Who am I?

My sense of self is a linear continuum that extends from deep within myself, up through my being and outside myself to my physical body and social environment and further extending out to encompass geography as well as history because it all is dynamic with a time dimension.

The two directions of this line extend opposite to each other from the central point that is the unity of my total self, but nothing that is not myself.  Each presents a one-sided image of the self, with the two sides being like the two sides of the body or the brain, mirror images of each other, though each independent and not identical in detail.

This line that transcends many orders of magnitude is not an even progression.  Like many physical phenomena, such as the banding of rocks round stars to form planets or the quantum leaps of tiny particles, this dimension has Energy Levels that resonate and form patterns and structures.  These are the various orders of magnitude at which Science finds evidence of a unified structure, usually with random relevance to energy levels at remote orders of magnitude.

Being a bi-directional dimension, perhaps it is better called a bimension.  So many phenomena can approach zero from either direction, but find on close proximity, that when unity is passed in a reducing direction, what might have appeared as a steep decline suddenly levels off and reduces as a decreasing rate so it is impossible to reach zero from either direction in a mathematically asymptotic balanced infinitude.

These two selves are a mental construct, and the phenomenon is probably valid for everyone.  We have an inner self and we have a public self.  Who we are as entities in the world, like the public persona of famous people, is one self and our private lives, especially as lived in our heads, perhaps in the dark, at night both awake and asleep is another.  It might perhaps be observed that most people are raised from childhood to bring these into unison and it is the education system’s role to direct how they develop with age.  When these two selves diverge, some forms of mental illness can ensue.  However, it is wrong to suggest everyone with this split sense of self is mentally ill, because it is almost certainly universal and normal and natural. 

This is not to be confused with other linear measurements of human activity, such as Political left and right, religiosity, optimism, wealth or income.  

Naum/Norm

Bring Back Beats

Now that it is socially acceptable to be homosexual, it should be socially acceptable to tolerate homosexual behaviour.  In the old days, pre AIDS, there were places called beats, where homosexual men could walk around in public and connect.  Now we have apps so people can do it anywhere in public, but there is a lot to be said for designated public beats. 

From my experience, it is an old Australian tradition that going down to the riverbank at midnight was a place to meet men.  I never did much with anyone I met, and I don't think many of the men wanted to do much either, just stand in a circle and jerk off.  Mostly, however, men paired off, with some treating it as a race and the first to climax would leave immediately, leaving the other man frustrated.

In the cities, public parks replaced river banks, but they were always times and places where people would not go, or even know exist, except for this one, specific purpose.  Public Toilets became infamous, for example the Honey Pot between St Pats and the Parliament.  Sand dunes were a wonderful place.

In those days, 'gay' meant 'happy' and certainly everyone left a beat happy.  When no one obviously was and everyone possibly could be, and no one had concepts like 'homosexual' even, let alone all the diverse gender identities that have recently surfaced like the sub-atomic particles they keep finding, many men who where on the spectrum from 'gay to straight' would regard it as remaining faithful to their wives as such activity was not sex. 

The pay-off for social acceptability is a demarcation, so the sub-set of people who are homosexual becomes a distinct bubble within society, with an impervious outer layer, so people must decide whether they are in or out (though in this case you would be in if you were out)() of the sub-bubble.  The slow gradation between those of different levels of a social quality, such as homosexuality, in all its ramifications, has gone.

However, beats support the principles of personal liberty and acceptance of us being who we are in the public space.  Yet they are separate and isolated places at times.  They should be signposted and protected by the police, not harassed. 

Riverbanks were best.  I think that is where I first fell in love with Country.  Perhaps because some of the guys I met up with (at least three that I knew were) were Aboriginal, as one might expect on the beautiful but remote rivers in Australia, back in the days when Old Australia still existed, unnoticed, waiting for the right conditions of freedom.

Legislation needs to reflect public realities.  The Law is like a structure within the Social Bubble.  It provides rigid relationships between various individuals and persists in space and through time

Hello and Thank You All,

Here are the latest Page Insights for New Whig.  

I have tended to lose one or two Page Likes each time I posted something in the last year or so, which has been a deterrent.  

However, lately, somehow, New Whig is being Liked.  

It is all so anonymous, like Actors behind the Proscenium/Fourth Wall, who have the lights in their eyes and cannot see out into the black void that is in front of them.  Perhaps it is best not to see the empty seats, equivalent to the people who Liked New Whig at first, but never interacted and for whom the posts, rare as they were, dropped from their Facebook News Feed.  

So hello to the new person, somewhere out there in CyberSpace.  The anonymity goes both ways, so these words come to you from New Whig, even though they are being typed on a detachable keyboard/cover on a Microsoft Surface Pro 4, and saved in One Drive, uploaded via Telstra ADSL2+ by an automatic Bot that is trying to impersonate a Free Thinker.   

