The Lakes Again, After the Fiestas

The lakes are quiet now. The weekend after the Assumption is the last big day of the summer. Now, midweek, the streets of the village echo under your feet, the roads are empty and at the bathing spots on the lakes there is almost no one. I saw maybe hald a dozen fishermen, mostly Rumanians, who seem to have an obsession with water, and three middle-aged ladies at one of the safer spots, idly dangling their feet in the water and wondering whether to swim. I expect they did eventually. In high summer that place is full, literally full, you couldn't get another towel on the ground or another table set up, and the water itself sometimes looks like the scene of a minor naval battle. The fish- large carp-like things a foot or so long- spend the daylight hours upstream, but now there were a dozen of them moving back and forth. No fishing just there.

At the other places a few stragglers sit and watch the water, and swim and play in the shallows. Families who couldn't get away until now, or who've been somewhere else where it rained, or are making the most of the opportunity, or who prefer it at this time of year, why not? Always families now, the young come from mid-July to mid-August, at fiesta time and when the weather is at its best. They don't have to argue dates with their boss or decide when to shut up the shop without losing too much money.

The summer isn't over, not at all. It's still 32º+ every afternoon, but there is cloud at times and storms in the evening. In high summer it never rains and you hardly see a cloud. people like certainty. And now that August is ending the feel here is that the work season begins again. Even people who don't work notice the difference, and those who rely on others to lift their spirits and provide their entertainment are aware that they've run out of choices.

The lakes haven't changed, though. The water is as high as ever and the sun still shines on them as it did. The places where the people don't go- because you can't get there by car, or there's nowhere to sit on the bank- look just as they did two weeks ago, and the beautiful places have not lost there beauty. They never do, not even in winter, until the water table in the mountains drops and they start to dry out. It'll be another year or two, but if it rains in the hills this winter the cycle will be longer still.

Mrs Hickory will soon be joining me on the bike, when the sun is not so hot, and we'll visit the lakes together, and swim at the places the tourists have left because they think it's too cold. Expect more photos.

I Know it's Only Football, but...

Another View of la Redondilla

There was a disagreement between the footballers’ union and the league at the start of the season, resulting in the cancellation of the first set of matches. (We were playing Real Madrid, so I’m not too bothered.) It was about money, of course, and the players made much of how some players in the minor teams were having trouble because they weren’t being paid. I don’t know how much right or wrong there was in the respective positions; there was a disagreement, they negotiated and sorted it out, and this weekend there is football.

But another disagreement involved the radio stations. The clubs want to charge them for transmitting the matches, in the same way that the TV stations pay.* The result is that instead of football you have hours of moaning about censorship and self-important stuff about how they’re going to put tape over their microphones outside the ground as some form of symbolic blah blah blah... I switched off, naturally, and followed the game on the internet.

Journalists who think the real news is them always annoy me. Journalists who shout about censorship as soon as someone takes them less seriously than they take themselves annoy me as well. There is a disagreement, sort it out and broadcast the football which is what we listen for. If they convert the programme into self-justification and propaganda for their position I won’t be the only one who stops listening.

The radio stations seem to assume that they have a right to broadcast commentary on matches because ‘the public has a right to be informed’. Well, that isn’t true for a start. A football match is a private event, opened to the public under certain conditions for commercial reasons. There is no general ‘right’ to have access to or information about such an event, and no ‘public interest’ in the sense that matters here. I underline this because I am convinced that it is true and that it is important to understand it. (If you care about this matter in the first place, that is).

The radio stations are, with the exception of the state broadcaster, private companies, which broadcast football because it sells a lot of adverts. They can hardly complain if the clubs have decided to stop giving them those listening figures for nothing. Also, the media have dedicated areas in the stadia which cost a lot of money to maintain, and access to some private areas which involves security costs to the club, interview facilities and so on. (It’s possible they already pay rent or maintenance for these facilities, I haven’t yet been able to find out.)

TV companies show images of the match, the rights to which are held to belong to the clubs playing, whereas radio stations broadcast no content except the commentary which they generate themselves. But the TV stations don’t pay a fortune to show football because they appreciate this conceptual nicety. They do it because it’s worth their while.

