racist post censored

[ada]

I've just noticed that a race-hate post by a member of this forum has been expunged from a thread.

Probably justified. There ya go Debussy, one for you to ponder.

[thalbergmad]

Strewth

[debussy symbolism]

Greetings.

Whats there to ponder on? I am in no way against Nils "expunging" hateful posts, I am more concerned about him censoring random, not so hateful posts. I am however under the impression of no foul play, given his earnesty in taking the time to prove of the threads he deleted and giving sufficient reason for so. Thats what I wanted.

[pies]

Are you talking about my post about Poles?

[ada]

seeing as you've posted publically I'll answer publically, yes.

[debussy symbolism]

Are you talking about my post about Poles?

I don't know whether your post was somehow offensive, but responded to posts in general.

[pies]

seeing as you've posted publically I'll answer publically, yes.

So you're saying my post was racist? Last time I checked, Polish wasn't a race. 

[ada]

So you're saying my post was racist? Last time I checked, Polish wasn't a race.

Well what is a race? You give me a definition. Was Nazi Germany a racist state? Was it racism for white christians to attempt genocide against white Jews? Are Jews a racial group?

You can quibble for ages about definitions,  which are broader today than they were say fifty years ago, but there was a certain racist flavour in your comments, conveyed by the words “hate”, “all” and “passion”.

How would I define racism? Probably as an unjustified and blanket hatred of, or discrimination against, all members one racial, ethnic or national group.

And no, I’m not trying to compare you to a nazi. Just trying to make a point.

[ahinton]

Well what is a race? You give me a definition. Was Nazi Germany a racist state? Was it racism for white christians to attempt genocide against white Jews? Are Jews a racial group?

You can quibble for ages about definitions,  which are broader today than they were say fifty years ago, but there was a certain racist flavour in your comments, conveyed by the words “hate”, “all” and “passion”.

How would I define racism? Probably as an unjustified and blanket hatred of, or discrimination against, all members one racial, ethnic or national group.

And no, I’m not trying to compare you to a nazi. Just trying to make a point.

Well said!

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

Well what is a race? You give me a definition. Was Nazi Germany a racist state? Was it racism for white christians to attempt genocide against white Jews?

The deadliest kind of antisemitism, the kind that results in massacre and attempted genocide, has little to do with real conflicts of interest between living people, or even with racial prejudice as such. At its heart lies the belief that Jews – all Jews everywhere – form a conspiratorial body set on ruining and then dominating the rest of mankind. And this belief is simply a modernised, secularized version of the popular medieval view of Jews as a league of sorcerers employed by Satan for the spiritual and physical ruination of Christendom.
  --from some Jewish guy in some book

I actually wrote up a nice and lengthy response to your post. Then I remembered that this is the internet.

[pianolist]

It's daft to say that you hate any large group of people. You can't possibly know every individual personally. People are all different, and there will be cruel ones, silly ones, funny ones, loving ones, fat ones, slim ones, and all the rest. To say you hate a whole group of people simply cannot be true, and there must be an element of striking poses about it.

I can vouch for the fact that it is possible for a while to hate individuals, but that generally comes about as a result of close friends deceiving you. In essence you have to love someone in order subsequently to hate them. There is a passion in hatred, and you cannot feel true passion for someone you do not know.

Definitions of race are actually an irrelevant detail. Hitler's mob just wanted to show that they were tough guys, and the Jews (and the gypsies, the homosexuals, the Hungarians and the rest) just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Hitler hadn't had the Jews to exterminate, he would have found some other group, in order to secure his grip on power.

I visited Auschwitz in 1968, and the memory will live with me for ever. It is one of the reasons why I lost my Christianity, and it confirms in my mind what the anthropologists tell me regarding the similarity of humans and chimpanzees. But I don't see how I can hate Nazis. I don't know any. I guess I regard their beliefs as stupid, and unhelpful towards a peaceful society, and it is right that we went to War, even though we certainly didn't do so with any thought of helping the Jews.

To steer this thread towards clearer water, I would say that there is a great deal of music which expresses love, but I'm not really aware of any that expresses hatred. There will be songs allied to political causes, but generally the music for these is quite innocuous, and only acquires its base meanings by association, and not from within itself.

