Morality and Torture

Occasionally I like to write about something that actually matters. So if you opened this up hoping for my usual nonsensical musings, well best to turn around 'cause things are about to get real.

So this semester I'm taking political science 383, for those of you that don't have the course list memorized that is Crimes against Humanity. This course has been really great, probably one of my favourites. The prof, Dr. Adam Jones, is awesome and he somehow manages to make a super depressing topic interesting.

Anyway last week I had to submit my research paper, we had to pick a specific crime against humanity and write 2500 words about it, I chose torture. Now I'm going to be honest, the only reason I chose to research torture was because it was the only one I could actually find books on. So two weeks ago I sat down at my desk with a stack of books about torture not sure what I was going discover. What I ended up discovering was an incredible ethical dilemma, the likes of which I had never been confronted with.

I started out with the feeling, like I'm sure most of us have, that torture is wrong. And by the end of the paper my feelings against torture are much stronger. It's unthinkable that it still goes on, not just because of the obvious pain and trauma inflicted on the person, but because of the whole host of other problems associated with it.

Now at this point it seems like this is a pretty one-dimensional problem, but let me present you with the other side of the argument. The other side, the advocates of torture in specific circumstance, relies heavily on a fictional scenario entitled "The Ticking Bomb." Essentially the scenario is set up that there is a bomb placed somewhere in the city, we have the person guilty of placing the bomb in our custody, and the only way to get him to admit where the bomb is placed is by using torture. The way this scenario is presented it feels like you have no choice, right? It seems like torture would be justified in order to save hundreds, or thousands of people. But I wouldn't choose torture.

Why wouldn't I choose torture? There are many reasons such as the fact that torture doesn't work like that, I mean you can't just flick a switch and make someone confess it usually takes weeks of continual torture to see results, also the problems with how exactly we know the person in custody is guilty, and if he is actually a terrorist he'd probably have training to resist torture, or he could just lie. So besides all those problems one in particular got me thinking. Basically the logistics of the circumstance creates a greater moral dilemma than previously thought. Think about it. At what point is torture justified? Does it have to be over one thousand people saved? One hundred? Just one? How many lives does it take to compromise your morals? And if at some point you're willing to compromise your morals, did you ever really have them? Heavy stuff I know.

Before I wrote the paper I probably would've at some point compromised, only because the situation is designed for it, but after researching it for myself and realizing the ineffectiveness of torture, I can now say that there is never a justification for torture. But taking this same idea of compromising morals you can open up a whole can of worms. Like being a pacifist is all good, but at what point do you pick up a gun and fight back. It reminds me of Batman, like he could easily just kill the Joker, but he doesn't, even though it would probably save a lot of lives. That's true morality. Not that I'm suggesting that because people have breaking points we're all immoral, I just would like in some cases for people to recognize their flawed morality. What pisses me off in the world is the hypocrisy that stems from a lot of these situations. One of my least favourite organizations, PETA, is incredibly guilty of this. They protest pounds for putting animals down, but then they proceed to do the same thing. Or they attack science labs that use animals for research, but when they need the medicine that was developed through animal research, like insulin, they have no problem using it.

So somewhere in this blog I kinda got off topic. All I was really trying to say was that nothing in this world is black-and-white. You can't take things for their face-value. And sometimes it's okay to over-think stuff. I mean we have to confront the limits of our morality to grow. If I hadn't done research and thought about the "Ticking Bomb" scenario in depth then I would still have the wishy-washy opinion of torture I held two weeks ago. I mean we're all human, we all have breaking points, except Batman.

Why am I Passing?

 

So this picture is the notes I have taken from my last two Latin American history classes. Needless to say, I'm not sure if I'm devoting all of my attention to the course. In my defense October 28th was "movie day" so taking notes wasn't all that necessary.

Looking through my notebook I'm reflecting on my career as a university student. All the times I've dozed off in class, all the times I didn't do the readings, and all the classes I've just missed, and I'm forced to wonder why am I passing? You'd think I'd have made some irreversible mistake by now, like I'm not paying attention and the prof changes the due date of the paper, or I try to study my notes and all I learn is that I'm awesome at drawing dragons. But here I am in my third year and I've yet to ever miss or fail any exam/paper.

