Why did the 2011 summer riots happen?

Here's an essay I recently wrote for political and economic anthropology. Dunno what grade I've got yet.

How can anthropological analyses of post-industrial crises in British cities help us to understand the riots in English cities in August 2011?

INTRODUCTION “We are all middle class now”, John Prescott triumphantly announced in 1997 ahead of a general election. This statement echoed an already looming truth in British politics – the working class were no longer represented in parliament. It is not difficult to imagine the shared feeling of discontent and discomfort which arose within working class communities when faced with the realisation that the Labour party were no longer on their side. Given this wilful ignorance of a significant portion of the population, it does not seem surprising that this attitude culminated in widespread national riots in the summer of 2011. Yet the political reaction to the riots was not one of sympathy and worry, but of disgust and condescension (Hedge 2012).

The death of Mark Duggan was believed to spark the riots, but the message was soon lost in a flurry of violence and anger. Their original anger, directed at the police and intended to display their unease at an unlawful police murder of an innocent man, soon became more vague and reflected a general sentiment of inequality, unfairness and oppression from police and, by extension, a dominant class system. It became clear that the rioters were seeking “an overwhelming sense of power” in a society which made them feel powerless and downtrodden (McIntyre 2011). Yet this message was lost, and anybody trying to reaffirm it was shot down and criminalised by politicians and the media, e.g. Darcus Howe (Hersh 2011). They were ignored and the riots were put down as “petty crime” and general acts of thuggery. In a society where politicians and the media choose to trivialise matters of such importance and blame everyone but themselves and the system they regulate (Hedge 2012), anthropological studies can offer a lot in terms of interpretation of the riots and the discontent with the status quo displayed by the rioters. In this essay, I will list and outline some of the possible motives for the riots which can be explained anthropologically.

INTER-CLASS DISTANCING When trying to understand the riots, we must analyse the relationship of the two major viewpoints involved; specifically those of the middle class and the working class. What is immediately clear in ethnographic research is a growing contempt for other classes and a “mutual misunderstanding” and disdain (Evans 2006:28) when trying to conceptualise a different class of people. Evans' study of Bermondsey working class families indicates that they are proud of their values and even display a kind of competition with “posh” people who they feel look down on them (Evans 2006). This indicates a natural resistance against dominant perspectives of the working class, which stereotype them as beaten down, submissive people among "slums, dangerous roads, old factories, cramped schools, stunted lives" (Heath 1973, cited in Wiener 1981:162). This negativity directed towards the working class, while possibly accurate, may not be welcome and illustrates misunderstanding and in some cases, ignorance.

The statement that “we are all middle class now” is a blatant sign that not only have the working class been forgotten about, but they are being shunned as something which Britain does not want or need. As a working class Bermondsey woman claims, “we are the backbone of the nation and no one gives a fuck about us” (Evans 2006:31). It is clear that middle/upper class British citizens are blissfully distant from their working class counterparts, and vice versa. When this is taken into consideration then it is no surprise that the riots highlighted such a dire conflict between the social classes.

CONFLICTING PERCEPTIONS OF WORKING CLASS CULTURE Unfortunately, there is quite a lack of ethnographic research centring on the middle class's relationship with the working class (Edwards, Evans & Smith 2012). On the other hand, anthropological descriptions of working class conditions can give us an idea of how middle class academics perceive their working class subjects (e.g. Engels 1892), and it is occasionally a perception drenched in pity and horror at the relative poverty and squalor of people in post-industrial societies. Patronising tones are used to describe their lack of education and 'brutishness'. A whole host of negative words are used to describe working class culture in anthropological literature and this reflects certain biases in middle class attitudes.

The working class themselves, however, take pride in their class and claim to have more life experience and general knowledge of the “real world”, which contains poverty, violence and ill health. They contrast their lives with the relatively sheltered lives of the middle class, as is the case with Evans's Bermondsey community: “They dunno what it means to get by” (Evans 2006:32). Furthermore, “they dunno 'ow to 'ave a good laugh, 'cos of that stiff upper lip” (Evans 2006:32). Evidently, many working class people can see benefits of poverty that the higher classes cannot, ergo this anthropological study illuminates further misunderstandings between classes in Britain which could have caused some of the tension which was expressed during the riots.

