Mick Hartley

Portentous gnomic nonsense

Adam Phillips, psychoanalyst and London Review of Books regular, is a prolific writer whose trademark style is to craft ludic sentences which pass just the other side of making sense - thus earning him a reputation as a profound and original thinker. I made the mistake of buying one of his first books back in the Nineties, when he seemed to offer a fresh new approach to Freud, but found him annoyingly unreadable.

Since then I've followed his literary career only through reviews of his books. What's struck me again and again is how, without exception, every new work is extravagantly lauded for its keen insight into the human condition. Not detailed reviews usually, mind - more like the odd paragraph in the "in brief" section, in which the reviewer would remark that yes, here's another masterpiece from the brilliantly original pen of Adam Phillips, and once again he shows himself to be one of England's leading critics and thinkers, with his unique and penetrating take on the foibles of humankind. Almost as though, I thought, they'd puzzled through the odd page or two but didn't want to admit that they'd found the whole enterprise completely baffling and unrewarding.

Well, in today's Times Theodore Dalrymple is assigned the task of reviewing Phillips's latest - Becoming Freud: The Making of a Psychoanalyst - and finally the man meets his match (£):

The author’s selection of facts (for he has to employ some biographical facts) verges on the hagiographic. Let me mention just two names that come up in this short book: Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow and Wilhelm Fliess. Phillips tells us that the former, an early friend of Freud’s, “died in 1891 after years of drug-fuelled mental and physical collapse”, what he does not tell us is that Freud played an important role in that “collapse”, for it was he who first prescribed the cocaine as a supposed cure for Fleischl-Marxow’s addiction to morphine. Fleischl-Marxow became even more dangerously addicted, which probably killed him.

Fliess, for long Freud’s closest confidant, was an ENT surgeon who had a peculiar theory about a supposed nasal reflex that caused hysterical gynaecological symptoms. Freud allowed Fliess, on the basis of this theory, to operate on one of his patients, Emma Eckstein; the operation very nearly killed her because Fliess carelessly left a long gauze in her nose. Freud interpreted the haemorrhage from which Eckstein nearly died as an hysterical symptom.

One possible interpretation of Freud’s hostility to biography as a genre is that he had so much to hide. He dishonestly overemphasised his own originality; he did not follow the evidence to his conclusions but his conclusions to the evidence; he lied about the true outcome of the few cases that he wrote up in any detail; he wanted disciples in a sect of his own foundation, not independent investigators of a science. Phillips does not mention the formidable list of criticisms of Freud even to dismiss them, let alone refute them. As a biographical study his book is worthless.

Unfortunately, he is also an abominable writer. I will quote two passages, by no means the worst or most impenetrable, by way of illustration of his style, which is to approach meaning without ever quite reaching it:

“In his work Freud would describe the past as largely unrecoverable from — and give us a picture of the mind as a tyranny — endemically authoritarian and hierarchical in its judgments in which feudal and fascist states of mind struggled to be more democratic; in which there was a hatred for conflict and a terror of freedom.”

“In retrospect we can say that Freud needed his early passions for ancient history, for literature, and then for the new scientific method of his time to manage the full complexity of his experience; the anticipation of sexuality and of earning money, of earning an adult living. This gave him a language, a way of thinking, for this transitional period and this disparate language never left him.”

I have known National Health Service managers who wrote better prose than this. And the author is so fond of sentences without verbs that he might easily have acted as a speechwriter for Tony Blair, if only he could have made his meanings a little clearer. A little less psychoanalytic. A little more accessible to the average man.

When he ventures an unequivocal assertion, unqualified by a labyrinth of subordinate clauses, bracketed asides and arch self-contradictions, the author is inclined to portentous gnomic nonsense: such as, that childhood is inherently catastrophic and that man is in a permanently infantile state.

Wherever you open this book — as I have just done to page 105 — you find ill-written and highfalutin drivel. “Science, after all,” he writes, “may explain (and therefore justify) death — not to mention sexuality — but it can’t, as Freud was in the process of realising, cure us of their existence, or our feelings about them.” It would be hard to beat this passage for a combination of banality and inexactitude.

The bursting of the Phillips bubble? Well, it's a start.

Red corridor

Korea week at Lenscratch and the latest photographer featured, Jihyun Jung, "explores the deconstruction of architecture in his project, Space Between Creation and Destruction" - appropriately enough given the recent architectural deconstruction to be seen in Korea.