The only explanation I can come up with is simply I am the luckiest university student in the world. That somehow I've managed to listen at key moments in the lectures and am able to magically throw words onto a page that makes up a coherent paper. For example, my poli-sci midterm. It was a take-home exam, I had to write two short essays. Not only is poli-sci one of my weaker subjects, but I had so many other papers to write I polished off the midterm in an afternoon. I wasn't confident in the least, I figured if I passed it would be awesome. But I get it back and what?! 85 on the first essay and 90 on the second. There must have been some mistake. 

I'm not writing this to let you all know I'm going to buckle down and be the best student I can be from now on, and I certainly am not bragging about how I get awesome grades without trying. Because in all honesty when I am writing a paper I do usually put a fair amount of effort into it, I just never feel it deserves as high of mark that it usually gets. And it's true, if I really concentrated in class or started working on my papers weeks in advance, then I'd probably get better grades or at the very least feel that I deserve my grades. But guess what? I'm going to continue doing exactly what I have been because, let's face it, it's working. Even right now in my peripheral vision I can see a stack of books I should be reading for my paper that I should be writing. But will I start it? Maybe, we'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow. 

Oh, Canada...

So this post is coming out of a conversation I had with Tim the other night, so if you like it than thank him, but also thank me cause let's face it I'm the one writing it.

I love my country. I like to think of myself as a proud Canadian. I watch hockey, I drink beer, and I consider myself quite polite. Ever since I was a kid I've had this idea of Canada being perfect. Canada as the peacekeeper, Canada as the home of human rights, Canada as the one country without an embarrassing history. I mean our history is so boring that I've always figured we all just agreed on everything. Like we arrived and complimented the First Nations and asked if we could stay here, and of course they said yes and ever since we've been living in harmony. Unfortunately our history is really no better than that of our neighbors down south.

There are many parts of our history that aren't exactly things to be proud of. Many people don't realize this but Canada took part in slavery. And you just have to say "residential schools" and any self-aware Canadian should feel a wave of disgust come across them. I mean I was in poli-sci the other night and we watched a video about Genocide. One of the guys said that there is no country that does not have some sort of history of genocide. A few years ago I would've thought, "but not Canada right? We're all too nice here, we'd never do something like that." This time I just knew that, yeah our country has committed such atrocities. And it sucks.

It really sucks having a perfect image of something shattered. Whether it's your country, or something else entirely. Whenever you start to look past the perfection you start uncovering the truth, you rarely find anything good. Sometimes it feels like one of the main goals of university is to make you think less of Canada. Really university just makes you think about everything differently, but sometimes I feel professors are going out of their way to make me feel worse about my country.

The bottom line is that Canada is so far from being perfect, and maybe when I say I'm Canadian I don't feel so self-righteous like I used to, but like it or not Canada is my home. And it's going to take a lot for me to stop watching hockey, drinking beer, and being polite.

Good Riddance Summer

So it's September and for a lot of us that means going back to school. For others it means bragging about how you don't have to go to school. Either way it seems school is on most people's minds. It certainly has been on my mind pretty much since May. That might sound weird or depressing, but really Summer sucks. Especially this last one.

Summer always seems like such a great idea, but it always goes on for about two months too long. Just to clear things up by "Summer" I'm referring to the time between my last exam and the start of the new year, so for you non-university folk that's about the end of April to September. It's a lot of time to really not do anything significant.

By nothing significant I mean that yes, I worked and did things, but really it was all pretty meaningless. The fact is that when I'm not in school I  feel kinda useless. It's like if life is a highway (I know it's a total cliche analogy but bear with me) than the Summer is the time I have to spend waiting for the ferry that will take me to the next patch of highway so I can continue my journey. So I'm left at the side of road, twiddling my thumbs, hoping that something happens to break up the monotony.

This Summer was especially bad because on top of the usual boredom I face, in August something terrible happened. I'm not going to get into details, those of you that are close to me know what I'm talking about, and well I just don't feel like talking about it, or even writing about it. Anyway so August was pretty much a write off. I did get to quit my job, which was fun, plus I got to visit my brother in Yellowknife which was a lot of fun. You've never partied till you've hit up the Raven. But overall this Summer, like so many others, was a total bust.

Needless to say, I am very relieved to be back in school. I don't care if I have a stack of boring books to read, or if I'm already behind in a class, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ethics and Healthcare

So in philosophy today we were talking about healthcare and a very interesting ethical question came up. I figured that it would make a great blog. I'll explain the question and then present my view. Now normally I don't ask very much of my readers. It's like listen to me complain about something for a few paragraphs and go on with your day, but this time I'd love for some of you to think about this critically, maybe even share your opinion. Don't worry this is a safe place, no one will judge you.