But my knowledge of repertoire is not vast. Anyone know of hate music?

[ramseytheii]

I actually wrote up a nice and lengthy response to your post. Then I remembered that this is the internet.

This quote reminded me somewhat strangely of Guenther Grass' recent book, "Crabwalk," where a man in Germany doing internet research on a Russian submarine attack towards the war's end that killed thousands of refugees discovers that his deranged teenage son has taken up the same event as a neo-Nazi cause.  They chat for some time over the internet, but though the father knows who the son is, the son is unaware he is chatting with his father.  There is a third character in the chatroom, who identifies himself with a Jewish assassin of a prominent Swiss Nazi.  At the end, the son (who identifies himself with the assassinated victim) and the other fellow decide to meet and reconcile their differences; but the son murders the other internet person.  This is a very dark and disturbing story, told in a cold journalistic style, about the sins of the past revisited upon the present generations, and how extremist ideas can get passed around so easily on the internet.  So don't underestimate the internet!

Walter Ramsey

[ahinton]

It's daft to say that you hate any large group of people. You can't possibly know every individual personally. People are all different, and there will be cruel ones, silly ones, funny ones, loving ones, fat ones, slim ones, and all the rest. To say you hate a whole group of people simply cannot be true, and there must be an element of striking poses about it.

I can vouch for the fact that it is possible for a while to hate individuals, but that generally comes about as a result of close friends deceiving you. In essence you have to love someone in order subsequently to hate them. There is a passion in hatred, and you cannot feel true passion for someone you do not know.

Definitions of race are actually an irrelevant detail. Hitler's mob just wanted to show that they were tough guys, and the Jews (and the gypsies, the homosexuals, the Hungarians and the rest) just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Hitler hadn't had the Jews to exterminate, he would have found some other group, in order to secure his grip on power.

I visited Auschwitz in 1968, and the memory will live with me for ever. It is one of the reasons why I lost my Christianity, and it confirms in my mind what the anthropologists tell me regarding the similarity of humans and chimpanzees. But I don't see how I can hate Nazis. I don't know any. I guess I regard their beliefs as stupid, and unhelpful towards a peaceful society, and it is right that we went to War, even though we certainly didn't do so with any thought of helping the Jews.

Why have you made so very many good commonsensical and humane points within so short a space of time (i.e. within a handful of paragraphs containing so few words)? This is surely too much, isn't it? No, of course it isn't! If I am to take issue at all with anything that you have written here, it would have to centre on the fact that I am sorry that your Auschwitz experience (an inevitably harrowing one - what else could it have been) was one of the reasons why you abandoned your Christianity, albeit only because this is more than faintly suggestive that the legacy of Hitler's Nazism that remained there in spirit still had some life left in it to the extent that it could influence your views about Christianity - this is almost as though Hitler's "vision" still had some shred of power left, in that it could do this. If I misunderstand what you write here, I will be happy to stand corrected (provided that you correct me with explanation, which - if need be - I'm sure you will). If anything, I would have thought that the experience you had there might have been more likely to undermine your faith in humanity rather than just Christianity - and that would have been rather more understandable.

Of course it is absurd to suggest that it is technically possible to "hate" every member of any race, every adherent to a particular religion, everyone that has a certain skin pigment, eye colour, height or whatever else; the sooner everyone understands and accepts this and then lives by it, the sooner certain things will improve beyond recognition. I'm not holding my breath, of course (sadly)...

Best,

Alistair

[pianolist]

I'm very glad we have transfigured this thread. The two elements of Auschwitz that really stuck in my mind, apart form the scale, were very different.

Firstly, and on a very banale level, I was dumbstruck by the fact that there was an ice cream van at the exit. I don't think any of our party could possibly have managed an ice cream, but I suppose some folk must have, or the driver would not have made a living. It was so incongruous.

But the main horror was the realisation of how carefully it had all been planned. I was bullied incessantly at school, so I could understand brutish guards being violent, and account for it by virtue of their individual insensitivity as human beings. But the ovens and the gas chambers were carefully and efficiently designed, with rails and trucks that ran between. There must have been committee meetings, with engineers and architects, at which the chairman would have called for order, and asked for considered views on how most effectively to kill people in their thousands, and to dispose of the bodies promptly. Perhaps different firms quoted for the building work. I think the perception of this cold-bloodedness was what really affected me. It was the treatment of human individuals as commodities.