PRIMARY SOCIALISATION Many anthropologists have studied the effect that these differing perceptions have had on the upbringing of British working class children, in a world which does not expect much of them simply due to their class and/or position in a post-industrial location. Social mobility in a post-industrial society is very limited, and this is mirrored in the upbringing of children. Children in these areas learn their place from a young age, partially through the education system. The defining features of the middle class is a good job, which they reached by attaining a good education, which is communicated by teachers constantly in schools. Therefore, children learn that without education, they cannot be successful. The problem arises with this understanding:

Tension is created within this social class structure, however, because the system for establishing value through formal educational qualification […] conflicts with other means for gaining status that depend on completely different kinds of social participation about which working class people might be fiercely proud. (Evans 2006)

Additionally, in alternative ethnographic studies of childhood education in post-industrial areas, Allison James (2002) found that teachers would look into the family background of the child by visiting their home prior to the commencement of teaching, so that right from the start the teacher has assumptions about what the child will achieve. By simple application of this self-fulfilling prophecy, the teacher's treatment of the child will change and the child conforms to the image that they have been prescribed. Thus from an early age, the child learns their place in the world indirectly through their class, and this shapes further social interactions and their view of the educational attainment they fail, or do not wish, to grasp. Together with the naïve political view of education as an easy path to social mobility, this makes the child's future rather uncertain.

DESTINED TO A LIFE OF CRIME? It would seem, from ethnographic research of education in post-industrial areas, that the structure of schooling is biased against the working class - especially after the New Labour focus on vocational courses, which are now arguably synonymous with low academic attainment. Coupled with the strain on employment opportunities which is inherent in post-industrial areas (Dawson 2002, Young & Mills 1983) it seems as if the working class face great difficulty fitting into the system laid out by the government.

This could explain why post-industrial areas in crisis, with high levels of working class citizens and unemployment, have correlating levels of crime to match. As Evans (2006) points out, working class children learn to socialise with their peers in a way that doesn't conform to the kind of socialising needed to move up in the world, and so they must try and apply their earned status on the streets in different ways. This could all too easily lead to involvement in gang warfare and drug dealing, as it is this kind of business they are more accustomed to. Thus, people in post-industrial regions become more acclimatised and desensitised to crime and violence, and so rioting would seem like an obvious outlet for their frustrations.

UNSTABLE, UNCERTAIN LIVES As a result of job insecurity and uncertainty about the future, a level of fear and anxiety arises among working class populations. in post-industrial cities like Ashington, which was once a thriving mining city in the north of England, the industry (in this case, a mining industry) leaves and the now-redundant workers remain in poverty and unemployment, while their families are forced to leave the town because of the lack of opportunity for work (Dawson 2002). In these times of change, chaos and some level of anomie can present itself and become an issue. Bourdieu states that violence can be a direct result of job insecurity and uncertainty:

"Competition for work tends to generate a struggle of all against all, which destroys all the values of solidarity and humanity, and sometimes produces direct violence." (Bourdieu 1998:84)

He goes on to explain that "insecurity is the product not of an economic inevitability [...] but of a political will." (Bourdieu 1998:84). Whilst this is a rather grand statement and a sort that we have come to expect from Bourdieu, it is backed up by Wiener (1981), who also blames the values of the dominant class for the stagnation of post-industrial regions. This theory holds some relevance in that it highlights the idea that economic decline and crises in post-industrial Britain is directly linked to politics, and this was likely picked up on by rioters, even if they could not adequately express the source of their discontent.

THE LIMITS OF ANTHROPOLOGY When thinking about the post-industrial crisis in Britain, what appears endlessly in the ethnographic literature is study on racial relations and multiculturalism. While it is an important issue to consider, unfortunately it doesn't shed much light on the 2011 riots, as they seemed to have no racist undertones. If anything, the riots showed solidarity between all races in the cities involved, as the riots were “mostly white people” protesting the death of Mark Duggan, who was black (McIntyre 2011). The riots appeared to be a solidarity of the working class against “the police” - most likely the entire system they feel oppressed and dominated by; the system devised by the ruling classes. It bears noting that working class communities feel closer to people of other races than they do to people of the middle and upper classes. "Anthropologists tend not to set out to study social class, but find that it emerges as relevant in the process of investigating human collectives of other kinds" (Smith 1984, cited in Edwards, Evans & Smith 2012:2).

