sex and politics

As I was chewing on my electronic rodent to the point where it actually rolled over and pretended to be dead, just to avoid abuse, and while trying very hard to think of someting witty and clever to write (improvisation is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent deodorant commercial) a thought crossed my mind.

Now, this doesn’t happen very often. Usually it is my mind chasing thoughts, holding them at gun-point and making them cough up whatever it is they are thinking. About. So the sensation of a thought crossing my mind was not unlike being hit by a train. there I was, sitting on the john, all happy and mellow, and suddenly I realized what a marvelous country I live in.

I live in a country where a PM can call a referendum, see an eleven-percent turnout and doesn’t resign. Moreover, he still calls it a resounding victory. He is also caught copying from speeches of foreign leader and still doesn’t resign.

I live in a country where a mayor of a capital can call for a boycott of that very rerendum and survives. Then -when results are in - calls for resignation of the PM. Only a few actually hold the call for boycott against him.

I live in a country where the Attorney General settles old disputes by having the police use excessive force agains a former colleague of hers and she doesn’t resign.

I live in a country where a long-overdue part of a highway is finally opened but is closed only hours later because pieces of concrete start falling of. The minister of transport naturally doesn’t resign.

I live in a country where inflation reached a staggering seven precent and ministers of economy and finance don’t resing. Even more, they’ve nothing to say.

And finally: I live in a chicken-shaped country. Maybe we should let butchers carve it up and form regions

Short on time again, and the continuation of yesteray’s post is proving to be a lot more demanding than I thought originally. I’ll post it during the weekend. In the mean time, stay tuned for tommorow’s Friday Foxies, or listen to The Firm™

Say you’re caught standing over a dead body, blood dripping from your sleeves, a blood-stained knife in your hand and as you’re lead away, you’re screaming “I’m glad I killed the bastard!”. And then you’re acquitted because the prosecution could not prove you guilty. The question is - did you do it?

Now, the reason I’m asking is because I had a most interesting and fierce debate this evening. It all started with crossing the road at red light. Since noone saw me break the law - did I actually break it? Can you break the law as such (Das Gesetz an sich, to put in Kantian terms) or do you break the law only if and when you’re found to have broken it?

Or - as the old logical riddle goes - if a tree falls down in deep woods and noone hears it, did it actually fall down?

I may seem to be asking high-school trick questions, but it occured to me that answers to these and similar questions are the essence of one’s moral, political and social outlook. Not that one is inherently better than any other, but - if you’ll allow a slight generalisation - on one hand we have the conception of One Truth, where things either exist (happen, are said, etc…) or not. On the other hand, however, we have the Relativistic Conception, where things only exist if we and others perceive them as existing (happening, being said, etc…).

Ergo, if I’m convinced that reality is one and incontestible, I’ve broken the law. If, however, I’m convinced that reality is only what we perceive (in this case, what a court of law perceives), then I haven’t broken the law.

What do you think? Did the tree fall even if noone heard it fall?

Tommorrow: how the two conceptions create a cultural and political rift in Slovenia