The clubs undoubtedly benefit considerably from the publicity, and from having the ear of the nation any time they want it, but that’s the point. It’s a business deal. There is a commercial relationship between two sets of businesses, which benefits the football fan who can listen to the matches for nothing. The clubs are re-evaluating that relationship and have offered a position. The radios, instead of negotiating, are falling back on ‘censorship’, ‘public interest’ and abusing the fact that they are a convenient platform for their own grievances. This is very annoying. When they sort it out I might return to the radio. Or I might stick with internet commentary. Or pay-per-view. Someone who understands how business works and doesn’t imagine the customer is interested in his problems.

I am broadly on the side of the radio stations in this, but I would have much more sympathy if they either broadcast other programmes and ignored the football until the dispute is settled, sat around watching the television pictures and commented from those, or found some other way of telling the listener what’s happening, but without whining all the time about how it’s not fair. Or going crying to Sir- they want the government to get involved. Why?

*I’m sure I remember a similar thing happening around 1992, and then the more enterprising commentators bought a ticket and gave their commentary by phone. The clubs responded by confiscating mobile phones for ‘safety reasons’ (they were big, heavy things back then). The thing is I thought I remembered that in the end they agreed to pay, so I was surprised when this argument broke out as I thought they’d been doing it for years.

Should I Be Worried?

I was told long ago by an aging gypsy woman that when there appeared in the sky at dusk a giant halibut
blowing smoke rings, it meant my time had come. Now I wish I hadn't laughed at her...

Idle Thoughts on Dinner Parties

One of the many things I have never understood is why people invite other people to dinner. I like good food, but I don’t think of eating it as a great recreational experience. I prefer not to prolong it. And to be forced to listen to other people wittering inanely at great length is far too high a price. I would rather make myself a sandwich and go and do something interesting. And I frequently do.

I am not completely misanthropic (not completely). There are people whose company I enjoy, but I tend to talk to people when I have something to say to them, or when they have something to say to me, that we both happen to find interesting. Basically, I loathe anything that sniffs of ceremony or social ritual. Life is too short for that sort of thing.

(We are a highly social species, and many people do like this sort of thing, so the problem is, I am sure, mine, not theirs, but I still loathe the whole business.)

Programming conversation in advance, deliberately sabotaging it by inviting a range of people who will never have any common interest to discuss beyond the utterly banal, and then encouraging them to spend hours yapping about nothing by placing good food and drink in front of them, is a very strange idea indeed.

Even if they are the right people, the circumstances are invariably wrong. How can you possibly know, days or perhaps weeks beforehand, who you might wish to talk to on a particular evening?

And then there is the unnecessary complexity of the food. As with so many social occasions, it seems essential to reach the limits of nervous collapse while preparing for them. Everyone must pretend they are having fun, but no one is allowed to genuinely enjoy any part of it. A good way of ruining any chance of relaxing and enjoying it is to plan a series of dishes that take hours to prepare and are impossible to time together. It really doesn’t have to be like that.

If people just wanted to enjoy each other’s company they would arrange to meet in a bar that also did decent food in case anyone felt hungry. Then they could eat, drink and talk as they wished, and leave when they wanted. But that might be fun, so it must be, not actually forbidden, but held in low esteem, a youthful indiscretion, a minor diversion, not on the same moral level as the dinner party.

And the guests, of course, are never the people you would choose to invite. They are chosen because they are owed, because they are useful, because they will know you’ve invited someone else, because it’s expected, because they will make up the numbers, because there are too many men, because they will give someone else someone to talk to, because that way you won’t have to talk to them, because the people you wanted can’t come. Whatever. Not likely to be an enjoyable evening, is it, if everything is carefully designed to make sure it is as irritating and tedious as possible.

And don’t get me started on weddings.

Peñarroya Castle

In the year 1198, Alonso Pérez de Sanabria, Captain of the forces of Alfonso VIII, took (in that wonderfully graphic mediaeval sense of the verb ‘to take’) the Castle of Peñarroya. While debating with himself at precisely which angle a particular prisoner’s head should be parted from his shoulders, this prisoner, known to history as Allen Ilec, revealed that he knew of a secret treasure and suggested they might do a deal. He turned out to be telling the truth, the deal was struck, Ilec kept his head, at least until the next battle, and in the roof of the castle the treasure was found. It included the lost image of Our Lady of Peñarroya, a dark Virgin venerated in the area since before that time.