It was certainly not only Auschwitz that de-Christianized me. Billy Graham also has something to answer for, but it the end it must be my temperament.

As always in life, practicalities transcend theories. A whistle informs me that dinner awaits me downstairs, and I'm a very lucky fellow. More anon.

[ahinton]

I'm very glad we have transfigured this thread. The two elements of Auschwitz that really stuck in my mind, apart form the scale, were very different.

Firstly, and on a very banale level, I was dumbstruck by the fact that there was an ice cream van at the exit. I don't think any of our party could possibly have managed an ice cream, but I suppose some folk must have, or the driver would not have made a living. It was so incongruous.

But the main horror was the realisation of how carefully it had all been planned. I was bullied incessantly at school, so I could understand brutish guards being violent, and account for it by virtue of their individual insensitivity as human beings. But the ovens and the gas chambers were carefully and efficiently designed, with rails and trucks that ran between. There must have been committee meetings, with engineers and architects, at which the chairman would have called for order, and asked for considered views on how most effectively to kill people in their thousands, and to dispose of the bodies promptly. Perhaps different firms quoted for the building work. I think the perception of this cold-bloodedness was what really affected me. It was the treatment of human individuals as commodities.

It was certainly not only Auschwitz that de-Christianized me. Billy Graham also has something to answer for, but it the end it must be my temperament.

As always in life, practicalities transcend theories. A whistle informs me that dinner awaits me downstairs, and I'm a very lucky fellow. More anon.

Sorry - I edited my post after you wrote this one, realising as I did that I made some mistake and let some things out (maybe you'd like to have anotherlook at it - or maybe not!). I suppose that the idea of the ice cream seller's presence was some kind of attempt at a symbolic gesture along the lines of "however gruesome and dispiriting that experience was, we must go on and we're still all humans"; Hitler had not, of course, appointed an ice cream salesman to function there in his day. What you didn't mention (and I write what I'm about to in view of your remark about "hate" music) is that many of those cold-blooded organisers of whom you wrote would sit and listen to Schubert afterwards. Schubert's work would patently not have been an obvious choice as something that could even be forced to fall into the category of "hate" music, so why Schubert? - and what on earth would Schubert have made, not only of the activities at Auschwitz but the fact that the organising and acting officers would then go and listen to his music in their spare time? (not only his music, of course, but you get my drift, presumably).

You wrote also of the effect on you of the realisation as to
"the treatment of human individuals as commodities"
and I am bound to have to say that something of this has become a kind of legacy, however unwitting and unpredicted - in terms of the disgusting manner in which music has also become obsessively commodified in much more recent times; for obvious reasons, I would not seek to draw too great a comparative link here, but there is certainly some common ground, without doubt.

I would far better understand your having been put off Christianity by the ramblings of the Billy Grahams of this demi-monde - the kind of thing that the great French philosopher René Guénon described as "proselytising fury" - than by the inevitable and understandable fallout from your experiences at Auschwitz.

I am neither a Christian nor an anti-Christian, but I am aware that Christ was not a salesman, whereas the evangelistis of the order of Billy Graham were - or so it seems to me, anyway. It may strike some here as arrant irreverence, but I have nevertheless to say that I suspect that Christ would have been hard put to it to figure out which was the most dehumanising out of the antics of the Nazis and those of some of the double-glazing-salesperson evangelists; of course He would have been infinitely more horrified by the sheer inhumanity - no, the ANTI-humanity - of the Nazis' actions, but I can equally imagine his immense and all-pervasive wrath at the pleonastic perversions of the religious sales force conducted in His name...

Best,

Alistair

[pies]

But my knowledge of repertoire is not vast. Anyone know of hate music?

Shostakovich wrote a symphony that had some sort of anti-semitic theme if I remember.
Then there's Wagner. He was anti-semitic but I have no idea if he composed any anti-semitic stuff.

[prometheus]

This quote reminded me somewhat strangely of Guenther Grass' recent book, "Crabwalk," [...]

Haha, I didn't know Grass puts stuff like that in his book. The way you tell it it sounds like a funny story. But knowing Grass and like you say it probably isn't.