 
Lots of photos of demolition, and, less happily, much philosophising. It turns out that our photographer applies the red paint himself:

It’s interesting that the artist shows an analog approach, a one dimensional simplistic approach to oppose the spectacular violence. As redevelopment began to spread recklessly, photo shoots to capture the sites of redevelopment become trendy. In some, the photos captured traces of a warm emotional existence and in others, it drastically exposed the cold neutral ruin. However, JUNG Jihyun gave up trying to compare the aura of a soon to be demolished building with traces of a humble life. Perhaps because it would have been difficult to successfully show the visual aspects.

Instead he seemingly trespasses in a building he randomly chooses being demolished and paints it red. The red is vivid memory hard to erase, like a signal flare for those in danger of being forgotten, a violation signal against the violence of a demolition site. JUNG Jihyun doesn’t cling at trying to capture fading memories in photographs nor does he try to visualize the spectacular aspects of a redevelopment site. Instead he leaves a strong, provocative, and direct mark on the concrete mass that’s become an object. It’s the artist’s unique performance and asceticism in a city where redevelopment is condoned and abused. His application of red paint reflects an indelicate world, his brush strokes coarse and crude, appearing nervous as if being chased by someone.

It actually requires great effort from the artist to seek out demolition sites late at night. In reality, such work can only occur after all workers have left the site at night. Night is when all motion ceases, when all light is shut out. There is no electricity, water, or anything that works at the site. The space has been frozen as if acknowledging it’s been isolated from life, an object becoming extinct. Therefore, the fact that the artist is going into the demolition sites at night is a form of asceticism where in his own way he is attempting to crack at society that doesn’t embrace memories or traces....

There's much more on the same lines, if you're interested.

Death for Apostasy

Today the Times feature the case of Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman condemned to death for apostasy, as their leading front page article (£):

Outrage was growing around the world last night as it emerged that a woman sentenced to hang for marrying a Christian gave birth while shackled on the floor of a prison cell.

Sudan was accused of sliding back to the “dark ages” as news of the plight of Meriam Ibrahim, 27, spread. Guards at the Omdurman federal women’s prison, near Khartoum, refused to release Ms Ibrahim when she went into labour on Wednesday after two months kept chained in a cell. The child, named Maya, will stay with her until she is hanged in two years’ time.

Her husband, Daniel Wani, 27, is allowed to visit for only 20 minutes, twice a week. Mr Wani, who suffers from muscular dystrophy and is in a wheelchair, says he does not know how he will take care of Maya — or his one-year-old son, Martin, who is also being held with his mother — after she dies.

In a case that has brought condemnation, Ms Ibrahim was sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery and death by hanging for apostasy, the crime of renouncing Islam, on May 15.

Ms Ibrahim, who was born to a Muslim father but lived with her Christian mother, denied both charges. She said that she was brought up as a Christian and wished to remain one. “I am a Christian. I did not convert from Islam,” she told the Haj Yousif court in northern Khartoum.

The judge found, however, that she was Muslim because of the faith of her father and was therefore guilty of apostasy by marrying someone not of her religion. He jailed her and annulled the marriage, which took place at a church in Khartoum in 2011.

The most frequently cited source for the death penalty for apostasy in Islam is the Sahih al-Bukhari, one of the six major hadith collections in Sunni Islam, where it is written:

"An Apostate will be suppressed three days in prison in order that he may repent ..... otherwise, he should be killed, because he has changed his true religion, therefore, there is no use from his living, regardless of being a man or a woman, as Mohammed said: "Whoever changes his religion, kill him"...

There's a detailed analysis of the subject here.

If you google "should apostates be killed", one of the first links that comes up is to one Bassam Zawadi, who appears to be a prolific Islamic spokesman, particularly on the topic of "refuting Christianity". He has this to say under the defiant heading, Of course Apostates Should Be Killed:

There seems to be a problem with many "modernist and liberal" Muslims out there who would like to "sugarcoat" the religion of Islam by distorting what it really teaches. There are those that go at length to deny that Islam teaches that apostates must be killed. They either deny the explicit hadith that speak about this or reinterpret it to only refer to those apostates that would fight the Muslims.

This is false. I am not going to spend time in this article trying to prove that Islam does call for the killing of apostates and the rules and conditions behind killing apostates (e.g. the apostate must be interrogated first in order to refute what doubts he has for three days, etc.) for I am assuming that my readers already adhere to and have knowledge of the orthodox position regarding the matter. What I want to speak about in this article is the reason for Islam ordering the killing of apostates.  [...]

If someone tells you that the state executed a man who was guilty of murdering someone by stabbing him repeatedly, would you shout "This is injustice! Why did you execute this man! His crime wasn't that great!"?