A shrine was built within the castle for it, and there it has been ever since. It’s taken annually to the nearest village so it can be carried back again to the shrine, accompanied by a large crowd of people. Then everybody fries sausages and gets drunk. That’s how these things usually work around here.

In 1959 Franco decided to build a dam at that exact spot. The castle stands on an eminence commanding a spectacular, and strategic, view of the valley in both directions, and of the surrounding hills. This position, just where the valley narrows for a moment, and with rocks on either side, was perfect for the head of a reservoir. So the Generalissimo thought, and he was probably right.

It’s an ugly dam, and clearly some damage was done to the castle in order to build it, but the land must be irrigated, people need to drink, and if we lost some of the beauty of the castle we gained the beauty of the lake.

This is, of course, mostly an excuse to publish some photos. Considering I cycled over 40 miles with the express purpose of taking them, I’m not very happy with the results, but here they are anyway. I’ll just have to go back one day.

On Objective Morality

Is there any such thing as a moral universal? Something which everyone, or at least normal representatives of every human culture, will recognise as being right or wrong? Is there, in short, any fundamental moral system that will serve as a basis for human relations? In behavioural terms, is there anything at all that we all do the same?

What would it mean? Where would it come from? Outside us or inside us? Is it imposed by some form of God, or is it part of our nature, discernible by examining ourselves?

(Regular readers will getting rather tired of seeing the following observation, but I think it needs to be made again, as a preface:)

It should be remembered that even the most primitive, uncontacted, or uninfluenced, hunter-gatherers live, like us, in a conceptual world almost entirely of their own making. Their social behaviour is not instinctive, like that of monkeys, but has been created by them, and by generations of their forebears. This includes all aspects of social interaction, hierarchy, general morality, 'good manners', and sexual practice. All of this is defined, in an almost completely arbitrary way, and hedged about with strictures, taboos, punishments and justifying legends to hide the fact that it has, in the end, no basis in anything but custom. There are almost no underlying constants to be found. Every conceivable aspect or variant of sexual behaviour, in particular, is forbidden somewhere, permitted somewhere else, and compulsory in yet another place.

Possibly the only thing that comes close to be a universal value across cultures is the value of human life, but even this is subject to so many exceptions that it is not ultimately clear whether it is anything more than a reflection of how much each of us values his own life. Societies, and subgroups within those societies, are always willing, even eager, to recognise characteristics which disqualify people from the operation of this supposed moral instinct. Usually this is done by excluding them from the condition of human, as it is neater, and psychologically very easy to accept. Thus there are societies and groups who believe that the unborn, the very old, the sick, the criminal, those who have certain beliefs, live in certain circumstances or support certain political views, earn their living in certain ways, belong to certain organizations, come from certain places, entertain certain aspirations, or that any individual or group, for any reason whatsoever, is excluded from the condition of human and therefore their life is forfeit to the fully human. We all, without exception, distinguish degrees or classes of humanity, and know who we count as human and who we do not.

It appears that every single thing that we hold to be the right or wrong way of doing things comes from some combination of our own experience and the customs that exist around us.

There are instincts we all share, physical things, the instinct for self-preservation, for food and drink, for comfort and warmth. But these cannot serve as the basis for a universal morality, because they are not moral, but physical, and they are personal, not social.

The only instinctive social behaviour which we might all be said to share- all individuals in all societies, tribes, cultures- is the understanding that there is ‘them’ and ‘us’. And as a basis for a universally shared understanding of morality it is not a good place to start.

Individually, one-to-one, many, probably most, people will be saddened or shocked by death, will try to help those in clear and immediate need, will feed the hungry, water the thirsty, clothe the naked and visit the sick (as Christ, and others, said we should)*. These reactions are almost certainly instinctive, not socialised. The attitude of a mother to her child is certainly instinctive. But the limits are very narrow, far too narrow to be universal, although it is these things that religions and other social movements try to work with, but they usually fail. (The success of religions and other movements, where they are successful in some sense, may well come not from the harnessing of these instincts but from another couple of instinctive needs- to belong and to understand our life).