There seems to be a certain degree of tiptoeing around issues of tensions caused by social class systems in political, economic and anthropological literature. Perhaps it is seen as a taboo subject, or perhaps it is not seen as important. However, it could also be due to the fact that modern politicians tend to use race as a scapegoat for class tensions rather than admit that the fundamental class structure associated with capitalism may be flawed or problematic, or that their policies are encouraging tension and decreasing social mobility. This kind of racial scapegoating can be seen in the shocking comments by historian David Starkey, who, when reacting to the riots, claimed that “the whites have become black” and essentially blamed the riots on “black culture” which has supposedly taken centre stage in the UK.

CONCLUSION It appears that more ethnographic research needs to be done into class in Britain if we are to fully understand the effects of the post-industrial crises. However, from what exists and from pioneering works of the last few years, we can shed light on some of the main causes of class tension. Whilst abstract theories can be useful, more contemporary study could bring up questions we had not considered before.

Words: 1981

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bourdieu, P. 1998. Acts Of Resistance. Translated from French by Nice, R. 2000. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Dawson, A. 2002. Leisure and Change in a Post-Mining Mining Town. In: Rapport, N., ed. 2002. British Subjects. Oxford: Berg, pp107-120.

Engels, F. 2009. [orig. 1892]. The Condition of the Working Class in England. London: Penguin Books

Evans, G. 2006. Educational Failure and Working Class White Children in Britain. Britain: Palgrave Macmillan.

Evans G., Edwards J. & Smith K. 2012. The Middle Class-ification of Britain. In. Evans G., Edwards J. & Smith K. eds., Class, Community and Crisis in Britain, special section of Focaal, Journal of Historical and Global Anthropology, Vol 62, 2012.

Hedge, N. 2012. Riots and Reactions: Hypocrisy and Disaffiliation? PESGB: Annual Conference. Oxford.

Hersh, J. 2011. London Riots: BBC Interview Gets Testy. Huffington Post, [online]. 10/09/11. Available at: <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/london-riots-bbc-interview_n_922857.html> [Accessed 22 March 2012].

James, A. 2002. The English Child: Toward a Cultural Politics of Childhood Identities. In: Rapport, N., ed. 2002. British Subjects. Oxford: Berg, pp143-162.

McIntyre. 2011. Manchester & Salford Riots, BBC Newsnight. [News Report]. 2 Sep 2011. Available at: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsAwdIaDPNw > [Accessed 22 March 2012].

Young, K. & Mills, L. 1983. Managing the Post-Industrial City. London: Heinemann.

Wiener, M. 1981. English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit 1850-1980. Cambridge University Press.

This essay got me my highest mark at university so far.

Critically examine the character and purpose of violence in middle-late Bronze Age or Iron Age communities, using archaeological evidence.

Introduction

How can we best analyse the use of violence in the past? This question has plagued the minds of archaeologists for decades and is not one that should be taken lightly, because like many difficult questions in this subject, it can lead to false assumptions when treated with disregard. The evidence of violence in the archaeological record can often be ambiguous in nature, leading some archaeologists to develop theories of violent practices in the past which are based on pure speculation. Speculation is not always a bad thing as imagination is a virtue in archaeology, but it can occasionally be problematic because it is not accurate. It is for this reason that we should be careful when interpreting the evidence available to us and not to draw conclusions from ambiguous data, which could lead us to make unfair and unfounded assumptions about past life. It is not very common to find evidence which is unequivocally linked to a certain type of violence. There are certain prerequisites for assumptions of violence in certain cases, as argued in the following quote:

“It is very difficult to demonstrate intentional

attacks from child skeletons unless caused by

weapons, or if the remains come from the site of a

known act of violence, or the bones show several

lesions in different stages of healing.” (Campbell,

2003, cited in Jimenez-Brobeil et al, 2007)

In this essay, I will critically explore the evidence we have for middle-late Bronze Age violence and critically evaluate how much it, and the interpretations of the archaeologists who have studied it, can tell us about the nature, causes and purpose of violence in various middle-late Bronze Age communities across the globe. I will recognise the importance of several factors such as social structure, religious practices, identity and politics in the practice of violence in the past.