[gilad]

about Shostakovichs symphony from wikipedia. he was not an anti semite, but rather a brave man who spoke out when others never. i have the disc, have heard it once, it is in russian of course, i dont understand it, but it is haunting, and i have never built up the strength to listen to it again.

"That year saw Shostakovich again turn to the subject of anti-Semitism in his Thirteenth Symphony (subtitled Babi Yar). The symphony sets a number of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the first of which commemorates a massacre of the Jews during the Second World War. Opinions are divided as to how great a risk this was: the poem had been published in Soviet media, and was not banned, but it remained controversial. After the symphony's premiere, Yevtushenko was forced to add a stanza to his poem claiming that Russians and Ukrainians died alongside the Jews at Babi Yar."

[pianowelsh]

Billy Graham is no salesman he's a paramedic/midwife!! He's also an ambassador. It is impossible that he 'de-christianized' you. The bible says that the son shall loose non that the father has given him. If you have never believed/trusted in the son of God for salvation then you've never been a Christian. Not my interpretation thats what the word of God says ' He who has the son has life, he who doesnt have the son of God doesnt have life' (check 1 John out). Jesus does save and He still hears peoples calls even today!  - Meet Billy Graham2

[pianolist]

I didn't say that I had never believed in God. I was brought up as a Christian, and indeed I sang in various church choirs, including the one where my father was organist. Billy Graham helped me to see that the idea of God and Jesus was unreal, at least as far as I was concerned. He was not the only influence in this, but he certainly played a part. I am as near an atheist as one can get in an uncertain universe, and it has no effect on me to quote what the Bible says. I don't regard the Bible as the word of anyone other than some historical people who had a certain belief.

I am, though, convinced that the majority of humanity are better off believing in some form of deity. Unfortunately, so many use religion as an excuse for violence, when the violence comes simply from their human nature.

[soliloquy]

The deadliest kind of antisemitism, the kind that results in massacre and attempted genocide, has little to do with real conflicts of interest between living people, or even with racial prejudice as such. At its heart lies the belief that Jews – all Jews everywhere – form a conspiratorial body set on ruining and then dominating the rest of mankind. And this belief is simply a modernised, secularized version of the popular medieval view of Jews as a league of sorcerers employed by Satan for the spiritual and physical ruination of Christendom.
  --from some Jewish guy in some book

I actually wrote up a nice and lengthy response to your post. Then I remembered that this is the internet.

Is that from Portnoy's Complaint?  =D


That joke is only for me and Alistair =P

[cmg]

Very thoughtful thread, I think.

My thoughts, personally, about racisim and other prejudices, stem from the thinking of Jiddu Krishnamurti who regarded any ideology that separated one group from another as not just divisive but the very seed of conflict.  For him -- and humbly me -- religions and nationalism are the two prime sources of conflict:  My god against your god; my country against your country; my race against your race.  Humans seem to be biologcally wired to fear (and therefore hate) difference.  Therefore, it is easy for demagogues to set people up against one another.  Krishnamurti argued for the stand that humans should seek out the overwhelming commonality we share and not let the egoists (who only want power, afterall) to sway us and and divide us.

As to Christianity and Nazis, well, I too don't blame that faith per se for the Holocaust, although its adherents expedited the horrendous process by complicity and passivity. 

I do, however, find religions to be thoroughly counterproductive because they feed on dividing and separating people.  Just yesterday, some Jehovah Witness "missionaries" cornered me in my building and despite my protestations (to get rid of them) that I was Christian-friendly, they were relentess in trying to convince me that my soul was in mortal danger because I was not one of them.  It irritated me and left me with a prejudiced opinion of them.  I hated that feeling in myself and if it weren't for Krishnamurti's thinking I could have allowed myself to wander off into a disgusting view that Jehovah Witnesses were awful people.  Of course, they are not!  They are earnest but misguided, I feel, in their attempts to convert me by trying to argue that what I DO
ACCEPT as my moral compass is insufficient to "save my soul."  Please.   

[ada]

Very thoughtful thread, I think.