I believe that many of us would not say so. I believe many of us would say that the murderer deserved to be executed because of the gravity of his heinous crime. Not too many of us would sympathize with such a man. This man made his innocent victim suffer greatly each time his knife penetrated his flesh. He caused him so much physical pain that the man suffered greatly even though it was only for a matter of a few minutes.

Now let us come to the apostate. A person who would openly declare his apostasy affects the people around him. The people around him might ask themselves "Why on earth did this Muslim leave Islam? Is he out of his mind? Or maybe he discovered something wrong with Islam? Maybe Islam isn't that clear after all!" These people would then start to doubt their religion. If they seriously doubt their religion, they cease to be Muslims. If they cease to be Muslims that would very likely land them up in the blazing fire of Hell for eternity.

In the previous example, we saw that the murderer was executed because he caused his victim so much physical pain even though it was only for a matter of a few minutes, however with the apostate we see that he could cause the people around him so much spiritual damage by destroying their souls that these people could land up in the blazing fire of Hell for eternity.

With all honesty, which crime is worse? Stabbing a person for a few minutes or making him burn for eternity? The answer is obvious and we know that it is the latter. If the latter crime is much worse, why are we insisting that it is difficult to grasp why Islam would call for the killing of apostates then?

I believe that this is for two reasons:

-    Lack of faith or no faith at all in the truth of Islam.

-    This Islamic Practice is Immoral According to non-Muslim Standards

So there you have it. Not only is death for apostasy justified by appeal to the authority of Mohammed himself; it can also be justified on purely philosophical grounds, even to non-Muslims.

On the Other Hand

A classic Country singer from his name to his deep brown baritone, Randy Travis has never, for me, improved on his breakthrough 1986 Storms of Life album. This was the first track - live here, as the man says, some 15 years later: 

It's a classic Country song too, with its guilt about two-timing, and that clever wordplay: 

But on the other hand, there's a golden band
To remind me of someone who would not understand
On one hand I could stay and be your lovin' man
But the reason I must go is on the other hand

Also classic Country: Travis's alcohol problems, and his devout Christianity. 

He was seriously ill last year, in critical condition after  a viral upper respiratory infection followed by a stroke, but now seems to be on the road to recovery.

The Duellist

New York, 1909:

[Photo: Shorpy/George Grantham Bain Collection]

With wax bullets - forerunner of the paintball.

Shoddily built

A metaphor*, perhaps, for the impending collapse of the whole rotten system:

Another apartment building in Pyongyang is reportedly in danger of collapse as fear spreads after a 23-story apartment building collapsed in the North Korean capital early this month, killing hundreds of people.

Both high-risers were built as upmarket homes for the elite.

A government source here on Tuesday cited rumors that an apartment building in Mansudae in downtown Pyongyang has subsided around 10 cm and dozens of cracks have appeared in the walls. "Fearing a collapse, residents are racing to sell their apartments and move out," the source added.

Located in the heart of Pyongyang, the building is just 620 m from parliament and 1.1 km from the giant bronze statues of nation founder Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il.

If the apartment that collapsed recently housed mid-level officials, the one in Mansudae is home to high-ranking party and military officials, according to a source in Pyongyang....

Construction was rushed to be ready for the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's birth in April 2012. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the site several times ordering workers to hurry. 

The state-run Rodong Shinmun daily proudly reported that the frame for the 45-story building was constructed in just 87 days.

The Pyongyang source said that it showed signs of shoddy construction even when it was being built. It started tilting at one point, so workers put up screens while they tried to fix the problem.

Another building nearby reportedly suffers from clogged drains and chipping tiles and is being inspected by officials. And at the posh Haedangwha restaurant favored by the elite, the steel frame is exposed in places, another source in Pyongyang said.

The source said, "There are rumors among workers who built the restaurant that the cement used to build it did not set properly since it was built in winter, and that makes it vulnerable to collapse."

Early this year, Kim Jong-un declared the start of a major construction renaissance, and even during a recent visit to a building site after the apartment collapse he promised to continue the initiative. 

One expert at a state-run research institute here said, "Kim Jong-un has been focusing on speedy construction in an attempt to get visible short-term results, but most of his projects have turned out to be shoddily built." 

* Strictly speaking a metonym, I think - part standing in for the whole - but let's not get pedantic here.

Thousand Island Lake

Ansel Adams Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California:

[Photo: Peter Essick]

From a gallery in tribute to Adams from photographer Peter Essick.

The Chinese Connection

It's no secret that China continues to defy UN sanctions to prop up the Kim Jong-un regime. In 2013 bilateral trade volume between North Korea and China came to $6.54 billion, accounting for 89.1 percent of the North's overall trade:

"North Korea's dependence on China for trade has been increasing steadily since 2005 when its trade volume with China exceeded 50 percent of its overall trade," KOTRA [Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency] said.