Issues

The character of violence even today is hard to pin down, as there are numerous forms in which it takes, such as organised criminal violence, self defence and political warfare. We must not undermine the complexity of Bronze Age culture or indeed human nature and we must consider all options when analysing human remains and artefacts for evidence of violence. The problem we face in trying to determine the character of violence in the archaeological record is that not all injuries are skeletal, and there could be violence we are not picking up on such as strangulation and flesh wounds. Such marks of violence would not show up on a Bronze Age skeleton, and without skeletal damage we cannot really be sure of the nature of violence in the community even if weapons are found.

Domett and Tayles (2006), in their study of Bronze Age inhumations in Thailand, outline some of the problems that osteoarchaeologists face when studying skeletal injuries and evidence of violence in human remains. Not only is it impossible to determine when in the individual's life the injury occurred, but even if the damage left a mark on the skeleton, fractures often heal up so well that they leave no lasting evidence on the skeleton. Fractures that are found on skeletal remains are often indistinguishable from post-mortem breakages. Unless there is a clear shape in the injury of a weapon of some kind then it is difficult to determine how the injury came about, as some individuals may have also been more prone to fractures than others due to bone conditions like osteoporosis, which make seemingly harmless accidents more dangerous and damaging. Thus, it is not easy to draw a solid conclusion about a violent attack on most skeletons.

A clear example of a case in which some of these problems arise is located on the site of Tormarton, Gloucestershire (Osgood 2005), where 4 adult male skeletons from the early-middle Bronze Age were found lying on their faces in a ditch which had been hastily covered in rubble. Two of the men show skeletal trauma to the skull and pelvis in the shape of a spear shaft and blade respectively, which indicates a very humiliating and painful death, however the other two bodies show no signs of injury, although they have been dumped in the same place as their brutally murdered peers which would suggest that they were also murdered. This leads me to suspect that we may be finding bodies similar to these two which show no signs of a violent struggle, and so we may never know if they were actually the victims of a murderous attack. This kind of problem makes an accurate analysis of Bronze Age violence rather difficult, as we may never know just how accurate we really are.

Warfare

However, of all types of violence, warfare is perhaps the easiest to identify. This is because not only do we see evidence of skeletal damage and weaponry as I have mentioned above, but also huge fortifications. Aranda-Jimenez et al (2009) analyse the evidence of warfare in early-middle Bronze Age Argarian communities and point out that cases such as Cerra de la Encina show large defensive structures which would have required extensive and labour-intensive work to construct and to maintain (Aranda & Sanchez 2005, cited in Aranda-Jimenez et al 2009). The fact that these large defensive enclosures were built around these Bronze Age settlements on hilltops where the view was good suggests that they were regularly under threat by neighbouring communities, as otherwise the significant upkeep of the fortifications is difficult to explain.

Aranda-Jimenez et al (2009) go on to explain that other evidence for Argarian violence, such as the presence of specialised weaponry in burials, which has classically been used as evidence for warrior violence in Bronze Age Spain, does not necessarily indicate that the weapons were used in combat. In tombs where weapons such as swords, halberds, daggers and knives were found, there were no other distinctive elements of warrior burials found which could indicate that the men buried were warriors. It is this way that the authors highlight the problem of traditional thought in archaeology of automatically associating the presence of weapons with warriors and functional/political violence. Instead, the authors suggest that the weaponry could signify status and/or wealth in their community, as artefacts like swords and halberds have been proven to be symbolic in that they possess “the highest social value among funerary objects” (Lull & Estevez 1986, cited in Aranda-Jimenez et al 2009:1041). This theory is further supported by the presence of other high status objects such as jewellery.

