It has been quite a month - and I've tried to capture it as best I can through my blog for you all.
However, I do have to start this post off with an apology. It has been quite some time since I've been active on here, after my last post I fell ill for a bit, then I went travelling, and when I had finally came back to some form of a "scheduled" existence back here, I was thrown into midterms. Basically, these past three weeks hit me like a train, and I apologize that the blog suffered for it.
That being said, quite a bit has happened since I've last written. I recently made two trips to Ireland, one to Dublin and one to the outskirts of the Ring of Kerry. Likewise, I also had three sets of visitors come up to Scotland, my roommate and one of my best friends from back home, Jake, my family, and another duo of two of my best friends from my pre-highschool days, Dan and Matt. On top of all that has been happening here, I also find myself turning with more and more disgust back to what is happening politically back in the states. Almost every conversation I've had with cab drivers, bar tenders, hotel workers, the likes of any Scottish citizen all turns round to American politics and the mess we find ourselves in. Likewise, my eyes are also drawn to the political unrest sparking here, as Scotland debates seriously about breaking away from the United Kingdom as they complete the beginning stages of Brexit and England as a nation continuously proves that they will ignore time and time again the Scottish voice in their government. The world itself seems to be teetering towards increased unrest as policies are coming about that increasingly and disproportionately target those who cannot defend themselves - and all while under the thinly veiled guise of "nationalism." We are at a crossroads in more ways than one.
I'll admit, as well, writing in 2017 has been increasingly challenging as I consistently find myself drawn away from creative writing or blogging pursuits in favor of a more politically charged platform. It's difficult to write a post about how wonderful the world is while you see it, day in and out, burning. And knowing full well that because of my economic status, race, gender, and sexual orientation that I will most likely come away with little to no damage if the world continues on the path it is heading down - all due not to my own merits, but to the privileges I was born with. The future is continuously uncertain, and moreso for others than myself - all we can hope for is that everyone, especially those reading this blog, find some form of empowerment and start getting angry at the corruption, racism, sexism, and bigotry that is currently running rampant in American has thus been embolden throughout the world.
All that being said, I do still have a few stories to share, and some pictures to go along with them as well. Please do enjoy:
Hiking in the Highlands:
"and that I, so long / A worshiper of Nature, hither came, / Unwearied in that service" -- William Wordsworth
The Scottish Highlands are perhaps the single most beautiful thing I have seen in recent memory. They are located in the north of Scotland and, like Loch Lomond, were carved due to the glacial retreat about 15,000 years ago. Similar to Loch Lomond, the highlands are steep mountains of about 5,000 feet that are young and rocky. So, given the chance to hike potentially life-threatening slopes with my family in the bitter cold and wind of Scotland, I said absolutely and found myself sleep-deprived sitting in the front seat of a cramped rental car with my dad driving struggling with the GPS at about noon.
With only a quick stop for drippy egg sandwiches, we had driven the four or so hours to a place called Glen Nevis - the deep valley carved out by the retreating glaciers I mentioned above. All around us, the mountains of the Nevis range rose above us, the tallest in their ranks boasting snow-capped mountains, and the lesser harsh black tops. It was a surprisingly warm day in Scotland, and the sky was clear (another rarity). With gravel crunching underfoot, myself, my sister, my mom, and my dad all hiked to the trail head, and down into the Glen. Before we crossed into the Glen, we were greeted with a warning sign: Danger of Death - Proceed at Your Own Risk.
The borders between the woods and the parks are some of my favorite places in the world. As soon as I cross the threshold, I can feel the difference. The air is cleaner (not really, but emotional truth and all that), the sounds of civilization slowly fade, and I find one of the many benefits of being in the wilderness is sanctuary. This is a place in which you are met at best with apathy, at worst with animosity - a very different feel than to the soul of say, Albany, in which every aspect of it was designed for humans. In Albany, humanity is a god, in the woods, humanity is just aspect in a living and breathing organism that has been alive since the first microbes on the planet. It's quite a lesson in perspective. We can die here, and the earth wouldn't stop its rotation, the wind would carry away are screams, and if we weren't found then we would deteriorate and provide nourishment for future grasses and trees. The modern human is called to the woods is undoubtedly the same as why the druids created circles in the forest and tried to appease the spirits of the woods - all a matter of perspective. Something that's easy to forget if one spends to much time surrounded by other people.
We pushed through. The path was easy, and took us up spiraling through the bases of lesser mountains. The path was well traversed, and with the warmth and sun we had a pleasant walk. After about an hour of walking, marveling, and staring, we reached a waterfall. The falls are called Steall Falls - a thunderous cascade whose waters are fed by glacial melt coming from one of the greater peaks in the Glen.
The waterfall fed into a blue stream that wound its way deeper into the heart of Scotland, and, as you can see, provided some stunning views. If I could pick any place in the world to live, it would look something like this.