So the question went something like "In which of these examples is the government not justified in taking your money in a proper healthcare system?" Then the options were like; A. Supplying vaccinations during an epidemic, B.Paying for  alcoholics' liver transplants, C. Helping foreign countries in the aftermath of a disaster, D. All of the above (meaning that all these examples are unjust), and E. None of the above (meaning that they're all just).

This is a class of about 24, we all split up into small groups, and then we all answer using clickers so we get to see a nice little graph of everyone's answers. B had the most votes with 11, E was second with 7, and D was third with 6. After we see everyone's votes people can explain why they chose what. The B's said something like, alcoholics don't deserve our help because they made a poor choice in their life so they have to deal with it themselves. The E's said something intelligent. And the D's said something like, A is just a conspiracy of the pharmaceutical company, B is private healthcare's problem, and C is that countries problem/a personal decision if you want to help.

Now you've probably guessed that I said E. And the I have a number of reasons for this, the most basic being the right of healthcare along with my belief in the importance of equality. My group and I did not see eye to eye on the justification of B.

The issue of tax dollars paying for an alcoholics new liver is very controversial. It seems so easy just to say that they don't deserve our help because they brought this onto themselves. That's what the very opinionated girl behind me said. Which all and all is a fair statement, but it didn't seem like she really thought of the repercussions of such a statement. There are two ways I can defend tax dollars going towards new livers for alcoholics.

The first way is by arguing who's fault is it? I know it seems like such a cliche to blame society, but there is no way to deny that people do get stuck in vicious cycles within society. Saying that these people chose alcohol themselves is like saying people in Baltimore just like dealing drugs (special thanks to "The Wire" for that reference), or people in Honduras choose to be violent. It's an issue of cultural relativism, justifying your own actions based open the assumption that somebody is genuinely different than you. That an alcoholic is a completely different type of person, that if you were in the same situations you wouldn't turn to alcohol. It isn't fair to deny him care if you don't know the context, and even with the context of him just liking to drink, is it fair to make him pay for his own healthcare?

This brings me to my second point which is a lot easier to articulate. Denying someone care because they brought their problems upon themselves is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? How about the guy that ate unhealthy for all his life, suddenly he has a heart attack, should he have to pay? By the same logic that girl was using, yes. He chose to live unhealthy and so it's his own problem. How about if someone "chooses" to go skiing and then crashes. They have a broken leg, who's paying for it? Personally I'd like to know that even if I do something stupid the healthcare system will always be there for me.

So this is just my humble opinion, feel free to comment if you have anything to add or whatever. Anyway I hope you enjoyed this very special episode of "What's the Point?".

"My" Musical Evolution

So you know what they say "your best ideas are the ones you steal from someone smarter," so I figured the best way to return to my blog is by stealing an idea from Tim.

His blog about his music was awesome and it made me think about the music I've listened to all my life, so let me take you on a journey. By the way there may be a reference to Journey...

It all started with one guy, some called him weird. Actually almost everybody did. Until about grade six I really didn't listen to anything except Weird Al.

This is so much funnier than I ever realized when I was young

After a while I started to realize that I wasn't listening to Weird Al because I thought it was funny, frankly I didn't understand a lot of the songs. Why I listened to him was simply because I just enjoyed the music. If I ever heard the actual song than I enjoyed it almost as much as the parody.

So I'm a little unclear about when I started listening to this next band. Maybe my brother can clear that up since he was the one who brought them into the house. All I know is that this was the first band that I loved. This was the first time in my life that if someone asked me "whose your favourite band?" I actually had a decent answer.

Such an amazing song

Our lady Peace also was the first band I saw in concert. I still love the band even though their newer stuff has never quite matched their classics.

This next band came sometime around my entry into middle school. I remember me and my friends making fun of "Nothing to Lose" but then at some point all of us just started loving them.

I still love this song

I would go on to see these guys live as well. It was an awesome concert which featured my all time favourite band, but more on that later.

This next band is still my only real foray into metal. I was at a friends birthday party in grade 8, I think. Someone gave him "Toxicity" and we all listened to it for the rest of the night. At first I didn't really like it, but one song in particular grew on me.