The idea that symbols of violence and warfare are also symbols of power and status is one that has seen much study. Fokkens (1998) highlights how images of weaponry were often used in conjunction with the symbol of an erect penis to symbolise power and virility. This signifies the link between violence and manliness in Bronze Age communities and is shown through cave art in Scandinavian rock art, where men are sometimes symbolised as having swords in scabbards, standing on boats and having erect penises (Coles 2003 & Fokkens 1998). Treherne (1995, cited in Armit 2011) argues that the aesthetics of the “warrior's body” became a crucial part of the image of masculinity in the Bronze Age. Further evidence to support this image is the Roos Carr figures of the late Bronze Age which symbolise male virility as well as violence and possibly territorial struggles, as symbolised by a boat, some weapons and the intimidating nature of the figures (Hull City Council 2008). This could possibly suggest that virility itself was used as an intimidating weapon in the form of rape. However, this is merely speculation and there is no evidence to confirm that this is true in the case of Bronze Age Scandinavian society.

Societal pressures as a cause of violence

The nautical theme of the Roos Carr figures is not the only evidence to suggest that violence can be caused by arguments over territory. To refer back to an earlier example, the defensive enclosures of Bronze Age Spain also signify a battle fought to keep and protect a settlement and its people. Towards the end of the Bronze Age, communities started building hillforts to defend their settlements, which related to the earlier linear ditches or “ranch boundaries” which were used to separate territories belonging to different people and fields used for farming or grazing cattle (Cunliffe 1990). With this increase in agriculture and permanent settlement in the late Bronze Age, therefore leading to a rise in territoriality, there would have been a similar rise in violence and warfare as people fought to takeover or defend land.

This evidence also signifies an important change to social structure in that individuals and lineage groups in the late Bronze Age were claiming authority over land, which suggests increasing pressure over land and possibly an increase in population size (Cunliffe 1990:335) which in turn made claiming land for lineage groups more and more important as their families grew in size. Linked in with this comes the issue of resource pressure. As Cunliffe (1990:335) says, “pressure for change is seldom monocausal” and we must consider a wide range of factors that would have made people more protective over their land and potentially engage in violent acts, or feel threatened by violence.

There are numerous sorts of pressures which could cause communities to resort to violence, as Fyllingen (2003) in her analysis of two interesting sites in Nord-Trøndela, Norway, in which archaeologists in 1968 uncovered a large collection of human between 20 and 30 skeletal remains dating back to the early-middle Bronze Age. With much evidence of violent trauma and only one real artefact – a bone pin – it raised questions about the character and purpose of violence in this area at the time. She describes one of the sites as the mass grave of “a society in distress” (Fyllingen 2003:31) which was plagued by ill health, hard labour demands and, of course, violence. The injuries shown on the skeletons indicate that a majority of the victims were killed whilst they were trying to defend themselves, unarmed, and that most of the attacks aimed at the victims were intended to kill (as the multiple injures to the craniums suggest). Men, women and children were all violently killed and placed in this mass grave. However, not all victims died from their injuries straight away and a lot of the skeletons showed partially or completely healed wounds. Fylligen states that this evidence suggests that the occurrence of such violence was commonplace in this society.

Fyllingan attributes the regularity of violence in this Norwegian Bronze Age culture to the social hierarchies described by Kristiansen (1982, cited in Fyllingan 2003) which made up Bronze Age communities and led to inequality, which in turn led to conflict and violence. Because the two sites Fyllingan were close together and similar in nature, she hypothesises through Kristiansen's work that Norwegian culture at the time was structured in a way that meant conflict was rife and that every member of the society was engaged in constant warfare, which was brought about by the chiefs. However, she goes on to make some very enthusiastic and unfounded judgements that she draws from social anthropological theories of ritual and war heroes, without backing it up with related archaeological evidence. From the evidence she presents, including the fact that the heads of the adults at one of the sites seem to be arranged in a particular way (indicating post-mortem beheading), I would hypothesise that the violence displayed at these sites in Norway were caused by social inequalities (as described by Kristiansen, cited in Fyllingan 2003) and a longing for elevated social status. I would take this one step further and suggest that the citizens of the community felt pressured by social norms and the expectations of their chiefs to take part in warfare. The purpose in partaking in this form of violence, therefore, would be to gain a desired social status and to appease a chief.

Abstract Thoughts

There are several other slightly more abstract theories that could be thought of to explain the sites at Nord-Trøndela such as personal conflict, like revenge for a past misdeed or an ideological disagreement. However, it is very had to underpin personal conflict in the Bronze Age as there is no record of it. We cannot see what is not buried under the soil, as such we cannot see things like ideologies which may have existed only in the minds of those in the community.