In Ireland, I was able to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral and in Glasgow I visited the Glasgow Cathedral twice. In both cases, I was awed, of course, by the sweeping architecture designed to draw the eye upward (and hypothetically towards God), but I never felt anything in those man-made stone buildings. Churches are always poor representations to true majesty, and the gods they claim to worship never seem present within their walls. The world would be a much better place if we treated nature as sacred ground, too.
Inverlochy Castle:
"Even castles made of sand fall into the sea, eventually" -- Jimi Hendrix
After the highlands walk, my family and I went to visit the ruins of the old Inverlochy Castle. The new one is now a five star hotel somewhere close by. The castle was more of an old fort, really, designed mostly for military purposes, whoever owned the castle owned the River Lochy - a valuable trade route that leads deeper into Scotland and connects to the ocean.
The majority of the Castle fell into disrepair, the various battles and the unforgiving Scottish weather had eaten away large chunks from the castle walls.
The castle is, as castles are, a monument to a darker side of humanity, notably war. Castles, while romanticized in much of literature and films, are designed as military technology and nothing more. The walls were designed to be tanks, protecting its inhabitants from arrows, swords, and enemy fighters all while giving the defenders the lines of sight to rain down arrows, swords, and fighters onto enemy troops. This particular castle was the site of two major wars: The First Battle of Inverlochy (1431) and The Second Battle of Inverlochy (1645), though historical evidence suggests that there has been some sort of fort structure on this spot since 700CE, considering its natural vantage point over the River Lochy, there were probably outposts here for much earlier. The ruins as of now were abandoned for a better outpost some ways down the river in what is now modern day Fort Williams.
I can't say I know much about the castles history other than the basic pieces I've outlined above. The plaques and other various tourist "guides" around the grounds did little to help. Walking around the ruins, though, made one thing ever so apparent. Even the most permanent of human structures must be kept in repair, or else the forces of chaos will have their way and break them down. All of life goes towards entropy, and nothing is permanent.
Doune:
"A five ounce bird, cannot carry a one pound coconut . . . listen, in order to maintain air speed velocity, a swallow must beat its wings forty-three times per second . . . My point is it couldn't be a European swallow is all" -- Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
Doune Castle was much more preserved than Old Inverlochy - it is now a tourist destination where you can take a tour narrated by the director of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, Doune is where most of that movie was filmed as well as the television series Outlander and Doune is also the home of Winterfell in Game of Thrones. It is quite an impressive castle.
My family and I walked into Doune during a light, cold, Scottish rain. We stopped by the help desk and were each handed a pair of headphones and a black box that looked a little like an old-fashioned walkman. We were greeted by the signature 100 foot tower, that stood defiantly against time well preserved and ancient. The castle proper was built in the 14th Century by the Duke of Albany, but, similar to Old Inverlochy, a military fort of some kind had stood where it now stands since the early iron age. Most likely, Doune got its name from the old Celtic word for fort (Doune) - so this land was no stranger to armed fortresses.
The majority of the tour we took in silence, each of us walking through the in equal parts awe and reverence as the narrator recapped what individual rooms would be: "Here's the bedroom, while now barren, it used to have a large wooden frame. . ." The castle was cold, drafty, and intimidating. The doorway (pictured above as the black, gaping mouth of the castle), was designed as a complete death trap and we each listened as an all too cheery voice recapped how attackers would be subjected to a plethora of arrows, boiling water, and an uphill bloodbath if they so decided to attack the castle. Castles are like immobile tanks that also act as houses. They only became outdated as new technologies allowed for larger and stronger projectiles to be launched at the walls as pictured above. Catapults gave way to trebuchets, which, in turn, gave way to cannons. Fortunately, Doune was able to avoid the inevitable march of technologies and avoided falling into complete ruin. The Duke of Albany (the castles original lord and the mastermind behind the castle) fell due to internal Scottish politics, ironically never needing his castle to act as a means of defense. Rather, the Duke of Albany failed to secure ransom of the true Heir to the Scottish Throne, and instead left his cousin in the hands of the English indefinitely - securing the power of the king into his own position, Duke of Albany. After a lifetime of avoiding his responsibility to the true crown, the rest of the noblemen "revolted" in a peaceful, politically charged rally. They took the castle from the Duke's family, and slaughtered them all on a hill overlooking the castle - all without an army, just to reinstate the now returned prisoner-king from England.
If history teaches us anything, it's that humanity has been dark and twisted since our misguided evolution.
Rector Elections
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" -- Martin Luther King Jr.
The last thing that I would like to talk about with this post is something that really shook me to my core, and I won't even know what happens until tomorrow, in which I will probably have to make a new post just to go over it. Simply, Glasgow University has a position known as the Rector. Rector comes from the Latin word for ruler, and is a largely ceremonial position that hypothetically states the Rector is charged with taking concerns of the larger student body to the various student government positions on campus. Also, the rector is statutory chair of the Court, the governing body of Glasgow University.
