Lack of creativity in adults.

Yesterday, Fintan, eight, was listening to the radio. There was a song playing which caught his attention.

“Mummy, was that song made by a kid, or an adult?”. Genuine puzzlement had settled in his eyes and inflected his tongue.

His mother, Syahidah gazed down upon him, knowing the answer, but wondering how there could be any doubt.

Fintan explained. “They keep repeating the words.” It was clear he thought this both silly and evidence of an undeveloped mind.

“It is by an adult.”, she assured him, a little unimpressed herself that it should be so.

Fintan didn’t know what to make of that. It seemed that he didn’t believe it worthy of a child, never mind an adult.

She didn’t explain to him further about the parlous state of modern culture – about how many “artists” produce trite and empty work. Perhaps she should have done.

It is interesting, however, that a young child of only eight was able to identify the essential emptiness of a song that had too much repetition in it. He already expected more from a song – more complexity, more variety, more of a story than this particular “artiste” was able to give. This, of course, prompts the question: if a young boy can see modern music as lacking, how can the adult audience not do so as well? Why is there even a market for such trivial “music”?

In moments like this, it is becoming apparent that Fintan is growing in awareness of the mental and cultural limitations of the modern adult world. He is beginning to see a mismatch between his expectations of that world and what it actually is and delivers. It is both telling and somewhat sad, that even an eight year old boy can expect greater quality and complexity from the adult world than it is able, in this instance, at least, to offer. In his innocent question, there lies a potent criticism of the state of modern music , in particular, and modern culture in general. It has degenerated to the point that even a young boy sees that something is missing. That something, of course, is intelligence and creativity. Once, one might have expected it in the typical cultural product, now, however, it has become a rarity. In its stead, we have derivativeness, “sampling”/plagiarism, simplicity to the point of banality, and a general sense of stupidity, in the “creator”. Even a child can sense it and wonder why it is so.

I hope that the future is better than the present, culturally, because much that is modern seems to have declined from the past. I hope that this decline does not continue and that the future holds music and other culture that children won’t puzzle at, that an adult could possibly have produced it. However, looking around, there is not much hope for the near future. It may be a distant future, before human culture recovers the complexity, depth and originality it once had – at least, in terms of popular expressions in any media. Right now, much of the work can be described by one word: mindless. Even a child can see that - or hear it, anyway.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

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If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

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Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

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Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

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This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Echoes of Alexandria.

Once, there was a great library that held virtually all of the world’s knowledge. Barbarian thugs burnt it down.* That library was, of course, Alexandria.

Today, I learnt that, amongst all the buildings set afire by Britain’s own barbarian thugs, were two libraries – and a College. Gloucester Library and the former Salford library were both set ablaze by Britain’s rioters. So, too, the Gloucester College of Art and Technology, has been burnt to the ground.

Now, assuming the choice of these buildings was deliberate, it does say something telling about the psyche (such as they have them), of the rioters. They choose to destroy that which they are personally unable to appreciate, presumably through a combined lack of intelligence and interest in learning. These thugs are typically uneducated, largely by choice, since the opportunity of a free education was given to them all. That they should burn libraries shows that they resent the written word, as something that somehow offends their “sensibilities”. To them, perhaps, the written word and books represent a kind of oppression: it is something that caused them great difficulty in school and required effort (which is the last thing they want to make), so, when faced with an innocent, vulnerable library, their first response is to set light to it. Watching all those books burn, no doubt fills them with glee. If these rioters had their way, there would not be a single book left in the world – and then everyone would be equal in their ignorance. The rioters are unable, intellectually, to “level up” with everyone else, so they would rather level everyone else down to them, through depriving them of the books, the rioters always resented.

That Gloucester College of Art and Technology should have been set afire is also very revealing of their mentality. It seems as if they blame the education establishment, in some way, for their own predicament. Perhaps they think that the education “system”, prevented them from gaining qualifications, by some trickery, or deviousness. In truth, of course, they prevented themselves from gaining from education by making no effort within it.

The rioters’ choice of two libraries and a College to burn, is evidence that we are really dealing with barbarians here, in the truest sense of the world. Although they grew up within British culture, they are not part of it – they have their own subculture, a barbarian world with no place in our own. There are only three choices when dealing with these people: reform, exile, or containment. Of course, there is the fourth alternative: death – and perhaps it might even have to come to that, if this blight upon the British people persists in mayhem, violence, looting, arson and, I now understand, murder (three and counting).

