A Parable For Our Times: with apologies to real sharks

Just so we are all on the same page - this is a parable based on the Kim Dot-Com situation


Once upon a time there was a little shark who wanted to be a Great White when he grew up. Because he was a clever and devious hunter he grew to be a very big little shark.  He was not content to dominate the sharks in his part of the ocean and set off towards the zone of the Great Whites – the shark elite whose ranks he thought he was big enough and vicious enough to join. 

This elite of Great Whites allows certain other smaller sharks to scavenge the edges of their kill zone and if they are well fed, they may even let an enterprising little shark dart in to seize some prey for itself, but if a little shark starts to act like one of the Great Whites, or threatens their interests, they'll turn on him.  

The big little shark desperately wanted to be a part of the Great White elite but to them he was just a scavenging pest. When he started to muscle in on their kill zones, they decided to destroy him. He managed to escape and fled south but they were in a blood frenzy and pursued him across the oceans as far as the great southern ocean where he found some quiet waters in which to rest and gather his strength. 

The local sharks seemed a pretty dopey bunch and were easily bribed with a few fish to let him take up residence in their waters. Once rested, he took to his usual tactic of scattering around large amounts of fish offal to boost his reputation as the biggest predator in the neighbourhood and managed to gather a number of scavengers around him.  

But, unbeknownst to him, there was a Great White in residence – cleverly disguised as a dolphin. This shark in a dolphin suit alerted the Great White elite to the big little shark's presence in his waters, and a kill squad was sent to finish him off.

Using all his skills, the big little shark managed to escape the kill squads and found himself a spot where he could defend himself.  He thought that if the Great White elite was never going to let him become one of them he would be as much of a nuisance to them as he could – especially to the resident Great White.  

He looked around for allies. There weren't many as the waters had been so depleted of fish they could not support much in the way of predators, but he managed to find some prey species which were swimming around in an agitated and fearful state. 

He devised a cunning plan. He also disguised himself as a dolphin (a very large one it must be said) and persuaded the prey fish that he and his dolphin school would protect them from the Great White and its gang of scavengers if the prey fish would act as a diversion. They were to present themselves as a target while he and his school would sneak up behind the Great White and ram him – that being the way dolphins attack sharks.  Once deprived of their devious leader, the scavenger gang could be chased away by the dolphins and all would be well. 

The fish were so anxious for some leadership they totally forgot to question how come this particular dolphin had such huge teeth, not to mention the fact that dolphins also eat fish. 

After a lot of discussion, the prey fish agreed to band together to create a big enough shoal to attract the resident Great White's attention. The Great White duly sniffed out the prey and headed in for the kill. To the horror of the fish there was no sign of their dolphin protector.  Once the Great White had killed and eaten as many of the fish as he could catch and his scavengers had finished off the rest, he turned and found himself confronting the big-little shark.

"That was my gift to you," the big little shark said. "Proof of my good intentions. I want to stay here in these waters and if you let me I can promise you more prey, especially lots of tasty young juveniles. They can see right through your disguise because frankly it's wearing a bit thin, but they think I'm a real dolphin."

The Great White thought a while and being a very pragmatic sort of shark who didn't get to where he was by useless displays of overt aggression, agreed to let the big little shark stay, as long as he delivered a regular tribute of the tasty young prey he'd promised. 

And if he became too much of a nuisance, the resident Great White thought, there is more than one way to kill a shark.

The End.

Epidemic in 'Middle Earth'

It seems that Jacksonophilia and the closely related conditions of Hobbitomania and Tolkeinomania, are not just severely debilitating, they are also highly communicable and are resistant to treatment.

These conditions have reached epidemic proportions in New Zealand and can be so severe they render the sufferer almost completely incapable of rational thought or action.

Some argue that they are all the same condition, a syndrome arising from that other increasing phenomenon, Amygdalian Psychosis, in which chronic or acute excitation of the amygdala results in a persistent state of the fight or flight response.

For reasons not yet fully understood, most of the sufferers of Tolkeinomania,  Hobbitomania and Jacksonophilia, demonstrate a persistent state of primitive arousal normally manifesting in an extreme fight response. For this reason, some observers have begun to refer to the syndrome as Celebrity Related Amygdalian Psychosis.  

The afflicted person may exhibit paranoic and persecutory delusions in the presence of certain people who they perceive as a threat, especially anyone who questions the existence of the fantasy world the sufferer has immersed him or herself in, or worse, who is perceived as a threat to the profits which accrue from the various businesses associated with it.

This may be coupled with an extreme deference to certain authority figures, especially if they have any kind of celebrity.