Now, obviously, the Rector has no "absolute" power, as the position is not a "king/queen" like position, nor is Glasgow University a true kingdom, as all of us swear allegiance to various governments and states that far supersede our allegiances to the university government. However, it is largely a ceremonial position, and it is an important one. Especially considering the global political spectrum and the fact that Milo Yiannopoulos is running.
Milo Yiannopoulos is an interesting figure, to say the least. Firstly, he is the definition of a walking contradiction. He is a Nazi who claims Jewish heritage, a racist, sexist, bigot, and a homosexual catholic who aligns himself politically with the Nazi parties (alt-right) throughout the world. He was a former editor at the propaganda machine known as Breibart "news," and only recently resigned due to an interview he had recently in which he condoned pedophilia stating how it "could be consensual" and that, in fact he as a "14 year - old" was the predator, and not the older men who he had relations with. I have decided not to include a link to the video as, upon rewatching the interview, there was consistent explicit language and adult content being casually discussed within it.
Now, I hate Milo for a number of reasons, but my primary reasons are due to his absolutely absurd notions as to his loudly outspoken political views. He claims that he is a defender of "free speech" and desires only to see freedom of speech spread throughout the world. The idea that no idea can be to politically incorrect to discuss, nor should anyone be silenced for any reason. Under this "moral" guise, he has defended sexism and racism, saying that it is under the idea of "freedom of speech" that he can say and do whatever he likes.
NOTE: I encourage you to read of this for yourselves, especially if you find my analysis unreasonable or question my sources. Primarily, for this article, I got my information from the Independent, link
here. A simple Google search of Milo Yiannopoulos would be sufficient to bring up plenty of his hateful rhetoric - though I would warn being sure that your source is good. If you find Breibart's analysis of him, you'll hear quite a different tale than if you find a true news source, like the Guardian, the Independent, BBC, The Economist, or the Wall Street Journal. That being said, though, no matter how some sources spin his tale of hateful rhetoric, it always tends to shine through.
Milo's campaign for the University of Glasgow Rector is as follows. Firstly, he campaigned to remove the Muslim Student Association from the university in order to "defend the LBGTQ" community within the university. He gave no reasons as to
why the Muslim Student Association was causing harm to the LBGTQ community, despite the fact that LBGTQ Muslims exist and that the Muslim Student Association's primary goal was to help foster a community between Muslim students and their events often have to do with helping students meet other students from similar backgrounds and faiths. Secondly, his campaign focused on the promise of an "International Men's Day" on campus to personally protest the feminist societies located in the university. Milo has also promised to fund some university parties and promised to be present during them as well.
If there's one constant in humanity, it is that we are truly a reprehensible species. If it were up to me, I think dogs should be the rulers of the world - they love everyone and are easily the greatest creatures on this God-forsaken third rock from the sun.
Back to Milo, however, again he made these claims under the guise of freedom of speech and likewise suggested that any university unwilling to hear his ideas out are to constricting in their ideology and are not champions of freedom of speech.
It is to Milo, then, that I'd like to pose the following hypothetical: why does freedom of speech have to encapsulate lies? Or, simply, should we defend liars? Racism and sexism aside, to claim that the protection of the LGBTQ by removing the Muslim Student Association from campus is just a lie, there's no evidence to support that the Muslim Student Association and the LGBTQ communities have any animosity towards one another, so it must be that Milo would like to get rid of the Muslim Student Association because he claimed that "Islam is a cancer to the world." Why, then, would I want to protect your lies under the guise of freedom of speech? No, I say ---- you, Milo - and hey, freedom of speech so I
can say that.
Also, the idea of an international men's day is absurd as well, considering the motives for saying that come from a blatant hatred of women. Since Milo can't produce an iota of evidence saying that feminism is harming men, he has to rely on incendiary statements that are unsupported and are designed to offend and shock. That, and he gets to rely on the deeply embedded sexism that exists in the world as "support" for his claim. To quote an excellent opinion article from the Huffington Post (not something I say often), "when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-boeskool/when-youre-accustomed-to-privilege_b_9460662.html).
Basically, Milo's arguments are based on hatred, and he backs up his claims not with evidence, but with a hatred/fear of Muslims/women and cannot support his views, as they aren't true in what I would refer to as "objective reality." Since he can't support his claims nor can he be bothered to be a decent person, he falls back on the elusive idea of freedom of speech and gains support through the embedded sexism and racism in predominantly white societies and exploits that to keep himself in the "relevant" social sphere - all while maintaining his alleged position as a champion of freedom of speech.
And this man is a contender for the Rector position at Glasgow University.