Crazy good song

 So like I said this is really the only metal band that I've ever loved. I did listen to some other metal in early highschool, but I never really liked it.

Now we have arrived at the point in time where I am introduced to my current favourite band. This was in grade 10 I believe. Up till now, and even a while after this, I always referred to OLP as my favourite, what can I say, they were my first love. But eventually this band stole my heart, and still has it. Me and OLP are still friends though.

The first song I liked from them

The first song I loved from them

As I mentioned I saw Rise Against live with Billy Talent and it was awesome. I'd love to see them again. The reason that Rise Against was able to eclipse OLP was because their new stuff is still amazing.

This next band from across the pond came into my life in grade 12 I think. Their uniqueness swept me off my feet. The great thing about this band is I don't think they've ever made a bad song. They're all either great or amazing.

Probably the best music video ever

This song took a few listens, but it grew on me

I love this band and they were my first step into British music. I'd go on to find a few more awesome British bands like the next two.

These next two bands grew out of my love of Bloc Party. The first one was in grade 12, and I've actually already wrote a blog completely about them, so my faithful followers will know how I feel about them. The second band I got into last year, they're the first band on this list that me and my brother disagree on. I think they're pretty awesome, he does not.

Their first song that I ever heard

This might be my single favourite song of all time

Radiohead I kinda got over, I still like a handful of their songs, but I don't love them. Muse I still really like, but their newer cd was nowhere near as good as "Black Holes and Revelations," they'll have to earn my love with their next cd.

I kinda jumped ahead in time for a second, let's go back to me in grade 12. I started the year loving this song. It was a classic that I'd always loved throughout my life. Then I started hearing it more, which I thought was cool. I thought it was awesome when it became my grad song, but by the time I graduated I absolutely hated it. I had heard it so much that every note of it made me cringe. I'm sure in a few more years I'll be able to enjoy it again, but right now I can't stand it.

I didn't even listen to this one again

There, I told you there would be something about Journey.

This next group is on the list, not because I ever really loved them, but because they were the first band to really break my heart. Their first cd was awesome, you could tell it was just two guys having fun making a cd. Then when they actually became popular they created a cd that made me hate everything they had ever done.

It sucks that this song is so good

Never has a song hurt me as much as this one

I can't listen to 3oh3 anymore, I won't let them hurt me again.

So we've almost reached the present. This year there has been four significant new bands. The first is another British band that my brother introduced to me. The other three aren't necessarily my new favourite bands, but they're on the list because they were the first bands that I feel I've discovered myself. Up till now almost every band on the list was introduced to me by my brother, the other ones were my friends. But these three I stumbled upon on my own. Maybe Conan introduced me to two of them, but I still count that as me discovering them for myself.

White Lies best song

Band of Horses was completely my own discovery

Saw them on Conan and bought the cd the next day

Same deal with Broken Bells

So there you have it. Currently I'm really digging those last four bands plus the new Rise Against cd. Also because of this I've gone back to listening to the classic Our Lady Peace. I overlooked a few bands that I've liked throughout the years, like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and the Beatles, but I did that because none of them really lasted. I also overlooked Relient K which is one of my favourite Christian bands. The only reason I didn't add them to the list was because I can't really place them on a timeline. Relient K has just always been around and I've been back and forth on whether or not I really like them. Currently I do really like them. Also more recently I've been liking Arcade Fire and Metric, but it's too soon to tell if I love them, 3Oh!3 has made me more cautious when it comes to new music. Anyway I hope you enjoyed this little journey through my musical evolution, and thanks again for the idea Tim.

Why the hate?

So for the past year or so one sixteen-year-old Canadian boy has taken the world by storm. That's right, I'm writing a blog post about Justin Bieber...

I probably lost about half of readers right there. I've noticed through observation of my facebook news feed, that J-Biebs isn't exactly popular with a lot of my "friends." In fact on more than one occasion people have professed their utter hatred for this kid, all I want to say is that seems a bit harsh, don't you think?

I should clarify that I'm not a fan of his music, or even him really. His music is very simple and a little annoying, but that certainly isn't enough to make me hate this kid. I mean he isn't doing anything worthy of hatred. All he is doing is making music. You might not be a fan but that is no reason to hate anyone. That'd be like me saying "I hate cameras, so I hate my Mom" (My Mom sells cameras by the way, also I love cameras and my Mom). You see my problem here? You can't just hate someone for making a living, unless of course someone's living is like murder or politics.