 Just yesterday, some Jehovah Witness "missionaries" cornered me in my building and despite my protestations (to get rid of them) that I was Christian-friendly, they were relentess in trying to convince me that my soul was in mortal danger because I was not one of them.  It irritated me and left me with a prejudiced opinion of them.  I hated that feeling in myself and if it weren't for Krishnamurti's thinking I could have allowed myself to wander off into a disgusting view that Jehovah Witnesses were awful people.  Of course, they are not!  They are earnest but misguided, I feel, in their attempts to convert me by trying to argue that what I DO
ACCEPT as my moral compass is insufficient to "save my soul."  Please.   

Some people here recently found themselves in strife with the law after inviting some Jehovah's inside and feeding them hash cookies 

The poor Jehovah's witnesses were terribly traumatised and far be it for me to advocate  the administration of illegal substances  but goddam that was a funny story   

And I don't think they came calling to that house again.

[pianolist]

. . . religions and nationalism are the two prime sources of conflict:  My god against your god; my country against your country; my race against your race.  Humans seem to be biologcally wired to fear (and therefore hate) difference.

Here I go again! Just as the chimps, so the humans are capable of great cruelty and divisive violence. It is a facet of survival in situations of limited food that has been with since the dawn of recorded time. Religion, as it seems to me, is only a covering, and not the reason for the violence.

Just as the bonobos split from the chimps, so different strands of humanity have become more gentle or remained violent, though this is greatly complicated by our human ability to travel over long distances. (And I don't mean by jetplane!).

We on this forum are likely to be gentle, because playing the piano is a relatively gentle activity. It presupposes a certain upbringing and certain character traits in our parents, which we shall more or less have inherited.

Aggression is more prevalent in young people, especially males, where the chemicals conspire to that end. Alas, I have no solution to this dilemma, except to hope that wisdom prevails. Piano Street is a good influence, albeit tiny, but a multitude of tiny steps is perhaps the way in which gentle people pass on their gentleness, as opposed to the massive wars and pogroms which our violent brothers and sisters wreak upon us.

[ada]

Aggression is more prevalent in young people, especially males, where the chemicals conspire to that end. Alas, I have no solution to this dilemma

There is always castration....

[ahinton]

Some people here recently found themselves in strife with the law after inviting some Jehovah's inside and feeding them hash cookies 

The poor Jehovah's witnesses were terribly traumatised and far be it for me to advocate  the administration of illegal substances  but goddam that was a funny story   

And I don't think they came calling to that house again.

I get them coming to visit here just occasionally - I usually "feed" them nothing more "nourishing" than a speedier exit than the entrance that they made - no more, no less - but the alternative thought of offering the pair of them (they always come in pairs, don't they?!) some vegemite would appeal if only I could bring myself to have any in the house...

Best,

Alistair

[cmg]

Here I go again! Just as the chimps, so the humans are capable of great cruelty and divisive violence. It is a facet of survival in situations of limited food that has been with since the dawn of recorded time. Religion, as it seems to me, is only a covering, and not the reason for the violence.

Just as the bonobos split from the chimps, so different strands of humanity have become more gentle or remained violent, though this is greatly complicated by our human ability to travel over long distances. (And I don't mean by jetplane!).

I agree with your argument with one major exception:  as we evolved into homo sapiens, did we not develop a unique intellectual ability to OBSERVE the workings of our own brains?  In other words, self-consciousness?  Does that not separate us, from the best of our knowledge, from the "lower" primates?  To be able to observe:  yes, I am angry, but I do not need to be attached to my anger and, therefore, act out on it, is a remarkabe thing.  To stop one's self from committing an act of violence against another is the hallmark of any civilized being, no?

Having evolved to that level -- i.e., being able to restrain ourselves from killing for food or territory and the resultant rationalization that the murderous action was prompted by our need to defend our "God's" honor" -- are we not capable of transcending Biology and its mandates?

I know YOU are able of doing that, and I know I am able to do that.  Yet as much as I am attached to my genetic background, I do think it has more to do with conquering conditioned intelligence (or "received ideas") than subduing innate biological impulses. 