I have a problem with Milo using his defense of freedom of speech as he is. This is a problem that has been deep rooted in all democratic societies since Ancient Greece, and was excellently outlined in Charles Pierce's book
Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free. The problem is that in a democracy, we have this idea that if there's two sides to an argument, we must give voice to both sides and both sides equally. Therefore, when we have a racist, sexist like Milo saying something like we need to preserve freedom of speech at all costs so I can continue being a racist sexist, then we are hardwired into thinking that yes, we need to hear you out because of democratic debate. However, this is quite damaging to democracy because it gives voice to a point of view that, despite not being based on any objective sources - such as studies in the social sciences or in psychology - it is based only on the darkest aspects of humanity. Therefore, we elevate a seemingly indefensible position on par with a well researched, more objective position simply due to our inherit belief in "debate."
In my opinion, this is clearest in the climate change "debate." On the one hand, you have scientists who have done a plethora of experiments, studies, and tests - who are experts in climatology, saying that humanity is ruining the climate due to our burning of fossil fuels (see IPCC, Bill McKibben, and NASA for further reading). On the other hand, you have oil companies saying "no, we aren't." That's it. You have evidence on one side, and a lie on the other. We elevated the lie to be equitable with science because of our desire to "hear out both sides" of a debate, and we have allowed lies to permeate our understanding of the world so effectively, that we now have an administration based upon them. We lost any and all sense of objectivity because we have allowed people to pick their own criterion for arguments, and those criterion are more commonly hate and fear rather than science and studies.
Experts, likewise, have been shunned from public opinion due to the deep rooted fear of educated people within society. I'm not sure where this came from, nor do I have any idea why it still exists, but for some reason the educated people within America especially are feared and ignored because of some twisted virtue within American ideology. The idea, with climate change especially, states that Joe the mechanic has an equal say in the debate as does Dr. James Hanson, one of the first leaders of the IPCC and someone who has researched climate change since the early 80s. Not to mention, he has a PhD in physics, as well as a M.S. in astronomy, and a B.S. in mathematics and physics. Unfortunately for Dr. Hanson, he knew what he was talking about so public opinion didn't like him.
It's the same problem that we now face with people like Milo. They tap into the racist, sexist under (sometimes explicitly over) tones in society and exploit them, rise to a position of prominence, and continue to spread their hate. Racism and sexism are hereditary, they are taught, they are fostered, they are grown. We are not born racist, we become racist. We are not born sexist, we are raised sexist. It takes a village to raise a child, and when that village is subjected to a history of racism and sexism, when that village is itself just a cog in an ancient machine that itself built up around a system of oppression, then the products of that village will be racist and sexist. As much as Americans like to think of ourselves as rugged individuals, we are much more so the products of the systems that allowed us to grow up through them, rather than we are self-made peoples.
If what I outlined above isn't worse enough, I have heard a number of defenses for Milo Yiannopoulos. Most of them boiled down to a simple idea: "it's funny."
I have such a personal problem with that defense and I apologize if I jump in logic, but when I heard that I was furious. I still am.
Let me see if I can do this logically - If Milo says that we should disband the Muslim Student Association in order to protect the LGBTQ community, and the initial response is laughter, what does that really say? Well, firstly, Milo's claim is Muslim's aren't as human as LGBTQ people are, so the basis of his claim is dehumanizing and racist. Secondly, to treat that with humor reveals two thing: 1) it reveals the racism inherent within the person who laughed, as the "punch-line" is the dehumanization of a group of people, so it's only funny if the group of people being dehumanized is a group of people the person who laughed also views as less than people. 2) it also reveals one to be in a privileged position in which they can afford to laugh at the plight of another group of people. Let me explain, Milo Yiannopoulos also claimed that "asexual people simply cannot find anyone to find them attractive." This is only funny if you find asexual people to be less than human and also are in a position in which at least someone else finds you attractive in some way - laughing at this is another way of saying "I think asexual people are a joke."
While I have no idea if Milo will win the election tomorrow, I truly hope he does not. If he does, then we, as a Glasgow University, have taken a stand and said Muslim students and women are not full members of the university.
It is the same way in which supporting Donald Trump makes the claim that women, immigrants, and minorities are not Americans - the rhetoric of his campaign has made it clear that he has no respect for those groups and his continuous attack on those groups only support that. Therefore, to support Trump is to support racism and sexism - despite the intentions otherwise. It is the same with Milo, to support Milo is to support racism and sexism. I am tired of bad arguments and "on the fence" rhetoric. If we are silent in the face of oppression, racism, and sexism, then we are in support of it. There can be no middle ground when it comes to the rights of all human beings.
If you made it down here, then thank you for listening to my long rant. I'm sure, as the political state of America continues to deteriorate, there will be further rants.
Until next time,
Stephen Pendergast