Now I realize that these days the word "hate" has almost lost all meaning. No one takes it seriously. How many times in a day do you hear people say "I hate the bus" or "I hate olives," the word has become a tad overused. It has really just become interchangeable with dislike, but hate is so much harsher. Rarely does someone use hate and actually mean hate, and I'm sure I've done this before, but I try not to unless I feel very strongly, like when I'm talking about olives.

So with this post I'm not trying to promote Bieber, or even defend him, I'm just asking people to think before they use hate. That word requires justification, which I cannot possibly think of any justification for hating Justin Bieber, he's a nice kid from Toronto that has found success, so just back off a little. If anyone has a legitimate reason for hating him, please let me know.

That being said I only ask of you one thing; please just think before you hate.

The Anatomy of Skipping

So as a university student I attend my classes regularly, but lately I've had trouble going to a few of my classes. It's just so easy to skip a couple of them. Between boring lectures, terrible profs, and no attendance marks, I just don't see the point in going to a class like Geography.

I'm going to say something a little weird here, but bear with me. After about a month of classes I always think of my classes in terms of bar graphs. I have various categories that I think about and I grade a class from one to ten  in each category. Things like the quality of the prof, my interest in the course, and how much weight the prof has placed on participation. Thinking like this gives me visual statistics and helps me determine whether or not I should actually bother going to class.

Here's a couple examples of graphs I think of.

This first graph is for Geography. As you can see the ratings for prof, interest, and participation are all minimum. I do technically need the course, but just the credit, and I do have a couple friends in the course. So overall Geography only has an average score of 2, not a great turnout. 

Here is another graph, but this one is for Creative Writing. As you can see this class scores high in both prof and interest, and it gets a full 10 for participation because every class missed is 10% off your final grade. I don't really need this class and, like I said in a previous post, I kinda dislike a lot of the people in the class which prevents me from making friends. So this class has an average of 5.8, but any class that scores a perfect ten in any category is virtually unskipable. 

So as you can see I put a lot of thought into skipping a class. It isn't some arbitrary decision, it's just statistics. 

2011: New Year, New Complaints

So it is now time for the long awaited return of my blog! I apologize for forcing you all to go a month without having something of mine to read, but what can I say, I'm a busy guy. Especially when I'm not in school. Why would I bother writing a new post if there isn't something to procrastinate? 

So anyway I figured I'd start off with telling you a little something about how I predict my semester is going to go. It's going to be... interesting? I don't feel like boring you guys with most of my thoughts, like Geography's boring, Philosophy is boring, and History is boring. Instead I'll tell you about a strange thing that happened to me in Creative Writing.

Last week was my first Creative Writing class of this semester, I took one in first year and enjoyed it so I figured I'd like this one. I really do enjoy writing, it's one of my favourite pastimes especially when it's creative. So I went to my class in a pretty good mood, but I don't know if it was the loud students, the get-to-know-you games, or the young hip teacher, but I felt out of place. The first thing I thought when I sat down was "I'm too old for this class." Granted it is a first year class, but I'm only a second-year. What did it was the other students, who a lot of them were in fact older than me but acted like high school kids. They made inappropriate jokes, they talked unnecessarily loud, and giggled at everything that was said. I just sat there with no smile on my face and judged them very harshly. 

I realized during the get-to-know-you segment that many of these kids were fine-arts students... Bingo! That's why they act like idiots. These are the people that despite all their failures will never give up on their dreams of being a successful artist/writer/actor/whatever else you can do with a fine-arts degree. I loathe these people and their carefree attitudes. I loathe their skinny jeans, their pop-culture references, and how they draw on the chalkboard. They don't draw anything important, or even anything with a point, but apparently it's funny. I hate them so much. And so far, only one or two of them have actually written something that has impressed me. Most of them, at least the guys, try so damn hard to be funny that their plot, characters, and story fall flat. 

Writing this post now I just feel so old. I feel like this university has aged me. That whenever I'm in class, or working on homework, my world stops, but the real world just passes me by. This is me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPS1TFE0500. But I always thought that as soon as I get through the end of a semester I'd go back to being my regular care-free, happy-go-lucky self. But now I realize I don't fully bounce back. That even though I am certainly happier and less stressed now than I was a couple months ago, I've aged, more than I ever realized. 

Either way, these kids need to grow up.