"In addition, it shows China's pledge to tighten its customs check on shipments to and from North Korea, in protest of North Korea's missile launch in December 2012 and a nuclear test in February 2013, did not have any significant effect on North Korea-China trade," it added.

The large increase in North Korea's overall exports was attributed to growing shipments of fuel, such as coal, which surged 14.9 percent on-year to $1.43 billion, accounting for 44.4 percent of the country's total exports.

Out of all energy exports, 97.2 percent were shipped to China.

And the energy trade goes the other way too. A new report from the Daily NK suggests that China supplies oil to the North through a standing pipeline - and that this goes unrecorded in the trade statistics because the Chinese treat it as aid:

Daily NK has confirmed that China is currently supplying oil to North Korea through a pipeline running between the two. Though there have been cases where Beijing has suspended such shipments in response to North Korean intransigence, particularly over nuclear issues, but this has not happened recently.

 On April 10th, Daily NK visited an oil storage and pipeline facility in Dandong. There, our team interviewed Chinese Ministry of Public Security officials guarding the facility, which is owned by a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation, or CNPC.

When asked about oil assistance to North Korea, one of the officers acknowledged, “We are continuously supplying oil (to North Korea),” but “cannot say how much we send each month or how much remains as of now.”

Oil deliveries to be transferred to North Korea are received at this facility from a larger nearby facility, Basan, and then are shipped to a partner storage facility at Baekma in Pihyun Couunty,North Pyongan Province. The pipeline is 11km long.

According to sources, these deliveries are not recorded in Chinese customs data, or in foreign trade statistics. The oil from the pipeline is rather characterized as de facto aid, either in the form of low interest loans or free of charge.

This is why, on April 24th, Korean agency KOTRA released a figure of ‘zero’ for oil exports from China to North Korea for the first quarter of 2014, basing it on Chinese customs data. The data says zero for commercial transfers; however, supplies in the form of aid and assistance may not have stopped at all.

In this regard, a diplomatic source said, “China has the ability to stop the oil supplies whenever they want, but they've never done so for a long period of time.” He went on, “Above all, China places as much importance on security as North Korea places on nuclearization, and it doesn’t want to see disorder in the North Korean regime. This explains why China keeps providing this assistance.”

Despite reports of Chinese displeasure with Kim Jong-un - especially over the purges of the China-friendly group around Jang Song Thaek - Beijing clearly regards the maintenance of the status quo in North Korea as high priority. They prefer the current prison-state necrocracy, run by an unstable man-child whose regime is the world's main exporter of under-the-counter nuclear technology, to the possibility of a united democratic and free Korea on their border which looks to the West, and in particular to the US.

It's not just trade and sanctions-breaking either: there's also the forced repatriation of defectors from the Kim nightmare, in breach of the UN Refugee Convention. Without China, there'd be no North Korea.

When the North does collapse, however it happens, the Chinese are not going to sit back and watch. North Korea is part of their sphere of influence, right on their border: they won't want to lose it. Whatever they do, though, there'll be those writing in the Guardian who'll be in no doubt that the blame for any violence will lie firmly with the US and its western allies. Ukraine used to be firmly within the Russian sphere of influence, after all, and Russian military intervention to prevent it breaking free was, according to the likes of Seumas Milne and John Pilger, an entirely reasonable response to aggressive western interference. Expect similar apologetics when the North Koreans finally make their bid for freedom.

Delta Church

Outside Bobo, Mississippi:

[Photo © Brandon Thibodeaux]

Photographer Brandon Thibodeaux's reflections on the Mississippi Delta, When Morning Comes.

Seen at PDN.

Beaten to death

This wasn't out in the backwoods somewhere. This was in Lahore, in broad daylight, right in front of the high court:

Police said 30-year old Farzana Bibi died on the spot after being attacked with bricks and sticks.

Her father handed himself in, but police say her brothers and former fiancee, who also took part in the attack, were still free.

Correspondents say hundreds of girls and women in Pakistan are killed every year by family members.

However, many more killings are believed to go unreported.

Farzana Bibi's parents accused her husband, Muhammad Iqbal, of kidnapping her, and had filed a case against him at the High Court.

However, she testified to police that she had married him of her own accord. Police said the couple had been engaged for a number of years.

As she arrived at the court building for a hearing, police said about a dozen family members pulled her aside and began to attack her and her husband, who managed to escape.

Police official Umer Cheema told Reuters that all the family members escaped after the killing, apart from her father, who has admitted his role in her death.

According to other reports the woman was three months pregnant.