The means must be found to reform the character, nature and outlook of these thugs. If the means cannot be found (and, in fact, it would be difficult to educate such bestial people) then we should look to long term containment of them, until such time as they are no longer a threat to society. As for exile: who would have them? Would it be fair to inflict them on anyone? If, however, a rioter should be an immigrant from another country, a fair punishment would be for any visa, or indeed citizenship of Britain, to be revoked, and for them to be sent back to their country of origin – with a permanent ban on any return. Anyone who strives to destroy society – as these thugs have – deserves to be exiled from society, forever. I intend to write a fuller approach to dealing with them, in another post.

Given that two libraries and a College have been set alight, it would seem wise if the police took particular care to set a guard at the leading libraries in the UK. I cannot, for instance, imagine the loss to the nation, were the British Library to be set on fire – or indeed, any of the major University libraries, containing, sometimes, millions of books each.

The rioters have anger. They are evil, in the sense of not seeming to know what good is, or not caring about it, at least. All that they lack, is intelligent guidance. Should there arise among them, an intelligent leader able to guide them, so as to do maximal damage, then Britain will be in a very grave situation, indeed. It is fortunate that, so far, they appear to be as stupid as they are thoughtless of others. Perhaps, in a way, we should be thankful for their lack of seeming effort in the education system. Had they learnt more about the world, they would be a greater danger to it.

Then again, it must be said, I never thought I would live through times, in which people set libraries alight. When I was a young boy, in school, the idea that anyone would actually burn down the greatest library in the world, Alexandria, destroying the heritage of humanity, appalled me. I couldn’t understand how anyone would so lack appreciation of knowledge, art, literature, culture, science and history, that they would be able to do that. Now, however, Britain has a bred a generation of thugs, able to do just that: burn libraries, destroy knowledge, wipe out culture (given a chance). The burning of libraries, often signals the fall of civilizations and the ending of Old Worlds. Let us halt the advance of these particular barbarians and not be fearful of dealing with them in the manner they deserve – before their violent creed becomes the new norm, for a fractured British society. Personally, I would rather see the rioters burn, than our libraries. The real danger, however, in the present British political and social system, is that the rioters will be treated too gently, too kindly and too respectfully ever to teach them to be civilized. These rioters are a threat to Britain as a civilization. They should, therefore, be approached as an existential threat and dealt with, with an appropriate and punitive level of harshness. They should come to learn that Britain will not tolerate barbarians on its soil – not now and not ever (again).

* There are four possible historical culprits for the partial or complete destruction of Alexandria's library. I am not going to disentangle them here - except to say that although not supposedly all barbarians, their attitude to knowledge was certainly barbaric (except for Caesar, who might have burnt it by accident!)

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The London Riots and the Collapse of Civilization.

The riots in London, over the shooting of one Mr. Duggan, a father of four, who apparently had a gun on him, at the time the police attempted to arrest him. (Well, police say a “non-police gun was found”, which implies as much.) The circumstances of his shooting don’t seem entirely clear, since the only bullet the police have found that might have been from him, turns out to be one of the police’s own. It was found embedded in a police radio. It seems that at least one officer is either unable to distinguish his fellow policemen, from suspects (which is telling, in itself), or he needs some more shooting training.

Conduct and training of the police aside, it is the reaction of the public, in Tottenham, initially that concerns me: they rioted. Cars were torched. Buildings were burnt to the ground. Shops were looted – indeed, rioters were seen pushing shopping trolleys loaded with stolen electronic goods. Police officers were attacked. I understand even shopkeepers were dragged out of their shops and kicked in the head. In the subsequent couple of days, rioting has spread, contagion-like, to Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol, as well as many other areas within London including Clapham, Brixton, Ealing and Croydon. There are streets in Ealing in which every single storefront has been smashed in. Quite simply, the UK has gone mad.