Disturbing physical behaviours may be exhibited. In the presence of anyone the sufferer considers to be a Very Important Person, the behaviour may resemble a cringing or grovelling action.  

It is common for the sufferer to grip the hair at the front of the head and tug it violently. Hyperflexion of the knee joints may occur when sufferers are confronted with something they (mis)perceive as a threat, and these spasms are occasionally severe enough for the knee to contact part of the individual's face, which adds the risk of contusion, or even concussion, to the already debilitating symptoms.

Rather different physical symptoms result from the sufferer encountering someone they perceive as a threat. The physical symptoms can become aggressive in nature and may involve spitting, shouting, and the use of threatening language.

Sufferers in position of authority may use their power to persecute those they see as a possible threat.

There is no doubt that prevention is the best cure, but these conditions are now so widely spread and so contagious, it may be impossible to halt their spread. The social costs to the country are huge, especially to its "intellectual capital".

It is also argued that there are powerful people who benefit financially from the epidemic. That may go some way to explain the failure of the New Zealand authorities to act to stem the spread of these conditions, and even to have acted in ways that have had the opposite effect.

An example of what may well be a bad case of CRAP, is to be found in the case of the owner of a Wellington based tour company which runs Lord of the Rings tours.

A person or persons in Tourism New Zealand gave some negative feedback to the owner of the tour company about one of his guides. It was claimed that the guide had made negative comments about Peter Robert Jackson (aka Bracken Jetposserrot, see We are all bros here). Not being a sufferer of CRAP, I can see why the accused might have made such comments, but he denies having made them.

His boss's inability to disengage his amygdala led him to betray the true reason for his outrage.  It was the tour guide's association with a Trade Union (aka the Noturnaides,)

So full of CRAP is this man, he made the statement on Radio NZ that to be a member of a trade union, is not a basic human right in New Zealand and that employing a member of a trade union, even one as innocuous as Actor's Equity, could harm his business. 

Yes, he said that – in public!

Welcome to Middle Earth.

I think a new national anthem is in order.

God of Profits at thy feet,
In the bonds of greed we meet
Hear our voices we entreat
God defend our surplus.

Guard New Zealand's ruling class
From trade unions' stupid farce,
Help us kick their boney arse,
God defend our incomes.

Racism

“I wouldn’t feel comfortable… like all Pakehas would be happy with their daughter coming home with a Maori boy? The answer is they wouldn’t.”

What struck me about this statement when it was first made was the patriarchal prejudice that who might impregnate your daughter is more important than who your son might impregnate. Who your son marries may be a different matter of course.

But I was more interested in the fact that Hone Harawira’s statement and the "white M-F’ers" quote, (written in a private email and published without his knowledge or consent) were widely cited on public fora as a counterbalance to racial remarks made by several white commentators.

Harawira may have meant what he said or he may have been winding people up by recycling a common Pakeha prejudice. Whatever his intention, it resulted in him being accused of being racist and to the simplistically, and to the ideologically minded, "Māori racism" cancels out "white racism".

We humans are intensely social animals with very distinctive faces and an extraordinary ability to recognise subtle difference in facial and body gestures. We devote a large amount of our brain to deciphering and storing visual information about other humans.

In the course of our social evolution we have developed such widely differing cultures that the members of those cultures can find it hard to understand each other and not just in terms of speech.

But, you only have to look at the babies and very small children of all cultures and classes – to see the indicators of a common heritage. Tiny tots are never racist or snobs. That’s acquired; learned for the most part from their parents.

Recognition and wariness of difference or a preference for those who are the same as you, does not necessarily mean you are racist.

Racism is commonly defined as prejudice or unfair discrimination based on race. For that definition to mean anything there has to be an underlying acceptance of the idea that there are distinct "human races", the members of which possess definable attributes and characteristics.

This is the basis of the broad, quasi-scientific categories of Australoid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid. There is a complex debate about the extent to which there may be definable "racial" differences but racism is not about any actual differences, it is about relative superiority and inferiority.

The origins of racism lie in the misappropriation of Darwin’s ideas about evolution to create a "scientific" basis for the superiority of the white skinned peoples of the world – and the English speaking white peoples in particular.

If humans evolved from ape-like ancestors any humans who, because of the shape of their skull or colour of their skin were closer to that ancestor, were deemed to be not as highly evolved.

These ideas, which reached their peak at the height of Britain’s imperial expansion, proved to be useful in legitimating colonialism and assuaging guilt over slavery.

