The Shard from the junction of Duke Hill Street and London Bridge.

The Shard from Great Maze Pond.

Tube Home after Night,
Monday Faces go to Work:
Chuckle of Contrast.

"The Dictatorship of Relativism!"

Pope Benedict XVI criticised the post-modern trend toward a form of Moral Relativism which will ultimately render society incapable of formulating any coherent ethical foundation. Without a shared moral basis society will fracture into atomised individuals cut off from each other with only their personal self interest as a guiding principle. Society's capacity to discuss in a meaningful way the issues of the day will be steadily eroded. His point being that in a thoroughly relativised world we will cease to have the ability to have any meaningful public discourse.

The BBC Radio 4 programme "Analysis" attempted to tackle this topic at 9.30pm on Sunday 4th July 2010 under the chairmanship of presenter Ed Stourton.
Among the contributors were Dr Rowan Williams, Ann Widdecombe and Islamic scholar Ruzwan Mohammed who sympathised with the Pope's concern. Their protagonists were Simon Blackburn, Leslie Green & Stephen Wang.

It could have been an interesting programme but the latter group made a very poor showing. It was as if certain philosophical propositions, ie theirs, were taken to be so self evidently true and the alternative so patently false that they didn't need to engage with the discussion at all.

One of the professors of philosophy made the point that just as the Nazis stigmatised Jews so the Pope was doing to Relativists. It struck me that this was a feeble argument and bordered on smear tactics rather than a serious rebuttal of Benedict's philosophical objections. Also; as deplorable as the recent child abuse scandal within the RC Church is, it isn't strictly relevant to this discussion yet that was raised several times. Although I am not a Catholic I do not believe that one can condemn a whole people group for the faults of some. Where the RC Church as an institution has failed it has, albeit belatedly, sought to put its house in order. My point is the protagonists were determined not so much to debate the topic as sneer.

One of them pointed out that we do not live in a relativistic world anyway, people do stop and intervene when they see wrong doing. But I believe this misses the point entirely - yes some do intervene, they still have some moral compass, but it is not uncommon to hear of others walking by and refusing to get involved. There may be many reasons why such people do walk by on the other side of the street but the question being asked is are some doing so because of the pervasive relativistic attitude of "don't judge" & "don't get involved" they have lost their moral compass? It seemed to me that that self evident question was never adequately discussed.

What should have been an interesting discussion was the usual parade of BBC scoffers for whom a serious discussion was beneath their contempt.

Actually- when you think about it - doesn't that prove the point Pope Benedict was attempting to make? We have indeed lost the ability for constructive public discourse. How ironic!

post script; 15th July 2010.
Someone suggested that I should share these comments with the BBC. As a matter of principle for every negative comment I send to the media I try and have two positive comments to share about other programmes. I can't honestly say that the BBC have been very receptive to constructive criticism in my experience. Anyway the on-line comments restrict you to 350 characters (including spaces!) but my comment reads as follows:
Your critics of "Dictatorship of Relativism" made snide comments about the proposition but did not adequately engage in the topic at hand. Either the content was very poorly edited or you need to find better contributors who can properly critique this proposition. Maybe we have indeed lost the capacity for mature public discourse = QED to Benedict!

Lunchtime Service at St Helen's Bishopsgate!

If I can't get to church on Sunday because of my shift pattern I try to get to a midweek lunch time service instead.

St Helen's is located in The City near 'The Gherkin' and all the talks are downloadable for free from www.shmedia.org.uk

William Taylor is currently doing a series of talks from the Gospel of Luke. Can I recommend his series called 'Light & Lies' order code SE10/023-s1-ACD.

The Shard from Tooley Street.

What is "Fairness"?
After the recent World Cup final in which Spain beat The Netherlands the Dutch coach, Bert Van Marwijk, complained that the referee was clearly biased against them because the ref had given far more 'yellow cards' against the Dutch compared to the Spanish.
At face value this is clearly true - the Netherlands team did indeed have a disproportionate number of bookings compared to their rivals and this raises the issue of "fairness" and what we mean by the word.
One of the earliest moral debates children raise is the question of how 'fair' or 'unfair' something is, and we all naturally assume we know what we mean by being 'fair'. Politicians use the word 'fairness' regularly. But what do we all mean the same thing?
If we apply a simplistic statistical model to the Spain v Netherlands game then clearly the referee was biased against the Dutch. And the logical solution would be to issue bookings on an equitable basis - a statistical model would require a simple 50-50 split. If we did this then the statistics would demonstrate 'equality', which in modern thinking is synonymous with 'fairness'.
However a "retributive" understanding of 'fairness' would apportion bookings according to the offence whoever committed them or whatever "statistical anomaly" arose.
Clearly in Marwijk's opinion the statistics settle the matter. All I can say to that is 'what a travesty of justice he would seek to impose on any sporting nation - it is shameful that anyone should seek to justify their team's disgraceful performance on this basis! Shame on you!'
Shame on you!
Provided the same rule applies to all 'without fear or favour' then we have 'fairness', the rule of law and at least a partial understanding of what The Bible calls justice.

That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A&E