To try to clarify:  the brain is our on-board computer and the repository of all programming, prejudicial, irrational and otherwise.  It absorbs information regardless of its truth or validity; it is morally/ethically neutral.  But our Minds, the observing intelligence, CAN discriminate and edit.  To exercise this function of our Minds, however, takes courage, which most humans lack.  Nevertheless, the capacity is there.  I do not think that we are irrevocably condemned to a biological tendency towards violence.  In fact, I think to be homo sapiens, is, by definition,  to be able to observe our ancient proclivities towards violence, and to choose NOT to be violent. 

I may be totally wrong about this and I welcome your rebuttal!!

[cmg]

There is always castration....

   No argument here, Down Under National Treasure, but, well, ouch!

[ahinton]

There is always castration....

What do you mean, "always"? Isn't that rather like the old chestnut that urges "always wear a condom"? - you know, even when washing up the dishes...

Anyway, is this world really in need of more male soprani? Maybe you're biased because there's a shortage of them in Australia...

Best,

Alistair

[pianolist]

I may be totally wrong about this and I welcome your rebuttal!!

Aha! Something (well, not just this thread, actually) tells me we might have an academic mind at work here. Rebuttal indeed!

It seems to me that evolution is a gradual process and is indeed continuing. It never stops. No doubt there have been times in the world when physical constraints have forced change to occur more rapidly, but the business of change is endemic to physical life. Humans are homogenous enough as a group to be accorded the label of homo sapiens, but so must the chimps and bonobos have been at some stage.

I agree that we are self-conscious, and the fact that I agree demonstrates it, although I would not necessarily say that it is exclusive to humans. I am told that elephants can recognise themselves in mirrors, and if so, I would hesitate to set limits on their other intellectual powers without being able to converse with them in their own language.

It seems to be a facet of intelligence that violence between groups can be more remote from the immediate need for food or other resources. The more intelligent the creature, the more it understands the usefulness of attacking the "other" group on any occasion that presents itself.

I am going to run out of time for this today, as I have American friends to whom I plan to give a mean time around Greenwich. In essence, I think that some humans have become more gentle, like the bonobos, but that some have not. I think that a great deal of violence in the world - violence attributed to religion or politics - is actually driven by the greater equality of women in some parts of the world, which some ruling male groups find uncomfortable. I think this explains militant Islam, the confrontation between the West and the erstwhile communists, and many of the problems in Africa. Some men feel the need to assert their difference from women (and in truth there is very little difference) by fighting. It is their fear of losing male power which drives them to fight other males.

But all this is a gross oversimplification based on my need to skidaddle. More anon.

PS: cmg, I sent you a PM a couple of days ago, with a limerick attached. You may have opted for discretion in the matter, or it may be that the wonder of PMs has not yet revealed itself to you.

[cmg]

I am going to run out of time for this today, as I have American friends to whom I plan to give a mean time around Greenwich.
But all this is a gross oversimplification based on my need to skidaddle. More anon.

PS: cmg, I sent you a PM a couple of days ago, with a limerick attached. You may have opted for discretion in the matter, or it may be that the wonder of PMs has not yet revealed itself to you.

Well, give those Yanks "a mean time around Greenwich"  and return with "more anon."  And, yes, I have just discovered the wonder of PMs, thank you very much!  Reminds me of another limerick an old professor of counterpoint used to recite in classes when he was hungover (and after he presumably hurled.).  It goes thusly:

"Duh DUH duh duh duh duh duh duh,
Duh DUH duh duh duh duh duh duh!
Duh duh duh duh DUH,
Duh duh duh duh DUH,
Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh (insert foulest expletive you can imagine)!"

Duty calls!  Back to the salt mines.

[cmg]

Anyway, is this world really in need of more male soprani? Maybe you're biased because there's a shortage of them in Australia...

Best,

Alistair

(CMG imagining "Waltzing Matilda" sung an octave higher. . .)

[pianolist]

I have no time today either. Miserere mei. We have to dress up in something tartan and go to a ceilidh. Alistair would be appalled.

But I do like the word "thusly". You New Amsterdamers are wonderfully inventive. 

[pianolist]

To carry on from before:

There has been a story in the news this morning that a Palestinian gang has shot and killed the three children of a Palestinian security officer, as they they were being driven to school. Now, let's leave aside any considerations of Israel versus the rest of the middle east. This mindless action is so clearly part of our inherent violence. There is no logical purpose in such violence, because it only makes the "other" side more angry, and perpetuates division. But those who allow themselves to be violent in this way would not thank anyone for pointing out their animal origins.

