathan Jones lambasts what he sees as the hypocrisy, self-deception and 'stench of doublethink' in Western criticism of the manner of Muammar Gaddafi's death, the photographing of it and the putting his corpse on public display. The critical reaction to this grisly end, Jones says, shows a lack of understanding 'that through Nato we are participants in this conflict and so share its inevitable moral complexities'. A 'moment of violent gratification' for the oppressed is just part and parcel of the reality of war and it is a fantasy to long for a more dignified and humane end to it.

Jones makes use of a good, or at least valid, point to try to pass off a bad one. The valid point? In an old phrase, war is hell. It is a 'dangerous delusion that war can be a decent and worthwhile activity'. No - it is bloody, brutal and cruel. Jones alludes to the evidence from what are widely thought of as good wars in order to remind us of their share of atrocity. The insistence implicit in all this is that it is foolish to have expected of Gaddafi's captors, after they had just fought their way at great cost towards his place of refuge, that they would treat the hated tyrant as a group of human-rights workers might have been expected to.

This, however, is only half the story - the sociology of war, as one might call it. One need only recall that the critical reaction that Jones laments came not only from political actors or media outlets but also from human rights NGOs, to be reminded that, as well as a sociology, there is also a morality of war. It is contained in international conventions that codify the laws of war, and in just war doctrine, the different 'branches' of it. Would we really be better off if there weren't this morality, if wars were just fought without restraints of any kind? It is hard to believe that Jones really thinks so: that he would prefer that there be no rules against murdering prisoners, or torturing and mutilating them, or treating their dead bodies abusively; or that the deliberate bombing of civilians should be seen as an acceptable practice; in short, that in war anything goes. At times this seems to be the subtext implicit in his piece. But it is more likely that he hasn't thought the issue through and just wants to moan about Western attitudes.

In any event that war is hell is true, but that war is hell and therefore should be left to be waged without moral or legal constraints is a counsel of folly and of a slide towards something more hellish still than what we now have. Humankind needs the restraining codes despite all sociological realism about war - and indeed because of it.

As if people in other societies somehow find oppression more agreeable

Other than the paragraph about the 'illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq', I commend the whole of this column to you. Taking off from Terry Glavin's book Come from the Shadows, Eva Sajoo writes about some of what's at stake in Afghanistan:

Visiting remote villages, newly built schools, and the streets of Kandahar, he [Terry Glavin] focuses on the voices of Afghans and their hopes and fears for the future of their nation.

We meet Ehsanullah Ehsan, a young man who defies Taliban death threats to build schools for girls. He also runs a learning centre that provides education and job skills to women in Kandahar City. It is called the Afghan-Canadian Community Centre, and it is funded by CIDA - for now.

What gives him the courage to continue? "I value freedom. I value civilization" he says, convinced that education can transform his country if given half a chance.

The rest is here.

Comparative paywalls

The New York Times put up its paywall a year later than the (London) Times did, yet the former has outstripped the latter in acquiring paying customers. The graph here shows by how much. The accompanying analysis suggests this is probably due to the NYT's bigger and more international market, rather than because the NYT's paywall is more 'porous' (so pulling readers in?) than the Times's. I wouldn't know. But so porous is the NYT's paywall - not only in the way noted - that it barely exists as a wall. It's more like a sieve. (Via.)

Update on Gilad

Israeli president Shimon Peres visited Gilad Shalit at his home yesterday. Shalit told him:

I am slowly regaining my strength and am happy to be home.

Oh, not only deprived of sunlight, then, but kept in such a way that he now needs to regain his strength. Just one of the ways of being chosen.