Another cause of violence which has been woefully ignored in the vast majority of archaeological studies is mental illness such as psychosis, schizophrenia etc. A recent study of homicides due to mental disorders in the past 50 years showed that there are fluctuations in the rates of mentally disabled people who commit homicides and it is unclear why, however it is always a prevalent occurrence throughout history (Large et al, 2008). It is also possible that violence could have occurred in the Bronze Age due to alcohol/drug use. From the end of the early Bronze Age, there is a rise in the need of alcohol for feasting and it is possible that when so many people are together in one place, they could become intoxicated and violence could break out. There are clear ethnographic examples in which feasting and intoxication leads to conflict, competition and violence (Hastorf & Johannessen 1993:132, cited in Hamilakis 1999). However, this is another area that has not been studied well enough in archaeology. These cases would suggest that there is not always a clearly defined purpose to violence.

These kinds of abstract theories for violence could very well contain some truth, but the archaeological record does not contain many examples of these theories in practice in the Bronze Age. Perhaps this is because they were not an important part of society, or perhaps it is because there is just no archaeological evidence even though it happened, but I think it is most likely to be due to the failings of the archaeological community over the years to assimilate enough evidence and compile a detailed report on these matters.

Conclusion

To conclude my essay on the character and purpose of Bronze Age violence, I will make some final points. From all of the evidence I have presented here, I can tell that there are many facets of violence and it would take a much longer essay than this to go through all of them, but I have done the best I can to pinpoint which are the most significant aspects. Firstly, political warfare was one of the main ways in which violence manifested itself in the Bronze Age, as it was just beginning to take off towards the middle-late Bronze Age to later flourish in the Iron Age. It accounts for a large amount of archaeological evidence for violence in that time frame and serves the purpose of settling feuds between different communities.

Secondly, resource pressures and other societal problems which put strain on communities, such as famine and personal disagreements often lead to violence as a means of expressing frustration, settling disputes or bringing about justice (such as a punishment for a crime, although this is lacking in archaeological evidence). Thirdly, the hierarchical structure of many Bronze Age societies and the value it placed on status caused people to follow the will of a chief and try to achieve their ambitions.

Finally, I argue that there is a severe lack of archaeological evidence for Bronze Age violence and its purposes, namely the theoretical purposes I have mentioned at the end along with things like human sacrifice (Hughes 1991). There must be more archaeological investigation done before we can say we have exhausted all of the options for this question which cannot be answered with a non-extensive mono-causal explanation.

Words: 2,632

Modern Art - My Opinion

Ok, so I've decided to make this blog post after reading Tom Milsom's tumblr and seeing his and other artists' vendetta against anyone who doesn't like modern art. A lot of people claim that anyone who doesn't like modern art doesn't "understand" or "get" it. I'm going to define what I think the "point" of modern art is.

Modern art, as I understand it, is there to make you think about the world in a way that you wouldn't normally, and to view every day things which you may not notice on a daily basis through different lenses.

In this post I've included a piece by Richard Serra. A lot of people say "it's a bit of rusty metal against a wall, what is there to get?" but this is a piece about balance and equilibrium. When you see it you have several different feelings about it. Perhaps it is a metaphor for balance in life.

I see the point of modern art, I know its aims and all of that stuff. What I don't like is the way in which artists try to meet their aims. Surely modern artists would like for their work to be as accessible as possible and something that enlightens as many people as it can? My point is, there are easier ways to make a point about balance than putting a sheet of metal against a wall. To me it seems like a very half-assed way of making a point and invoking an emotion.

If I really really wanted to make a point about balance, I would write something. Maybe to make it even more understandable, I would do diagrams in a scientific fashion. I would explain my intentions and point clearly.

I'd like to state that I'm not saying modern art should be "dumbed down". There are ways of making things obvious and understandable without compromising the beauty and artistic nature of it. Just look at poetry and prose. It can be very descriptive and clear and still very beautiful. To me, this image looks like it's been taken out of a book with no context given. Without any kind of context, it's rather frustrating to try and second-guess what the artist is trying to say. If I took a diagram out of a science book, would you enjoy trying to figure out what kind of diagram it was and what it meant? I certainly wouldn't. It could be illustrating something brilliant like the formation of a supernova, but I would have no idea and it would be lost on me.