Less "advanced" animals do kill or injure their own kind, but usually only when food or females are at stake. The more intelligent the species, the more it makes the connection between violence at any time, and the furtherance of its own grouping. Thus the chimps will seek out and kill weak members of another group at any time, and often go on expeditions (wars, crusades) to do so, because they feel instinctively that it supports their own group, which gives them power, and ultimately control over better food and fornication. In primitive societies, such violence in the end pays off, and the strong group holds sway, and therefore passes on its genes to successive generations.

The greater intelligence of the apes presumably comes from the necessity to outwit slower but stronger animals, in order to kill them for food, or to avoid being killed, and thereby to survive. But the violence itself was a by-product of food and perceived territory shortages in less advanced animals, although used less deviously by them. It has largely died out in the bonobos, who, as I understand it, have lived for millennia in territories where food is plentiful.

An interesting by-product of the bonobos' progression to non-violence is that the females generally hold sway, with female to female relationships cemented by intense and (obviously) non-procreative sex. If one of the males gets uppity, the girls gang up together and give him what for, without undue violence. Leaving aside any sexual aspersions, we have some female members of this forum who would make good bonobos! 

I think it is deceptive to talk of humans as one species. To a large degree we are exactly that, of course, but there are so many differences between us that one might see homo sapiens as a genus in the early stages of division. Many of us are not violent, including most people on this forum, I would guess, but there are many very violent people out there in the world. All of this is complicated by inheritance and by the surroundings in which people find themselves.

Distinguishing people on the basis of colour is illegal in most countries, and is probably a red herring anyway, because the acqusition or loss of skin colour is such a relatively recent trait. But just as we can easily see that young men are in general more violent than other humans, on account of the chemicals racing around in their brains, we should not ignore the likelihood that some humans are congenitally more violent than others. It is all very complicated, because the human race has moved around the planet for millennia, so that the less violent and the more violent are thoroughly mixed up nowadays. The bonobos were luckier, in that they became geographically separated from the chimps, which made a progression toward peacefulness much easier to achieve for them, and more obvious to observe for us.

I am not optimistic about the future of humanity. I am generally cheerful on a day-by-day basis, but in the long or even medium term I think we are likely to annihilate most of our brothers and sisters. We have been clever enough to invent some very powerful weapons, and in the end they are bound to be used, as I see it. Whether by nuclear, biological or chemical means, some individuals will eventually succeed in killing large swathes of humanity, and the horror of it all will not prevent others from following suit. Indeed, it will encourage them.

One cannot blame religion, which is only a manifestation of the stage we have reached in our intelligence and society. The unspoken stick or carrot of the afterlife has held societies in check for many centuries, and the problems now come because science has explained away most of the known unknowns that caused the Romans to think the Sun was a God, or the Christians to believe that we couldn't add a cubit to our stature. You want a cubit, sunshine? Go visit an orthopaedic surgeon!

I have a meeting of the Friends of the Pianola Institute in two hours, and a guest coming to stay tonight, and I haven't yet done the washing up. Philosophy and conjecture will have to wait again. But I've said enough to draw out some contrary views, if anyone is actually interested. 

[cmg]

Hit and run!  Hit and run!

Impeccable logic . . . and then you take a powder on us.

Duty calls, so I have to run as well.  And not nearly as interesting "duty" as yours.  You have the Friends of the Pianola Institute and I have the "Friends of the Psychotropic Meds Institute."  Wanna trade jobs?? 

[soliloquy]

Alistair!  How dare you not even respond to my literary snob, "in" joke.

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,21375.msg245465.html#msg245465



Now you get to it!

[pianolist]

You have the Friends of the Pianola Institute and I have the "Friends of the Psychotropic Meds Institute." Wanna trade jobs??

One mention of the chimps and no-one's interested - I thought as much!

My first wife got on to some psychotropic meds, I think. She came back from an overseas filming trip wearing similar sunglasses during the daytime, and not so long after that we split up. Mind you, pianola rolls can be psychotropic too - one gets carried away by the music. Psychotropical, even. I have one song roll which runs:

"We're havin' a heat wave,
  A tropical heatwave;
The temperature's risin',
  It isn't surprisin' -
She certainly can can-can."