None of this means that I don’t believe in right and wrong. I have my own ideas about what I and others should and shouldn’t do, how things should and shouldn’t be, how to judge other people’s motivations, and so on. Some of these ideas are truly my own, most I have inherited, at least in part, from the people around me at different times in my life, and others are a bit of a mess that probably shouldn’t be looked at too closely. But if they are to serve a social purpose, rather than just allowing me to judge my actions and those of others, they need to be socialised, in the sense that I need to negotiate with those I form a society with, to agree criteria to determine how our actions will be guided and judged. This is an extremely complicated process, which usually, in any kind of society, of any size, is achieved largely by imposition.

If there is an objective morality, where would it come from? Is it external or internal? Whether it is imposed from outside, by God, or it is a part of our nature, integral to being human, how can we know what it is? Can it still exist even though there is no agreement on what it is? What use would it be, if imposed from Outside, or what use is there in discussing the concept, if it is impossible to ascertain? We only have our own personal convictions, and we battle among ourselves to impose them on others. What is the point?

Is it even desirable to seek an objective morality, and to establish its universal acceptance? Much of the suffering in human history has been caused deliberately by people who couldn’t get their understanding of morality accepted other than by violence. We clearly cannot know what values are intended to be universal in humanity, and more harm seems to be done by believing that we do know, than by accepting that we don’t and can’t know. Individual morality, a personal understanding of right and wrong, on the other hand, is almost certainly a good thing.**

(By chance, I’ve just come across this quote from Nietzsche: “...systems of morals are only a sign language of the emotions... ...every system of morals is a... tyranny against nature and also against reason; that is, however, no objection, unless one should decree by some system of morals, that all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness are unlawful.”

Like most of what he wrote, this seems to be an off-the-cuff remark [he was having a pop at Kant, who he despised] that he would at other times have disputed, and I’m not suggesting it sheds any light on the question, but it is at least relevant.)

*Love Thy Neighbour just about sums up what a universal morality should be, but is it true to say that it is objective in any way?

**Up to a point it may not matter very much what that code is, as long as we a) try to make our behaviour consistent with our belief, b) accept the consequences of our actions, and c) understand that this code is ours alone.

In Which I Try to Understand Money Again

Is money that isn’t spent ‘lost’ to the economy?

A wealthy man who doesn’t ‘invest’ his wealth in some way, but ‘hoards’ it, is generally assumed to be taking money out of the economy that he could be spending on products or employees wages or creating further wealth by doing whatever is what made him wealthy in the first place, or that the government could be spending for him. Whether or not you consider it a bad thing that someone should a) have a lot of money and b) not spend it, there seems to be a certain amount of agreement between left and rightwing commentators that it’s better for the wealthy to spend their money than to hang onto it. (They then start arguing about everything else, of course.) But does it actually matter?

If it’s in a bank or whatever, which is the most likely way of ‘hoarding’ it, then it is being invested, just not by the owner of the wealth. It’s helping people buy houses and start or improve businesses or increase their pensions or whatever. Not all of these will be good investments, but that would be equally true if the owner were spending it himself.

If it’s land*/buildings/cars/yachts, then you could argue that the resources are not tied up at all, wealth having been distributed by the original buying. Also, these things tend to require expenditure on maintenance and so by their existence cause the wealthy to spend money.

If it’s under the bed... This is where it gets interesting, possibly. If Mr Croesus has a great pile of gold bricks under his bed, has he taken money out of the economy? His bricks are a way of storing wealth, but until he tries to sell them and buy something else, that is until he tries to use them as a medium of exchange, are they worth anything at all? Hasn’t he just increased the value of circulating gold by keeping some of it out of circulation? And isn’t the same true of banknotes? Even more clearly in fact, since banknotes have no intrinsic value whatsoever.

*Actually, I’m beginning to wonder about where land figures in all this. But someone is going to own that land, and to put it some purpose that suits them, rather than being necessarily beneficial to others. After all, you can’t spend land. Unless it’s a large amount of good agricultural land that is left to run wild, or land on the edge of a prosperous town that a lot of people could benefit from living on and finding employment nearby if it were used for housing... So land is indeed something that, just by having it and not using it, the owner is keeping wealth out of the economy. Or is he? This is what happens when I start thinking with my fingers.**

**I have a degree in mathematics, which I enjoyed doing. I understand some pretty complicated concepts, or at least I did twenty years ago. But money just gives me a headache. I’m going in search of cold beer.