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Obedient, Docile Men

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“I have thought for a long time now that if, some day, the increasing efficiency for the technique of destruction finally causes our species to disappear from the earth, it will not be cruelty that will be responsible for our extinction and still less, of course, the indignation that cruelty awakens and the reprisals and vengeance that it brings upon itself … but the docility, the lack of responsibility of the modern man, his base subservient acceptance of every common decree. The horrors that we have seen, the still greater horrors we shall presently see, are not signs that rebels, insubordinate, untamable men are increasing in number throughout the world, but rather that there is a constant increase in the number of obedient, docile men.”

—George Bernanos

Quoted in ‘Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life’ by Marshall B. Rosenberg (pp. 21-22). PuddleDancer Press.

I am pretty sure that R D Laing would have agreed with that statement. He makes the point that ‘normal’ men in the 20th Century killed 100 million of their fellow humans. It was he whose writing caused me to think again about the relative value that I (and we as humans) place upon the life as lived vis a vis others, and the life of the imagination. All are forms of experience and all merit being accepted as valuable experiences.

The Etymology Of Rampage

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From Etymonline

Rampage (v)

“rage or storm about,” 1715, in Scottish, probably from Middle English verb ramp “rave, rush wildly about” (c. 1300), especially of beasts rearing on their hind legs, as if climbing, from Old French ramper (see ramp (v.), also see rampant). Related: Rampaged; rampaging.

A huge untamed beast on its hind legs, an unnatural stance, reaching beyond what Nature has given it, stretching upwards to reach out wildly and destructively in its unhappiness.

Bedridden

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Mid-14c., from late Old English bæddrædæn meaning ‘bedridden,’ the adjective from bedreda – a bedridden man, literally ‘bedrider’ from bed and reda (riding).

Picture a man riding a bed.

Macaws

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Macaws are a type of parrot. They are recognisable from the patch of bare skin that covers their faces and usually reaches the base of their beaks. Some macaws have narrow lines of feathers on this patch. Macaws are also recognisable by their distinctive, long, tapering tails.

Getting A Handle On A lot Of Energy

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The Feedback page in the 26 June 2021 edition of New Scientist mentions a quote from oceanographer Gregory Johnson, who described the increase in Earth’s heat imbalance from 2005 to 2019.

The heat imbalance is the difference between what the Earth receives from the Sun and what is lost to space.

Johnson said that difference over that period was the energy equivalent of four detonations per second of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, or every person on Earth using 20 electric tea kettles at once.

Rowland Morgan

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The Guardian has a section where people can contribute an obituary for a deceased person they knew. Usually it is a partner, brother, sister, etc. The person being remembered will have had some quality that brought them to the public eye.

This one from Gerald Morgan the brother of Rowland Morgan caught my eye. Rowland Morgan was a journalist who had a column named Digitations in the Guardian in the 1990s where he wrote about ‘facts’. For example:

British Telecom’s scrap tyres each year would form a column 44 times the height of the London BT Tower.

Henry VIII had an average of five enemies a day executed.

Henry reigned for 36 years, so that’s 5x365x36 = 65,700 people that he had executed over his reign, give or take.