The horrors of the early African slave trade had not required an ideological mask largely because the lives of the ordinary European sailors, labourers and paupers were not so far removed from those of the slaves, ie they experienced a lesser degree of exploitation and brutality and had only nominal freedom.

But science and the rise of an educated middle class demanded a more sophisticated justification for such a brutal and cruel economic exploitation, and for the processes involved in annexing other people’s countries.

The answer lay in the twin hierarchies of race and social class, helped along by notions of male supremacy.

Colonisation was said to have brought the benefits of white (superior) civilisation to the dark (inferior) races; just as industrial capitalism brought benefits to the (inferior)  labouring classes.

Thus a natural curiosity about or even wariness towards those who don’t look or act the same as us, morphed into beliefs about "racial" superiority and inferiority that were used to justify brutal economic exploitation, enslavement and genocide – and still are.

That brutality in turn was justified as being the result of "human nature".

But this didn’t and doesn’t happen simply because of human nature. It’s as much human nature to be inclusive, cooperative and compassionate, as it is to be exclusive, uncaring and harshly competitive.

Racism as an ideology serves a definite function; it divides – and to divide is necessary in order to conquer and rule.

I get very concerned about the overuse of the term "racism" – because the application of it to any and all prejudiced views or conduct risks emptying it of all political meaning.

The fact is, we all discriminate; every waking moment we make choices about how to act that are based on perceptions of difference. We also all prejudge, i.e., we arrive at conclusions based on incomplete or biased evidence – very often what someone in a position of authority has told us is true.

Sometimes those processes of discrimination and prejudgement result in outcomes that are good ones for us and not harmful to others; but sometimes they result in unjust attitudes and conduct towards others.

There are those for whom it is advantageous that people take decisions based on biased or incomplete information. A most potent element of this ideological strategy is the creation and promulgation of negative stereotypes based on exaggerated difference, and the counterposing of those against equally exaggerated positive stereotypes.

If those stereotypes gain added legitimacy through an appeal to religion or science or by tapping into real concerns and fears, their ability to increase prejudice and to foment division is enhanced.

The fact that many societies place a social premium on lighter toned skin is often cited as evidence that colour prejudice is both universal and natural. But the origin of this isn‘t "racism" but social class.

The labouring classes or castes had weathered skin. Only those who had others to labour for them could keep the soft, paler, clean skins they were born with. Thus a paler, soft skin on the face and hands was and remains the most potent symbol of privilege, marking out the owner of it as a person who does not have to labour.

The Chinese fetish of tiny bound feet had a parallel in the Victorian fetish of tiny corseted waists. Exaggerated fashions such as sleeves that hang down over the hands, extremely high heels, very long fingernails were (and are) social markers sending out the message that this is a person who does not labour – either at all, or at least, not by hand.

The seeds of social Darwinism’s racial hierarchy fell on very fertile soil.

Martin Van Beynen (Press, Oct 16) argued that Paul Henry was not being racist because he did not overtly promote the superiority of one race over another.

But, as a current affairs presenter, Henry’s personal prejudices are combined with a considerable power to influence public opinion. That combination of race-based prejudice and the power to influence others took his statements into the realms of racism.

The same applies to Tony Veitch’s statement about Serena Williams, to Paul Holmes’ labelling of the UN General Secretary as a "cheeky darky", and to Michael Laws’ steady stream of prejudice. We all know that the "feral underclass" is code for brown-skinned people.

Racism needs to be viewed as the combination of negative prejudices based on skin colour or social or cultural attributes, and unfairly discriminatory acts that gain legitimacy through the exercise of social, political, economic or military power.

That was, and largely remains, a European phenomenon but it is not inherent to Europeans. Does the ruling class in China, in its pursuit of the wealth of Africa, have a greater regard for the African people than the Englishmen who grew rich on the slave trade?

This is where Hone Harawira needs to be careful. He may have very good reasons, historical and contemporary, personal and cultural, for feeling antipathy to white New Zealanders. But the moment he generalises the conduct and characteristics of some white New Zealanders to all white New Zealanders and uses his political power to add weight to his words, he enters that arena where personal prejudice becomes racism.

However his power to influence is arguably way less than that of the white majority.

To understand why the words "nigger" or "black Mfer" in the mouth of a white person has more power than the words "honky" or "white MFers" in the mouth of a black or brown person, you only need to look at which continent is still being pillaged, what peoples are still at the bottom the world’s hierarchy of power and privilege.

In the vicious, divisive and cruel hierarchy of colour, white still trumps everything, yellow trumps brown – and yes, sometimes brown trumps black.

Africa – the cradle of human kind, whose peoples’ forced labour laid the foundations of industrial capitalism and the Europeans’ world dominance, is the richest continent with the poorest people.