Another rant.

Thanks to the reader who misunderstood my comments about the Environment.  I rather take it as given that our species needs to stop pumping Carbon Dioxide and other ‘green house gasses’ into the atmosphere.  There is no question that surface of our little planet is heating up, and that we should not keep radically changing our atmosphere.  What I read as a knee-jerk reaction to someone who is not holding the ‘party line’ is understandable considering the extreme polarisation on this issue, and the way that calm and rational analysis and behaviour modification is replaced by a simplistic, single-issue focus, that is accepted as an act of faith by everyone on ‘our’ side of the issue.  

New Whig is amused that anyone would suggest we are anything less than enthusiastic about a shift in Energy Production to Renewables.  However, we do not go along with people who demand that the only way we are permitted to think about the situation is to envisage a world with zero emissions, and that we must devote all our thoughts and energy towards that goal.  This narrow focus means that all other considerations are ignored, including living in the actual world as it exists now because only the pure ideal can be contemplated.

We cannot help drawing an analogy with the silly, ideological calls for Australia to become a Socialist Republic, instead of remaining a Democratic Monarchy.  For the sake of the single issue of ending one family’s hereditary role, all other considerations are ignored, even though there is no flow-on effect that prevents our otherwise egalitarian principle of equal opportunity for all, despite any accident of birth, and also because in this single, unique case of the one person at the very pinnacle of the International Social Hierarchy and the custodian of the Reserve Powers, it is because they inherit the job that puts them above all political and social influence, and hence the perfect template for local Heads of State.  It is not the powers the Monarch exercises, but those that are kept from all potential tyrants who think they have achieved total control till they are overwhelmed by hubris. 

The point I was trying to make was that there is more to Global Warming that rabid opposition.  The world IS warming, so we need to accept that, even if we stop it happening faster, or even stop it happening at all. The amount of warming already cannot be reversed.  We need to mitigate against the worst of the consequences and recognise any benefits, for indeed there are benefits.  Plants prefer the higher Carbon Dioxide levels which is good news for Agriculture that is working out how to feed a growing world demand for food.  While the surface of our planet is warming, the planet as a whole is slowly cooling, so keeping the surface warm could be a good, long-term project.

Most people do not understand that the Global Warming does not simply mean higher temperatures.  The extra ‘warmth’ is taken up as various forms of Energy within the Weather Systems.  Energy goes into more and more intense Tornados and Cyclones, for example.  Energy also goes into the ‘water cycle’ meaning that there is more evaporation in some places, due to increased air movement as well as increased temperature, and consequently more precipitation in other places as rain and snow.  It is very possible that this warming also effects Ecosystem and also the behaviour of social species such as ourselves, and the apparently greater social strife in many places could be extra Energy entering our various Social Systems leading to more interpersonal and international aggression.

The biggest problem with Global Warming is that it has become a politicised issue, so that on one side people become irrationally short-sighted about it and on the other side there is total denial.  It is impossible to debate the issue and change opinions because it is an act of faith on both sides of the divide.  Of course the ‘left’ believe that the ‘Middle Class’ and their Free Enterprise Economics are doomed by History to very soon vanish from the world (rathe like the imminent appearance or return of the Messiah or Mahdi) and when the Revolution finally happens the Environment will be saved; but till that time, if ever, the problems of anthropogenic Global Warming will not be solved when approximately half the population deny the problem because that view is part of their raft of beliefs that they accept as acts of faith and are often inculcated at an early age, reinforced by social pressure, and never questioned or examined.  Until the Left gives up ownership of this issue, it will not be rectified.

The Rio Olympics included a magnificent argument about saving the planet that must have been seen and understood by a lot of otherwise sceptical people.  And yet, this is not the only issue where a small, extreme cabal or ultra-extremists hold the rest of the population hostage to their demands.  For example, the opposition to Marriage Equality and the recognition of Gender Diversity.  Another example are the so called Conservative Lawyers who are opposing Constitutional Recognition of Australia’s First Peoples and Treaties with them, on the ostensible purpose of Constitutional stability, but really a way of being racist without appearing to deny Aboriginal rights.

The recently publicised atrocities against young people in Northern Territory detention is another example of the rank hypocrisy that underpins to many powerful opinions. As long as we keep insisting that the main purpose of the Criminal Justice System is to impose punishment on behalf of the wronged, as a modern form of ‘an eye for an eye’, and stop seeing the miscreants as people who are not bad people, just people who have done bad things, and helping them, we will continue to have the atrocities that were actually know about for a year at least before the authorities claimed ignorance and shock.  The Criminal Justice System is based on ancient, out-dated morality.  We need to rehabilitate, not punish people.