I look at this situation, in which a single police incident can spark riots across a nation, and I think one very clear thought: civilization is very fragile. We delude ourselves, daily, into thinking that the civilized lives we have come to expect, will always be there. We delude ourselves into thinking that the nation states in which live, are stable. We delude ourselves into thinking that the average man is quite nice really and would never dream of harming us. Not so. Civilization can vanish overnight. Nation states can crumble in an afternoon. The average man can, in the right circumstances, commit crimes that make it to the front pages of newspapers around the world. In fact, they have, in the past few days, in London. The rioters are referred to as “young people”, as if youth were their only distinguishing characteristic. Many of them are, it is said, black. However, some are white, too. They are, I understand, generally “working class”…that is pretty “average men”. Yet, what they have decided to do, en masse, sets them apart from our expectations of the average man.

It is clear that the spark that set off this particular human blaze, was little more than an excuse, for the rioters to strike out at society and enrich themselves by looting stores, in the process. This seems likely since the troubles have spread far beyond the immediate locality in which Mr. Duggan lived and was, presumably, known. Hundreds of rioters, across the country, with no connection to Mr. Duggan at all, have elected to riot. They have, it seems, taken the pretext of the Tottenham disturbance and used it to pursue their own, immediate, short term goals. These seem both trivial and malicious. Electronics retailers have been looted of every single viable item. Shoe stores have been trashed. Sporting goods stores have been emptied. Clothing stores have been ransacked. Even convenience stores have been raided, with people stealing ice cream and toilet paper. It does seem rather ridiculous that they should attack police officers, beat up shopkeepers, burn cars and set fire to buildings, all in the quest for an ice cream – but what should not be overlooked here, is what it all means. It is the physical statement, by a large number of youths, that they refuse to abide by the system of society in which effort leads to reward – that to achieve something, one must do something, personally. They have, instead, elected to take, what is not theirs, en masse, under the cover of great civil disorder that they have created. There is great peril in this situation. You see, there is the risk that not only will the perpetrators of these riots learn a lesson, from this – but that thousands, perhaps millions of other disaffected youths, will learn a lesson, too, not only in England, but throughout the world. The lesson is this: the State is powerless to stop rioters from looting, stealing what they please, if they do so in large groups, simultaneously, in many locations – as has been happening in London. There simply isn’t the manpower to control simultaneous civil disturbances. The police will not do much to intervene when there are too few of them to do so safely against the rioting crowds. This lesson particularly applies to a state like the UK, in which the police generally make little use of guns and it is not expected that they should do so. They are expected to use gentler means to control crowds. Some commenters, online, have urged the use of guns, by the police, to quell the riots. This would seem to be a very dangerous tactic indeed since the riots began with the shooting of one man: how much more incensed might they become if others were shot, too? The very nation could descend into universal chaos, as the young – and it must be said, poor – took up whatever weapons they could find or make, and took out their anger on the police.

The stability of a nation depends on an unspoken contract with the people, that they should respect the law and abide by the “system”. In traditional times, most people do this – and so civilized life is possible. However, under times of strain, some people decide not to obey the system and to tear up the contract. When enough people do so, at the same time, a nation can become impossible to govern, without taking the direst – and potentially most inflammatory – of steps. The UK is not far from such a situation. Many areas have rioted, affecting cities across the nation. So, many different groups of youths, have experimented with what it feels like to disobey the social contract, en masse – and to reach out and take whatever they please and, in many cases, attack whomever they want.

At this time, there is no telling whether the riots will naturally subside, or whether this civil chaos, will spread further. Whether it spreads, or not, many youths will have learnt a lesson that it would be better that they had not. They may seem powerless in their typically unemployed lives – but together, acting as one chaotic being, they have great power. They have the power to take whatever they please, do whatever they please, the power to smash, destroy, loot and burn, maim and, even kill (some arrests have been made for attempted murder associated with the riots). Very few of the youths involved in these crimes are ever likely to be caught and convicted – there are simply too many of them. Thus, word of the power that they have within them all, as a group, is likely to spread far and wide. They will have learnt that all they need to do to get something – is simply to reach out and take it, as one, rioting, organism.

Very few people are natural leaders. Yet, all it would take, in the UK, for this situation to become both endemic and dangerous, is for leaders to arise amongst the rioting youths, to direct their efforts, coordinate them, time them and plan them. Such co-ordination, were it to arise, would create an unprecedented challenge to the security of the nation – particularly if it were to spread widely amongst Britain’s millions of unemployed youth.