"Gee,
  Her anatomy
Sends the mercury
  Up to 93!
Yes, sir . . ."

Reminds me of the medical student whose professor challenged him to write a verse with "analyse" and "anatomy" in it.

My Analyse over the ocean . . .

[cmg]

One mention of the chimps and no-one's interested - I thought as much!

Au contraire!  I actually buy your chimp argument.  Lord knows, I love to debate, but when I lose, well, I lose!

I gotta go beat the hell out of someone.  Can't decide if I'm territorial, hungry or just downright, well, you know . . .   

[pianolist]

I gotta go beat the hell out of someone.

What you need is a Pianola to fit in front of your piano. And some nice heavy four-hand arrangements of Brahms or Schumann Symphonies. Then you can bash away all you like, without Sergeant O'Reilly dragging you off to the slammer.

But it's sensitive of you to seek to accept sole responsibility, on behalf of all the Piano Street members, for the general apathy towards chimp-related issues. Now, if I had mentioned THE BIBLE . . . !

Season's Greetings, by the way. I'm off to experiment with smiley reindeer.

[cmg]

What you need is a Pianola to fit in front of your piano. And some nice heavy four-hand arrangements of Brahms or Schumann Symphonies. Then you can bash away all you like, without Sergeant O'Reilly dragging you off to the slammer.

But it's sensitive of you to seek to accept sole responsibility, on behalf of all the Piano Street members, for the general apathy towards chimp-related issues. Now, if I had mentioned THE BIBLE . . . !

Season's Greetings, by the way. I'm off to experiment with smiley reindeer.

Please. . . .anything but the BIBLE.  Got to get back to work -- and the reindeer are a hoot!!  Keep 'em coming and ask them to bring me a Pianola for That Holiday Which Must Not Be Named.

[Floristan]

I am not optimistic about the future of humanity. I am generally cheerful on a day-by-day basis, but in the long or even medium term I think we are likely to annihilate most of our brothers and sisters. We have been clever enough to invent some very powerful weapons, and in the end they are bound to be used, as I see it. Whether by nuclear, biological or chemical means, some individuals will eventually succeed in killing large swathes of humanity, and the horror of it all will not prevent others from following suit. Indeed, it will encourage them.
 

This has also been my long-held belief, though I think our extinction will as likely come from an ecological disaster like global warming or a new pandemic that will make AIDS look like the common cold.  Overpopulation is surely the worst of our problems that we could, but won't, control. 

[pianolist]

I think our extinction will as likely come from an ecological disaster like global warming or a new pandemic that will make AIDS look like the common cold.

As ITMA's Mona Lott used to say, "It's being so cheerful as keeps me going!"

But I agree with you, so who am I to talk? Human nature is a strange thing: one can be pessimistic in this way and yet still remain cheerful on a daily basis. It's silly, but I fret for the future of the Pianola. I have lived much of my life wanting to document the instrument and see that it is passed on to future generations in good order. And yet if the world is likely to run aground, who will care for the Pianola?

Ah well, here are some more reindeer. Pianolas are dead inexpensive, you know. The push-ups, like the one I use for concerts, are difficult to find, but upright player pianos can't be given away.

[wishful thinker]

Pianolas are dead inexpensive, you know. The push-ups, like the one I use for concerts, are difficult to find, but upright player pianos can't be given away.

Push ups are never easy, I find, but eBay to the rescue and you can buy one there! Item number: 270067457124 

Alternatively, should you like to do-it-yourself, there's a lovely upright one in my storeroom, just waiting 

[pianolist]

It's the shipping to Gotham that's the killer.

The push-up on Ebay is 65-note only, alas, although they did occasionally put some interesting stuff out on 65n rolls. But oops, I didn't mean to undervalue the upright player pianos belonging to anyone on this forum. Should keep my trap shut. Here are some more reindeer to encourage the punters.

[wishful thinker]

The one on ebay seems to have been converted to 88 note (they do this by transposing the outer notes an octave lower I think).

Which brings me to the question  - did they make push-ups in 88 note?  I thought that they were all earlier machines, replced by integral works?  If not, which makes etc were the 88 noters, and wher can one find one?