And that’s the context in which remarks like Henry’s and co have to be put.

The True Internationalists

Within the financial and ideological walls of a place known as Richville, live the tiny number of rapaciously greedy people who control our world. These are the Obscenely-Rich who are greedy for money because money buys power and power is addictive; the more power they have, the more they want.

Money and power distances the Obscenely-Rich from the lives and concerns of the rest of humanity. The more rich and powerful they are, the smaller and less significant ordinary people appear to be. This moral radar can also be calibrated so as not to register people of the "wrong" skin colour or belief system and is invaluable when the Obscenely-Rich need to harm or kill their fellow humans in pursuit of more money and power.

Be it through over-work, hunger, disease, pollution, industrial accident or war – all the Poor are dispensable to varying degrees. The Utterly-Poor are simply a nuisance. They add little or no value and can be left to die in any of the myriad ways man and nature has devised to rid the earth of the vulnerable. Their one small use to the Obscenely-Rich is as a reminder to the Relatively-Poor of what might happen to them if they don't behave.

The Obscenely-Rich don't need to worry about running out of Utterly-Poor as there are plenty of the Relatively-Poor who lose their grip on their place in the global scheme of things. The Relatively-Poor have a greater value in that they can both produce and – importantly – consume. 

They can be persuaded into being perpetual debtors, working for the Obscenely-Rich to pay the interest on loans extended to them by banks owned by the Obscenely-Rich. They can be manipulated, through nationalism, bigotry, religion or other fervour-raising agents, into fighting the wars that the Obscenely-Rich foment in pursuit of more money and power. 

They buy into the Great Con with its twin illusions of political and consumer freedom – the right to vote for effectively powerless governments, and the right to buy the commodities they produce, with the money they have been paid for producing them. They live in perpetual fear of becoming one of the Utterly-Poor.

Most strive to drag themselves into the relative safety of the Favoured-Few which includes those who provide the essential expertise without which the world could not be efficiently plundered by the Obscenely-Rich. The more widespread and sophisticated the plundering is, the more these experts are needed. Their rewards, in terms of money and status, rise commensurately and their stake in perpetuating the Great Con is driven deeper. 

They perpetuate the idea that without the profit motive, there would be no incentive to progress and therefore the Great Con is the only way to organise production. They use their clever minds and hands to design and produce ever-more useless stuff and to create ever-more subtle ways of selling it. They devise ever-more sophisticated weapons to kill other humans, and substances and techniques for saving lives that only the Obscenely-Rich and some of the Favoured-Few can afford to buy. 

They live happily with the fact that the Utterly-Poor die for want of clean water, food, shelter and medicines all the while developing more ways of keeping themselves and the Obscenely-Rich alive longer and looking younger. They try to justify a world in which millions of children die every year from the effects of poverty; and in which millions of others face a future of obesity and metabolic chaos induced by products and lifestyles sold to their parents by companies owned by the health, and appearance-obsessed Obscenely-Rich. 

And, they obscure, with complex and clever justifications, the fact that these ideas are nothing more than the crude ideology of a god-given order of the rich man in his castle, the poor man at its gate – and the poor woman and her children – well, who cares?

Sadly, for all the world's Poor, as the plundering becomes more efficient, it also becomes less labour intensive. Some of the Favoured-Few lose their grip and slip into the ranks of the Relatively-Poor, which forces many of them to fall into the realms of the Utterly-Poor. 

The dispossessed and disillusioned become potential rebels who are all the more dangerous because the key trade-off for their cooperation in the Great Con – ie political freedom with its notions of individual and human rights – has made them believe that they actually matter, that they have a right to their piece of the pie, and even a say in how the pie should be divided.

They are both the creation of the system and the very thing that might bring it to its knees. Except the Obscenely-Rich have foreseen this and created many means of diverting and controlling the rebellious Poor. Some are brutal and obvious; others are so subtle they are seen as rights and freedoms. One of the most effective weapons of the Obscenely-Rich and their courtiers is telling the Poor that their worst enemies are the Other-Poor. So much the better, if those Others have different coloured skins, speak a different language or worship a different god.

And so the Relatively-Poor and some of the Favoured Few regularly march off to contrived wars which have multiple benefits for the Obscenely-Rich. They reduce the numbers of the Utterly-Poor, who are always worst affected by war. They kill off great swathes of a most potent rebellious force – young men – and envelop their families and communities in a haze of grief and hatred of the "enemy".

They also have the added benefit of generating vast amounts of the stuff that keeps the walls of Richville standing.

(Edited)