Britain is on the edge of chaos. The riots that we have so far seen, the burnt buildings and cars, the looted stores and the assaulted shopkeepers, are nothing compared to the potential devastation which could be unleashed were this behavior to be emulated across the nation, by even a small minority of the unemployed and other disaffected people.

Our civilization will, most probably, fall, one day, like many civilizations before it. What might surprise those who see this occurrence is the swiftness with which it could happen. A few days ago, there were no riots in the UK: now there are. The descent into chaos can come as swiftly as the flicking of a light switch. Of course, the circumstances that create the underlying strains, may take years or decades to build up – but the ultimate chaotic expression of those built up pressures, can break out in an instant.

I am struck by how much chaos the shooting of one man, in an attempted arrest, can lead to. Imagine how much greater the potential chaos, were oil to run out…or food to suddenly become scarce? Were either of these two events to occur – the first, without a viable alternative – the second to happen at all, then we would see the almost immediate break down of our society. Within days, our civilization, so carefully built up over centuries, would collapse into universal criminal chaos. It would be beyond the control of any state to maintain itself, under the kind of pressures, indeed, distress, the people would feel. Any state facing such situations could very well collapse completely, and, what’s more, ferociously. Many would die – and, depending on the severity of the strains upon it and the depth of the resultant collapse, it could be decades, even centuries before there was a semblance of recovery. It should be said that there might be no such recovery in the event of the end of oil, without a viable replacement, available.

Oil is coming to an end. With it, will come lowered agricultural productivity, since all modern food production (everything from fertilizers to tractors) depends on oil. Thus, our world will one day see the dual shocks of the end of oil – and a scarcity of food. That day is not far off. Oil has no more than about 40 years left at present rates of consumption – perhaps less if oil producers are lying about their reserves (very likely, some cases of such are proven). Thus, without a viable alternative to oil, our world will face just such a collapse, within the lifetimes of many now living. Only a complete reorganization of our energy infrastructure and agricultural systems to adjust to the absence of oil, can forestall it – yet, too little, at this time, seems to be being done.

The end of oil and its consequent scarcity of food, will see riots like the ones in London, across the face of much of the world, perhaps all of it. Lawlessness will become universal. States will crumble –and a new dark ages is very likely to begin. All of this is within the realm of possibility, if not enough planning and implementation of new energy infrastructure, and alternative means to support agriculture, is not put in place within the next four decades. Of course, the strains upon the energy and agricultural systems will become evident long before the ultimate end of oil – for long before then, oil will become shockingly expensive – and so, too, will food. Many in the world will starve. We are all accustomed to seeing people starving in the Third World – how will people react when people start starving in the First World?

I like living a peaceful life. Everyone should have the right to a peaceful life. Unfortunately, as I get old, I might have only chaos to look forward to, unless the world’s leaders really LEAD on the issue of the end of oil, energy security and food production. Any failings in these areas, will lead directly to a world in which riots, chaos and mass criminality, will be the new normality. In such a world, people will murder for a pint of milk or a loaf of bread. It is not a world in which anyone would like to live – and perhaps the only thankful aspect is that most people won’t live long in it. Only the most ruthless, the most violent, the most prepared and organized will survive. Once the collapse begins, all that man has striven for, for millennia, will come to a swift end. In a couple of generations, much that we were and had, will be lost, perhaps forever.

We are at a very vulnerable time. It is a time in which much foresight is needed to plan a path through the inevitable future. Sadly, most politicians care only for today, not a seemingly far tomorrow. Without visionary leadership, many of us alive, today, might live through the peak of human civilization, into its decline and eclipse.

Civilization is fragile and precious. Without it, life is bleak and rather brief. Only wisdom and foresight, can safeguard civilization through the trials to come. I only hope the world’s populations, have the wisdom to choose, nay, demand, wise leaders, with a vision of the tomorrow they wish to build and the challenges they must overcome. I see no signs, at present, that the world has such leaders, in general. The US, for instance, is consumed with infantile bickering between the Republicans and the Democrats, whom to me seem just like two brands of spoilt children, fighting over every single issue, and never coming to any agreement. No. There is no leadership, in the US, at present, to help direct the world through what is to come. It is unlikely, given their political system, as it is, that there ever will be. One must hope, therefore, that other nations are wiser and more foresighted. It wouldn’t surprise me if some Asian nations take the steps that Western nations might fail to. We shall see.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)