What gets my goat the most is being called ignorant for not instantly understanding a piece of modern art. It's not my fault if I don't get the 'point' of the piece, it's the artist's fault for not making it more accessible and understandable. I feel like when interpreting a piece of modern art I'm trying to fill in the blanks. It's like reading a poem where half of the words have been taken out at random and I need to guess what has been taken out.

And sure, maybe some people would enjoy looking at a diagram and trying to work out what it means, or trying to fill in the blanks of a poem. However it feels like those people are doing all the artist's work for them.

My last point is this. I know that some pieces don't have a specific "point" to make, they are just there to invoke emotion. However when a piece is so simple that the physical act of creating the piece isn't admirable at all and the emotion it invokes is the main attraction, especially when the emotion is not clear and you have to kind of "make it up" in your head, I do stop and wonder if it's worth the hassle.

I don't need that piece of metal against a wall to think about balance, I could just go outside and look around. There are plenty of things leaning against my walls in my house. Or maybe I could just, you know... think about balance. I don't need to see it in front of my eyes to have the same emotion.

What I like about traditional art is that it gives you a LITERAL view of something you've never seen before. I've seen a rusty bit of metal balancing against a wall before. I can understand that other people find that piece interesting but I personally don't. I'm sorry if that puts a bee in your bonnet. Not everyone can like the same thing as you.

To any fan of modern art who's angry, distressed or upset upon reading this (or any post by someone who they feel doesn't "get" modern art), I'd like to point out one thing. I'm a heavy metal music fan, and constantly get criticism from others that heavy metal is "just noise". Yet you don't see me writing tumblr posts about how ignorant everyone else is for not liking heavy metal. Unlike you, I accept that people have differing opinions to me and that doesn't make them ignorant. Not everyone enjoys heavy metal, or modern art. GET OVER IT.

Stories of a 10 year old genius

I recently came across the school books of my 10 year old brother, who has Asperger's syndrome. The syndrome makes him incapable of socialising properly, meaning he refuses to take part in class activities or do anything with the other kids. This makes teaching him quite a challenge.

At his school they decided to give him one-to-one support from a TA and allowed him to type his work on a computer as that's where he felt most comfortable. While he was working in the corner on his own he wrote some very interesting things which were printed off and stuck in his book. The following is from his English book. I may post more from other books as it is all completely mind-boggling.

It starts off with the usual 10 year old drivel they made him do, but then he goes into a "big write" where he is allowed to write his own story. I hope you enjoy it. Note: I have not changed a single part of this, from the spelling mistakes to the spaces and dashes.

Fireplace

Thursday 9th September 2010

LI use narrative structure and past tense in writing.

Lesson intro using connectives.

Robin was scared of the sheriff.

Robin's hands trembled as he picked up the arrow.

Robin feared the sheriff as his hands were shaking in fear as he picked up the arrow.

Robin was shaking in fear of the sheriff as he was picking up the arrow.

BIG WRITE

Title:

The Guider

Story:

Somewhere in England, lived a normal man. And he no more knows his destiny, then a tealeaf knows the history of the east India company.his name is john tarrion, and one night, in one uniqe dream, he saw the guider...

The guider told him that to become destin for greatness, he must...

Eat the cheese..." eat the cheese?!" says john, "yes you must eat the cheese, and this dream will be returned." says the guider."but I'm not hungry!" says john.

"just eat the cheese so I can return this dream already!"says the guider.

"ok ok ok!"says john, john eats the cheese and wakes up in the morning.

"hmm..." john thinks that the dream could be special..."nah, it was just a dream."

Says john, john goes to work and when he returns home and goes to sleep, the dream returns as said.

"I knew it!"says john."you're the galaxy's last hope."

John wakes up in the next morning and finds that his house was moved to a strange rocky land."let the games begin."says the guider.the guider trains john."but why me?!"john angrily replies."because...the master says so..." replies the guider sounding scared.the guider tells john to follow the quardrants on the spaceship he is told he was trained to use.he goes in and somehow understands how to fly it and follows the quardrants. And there he finds a space station oriting the bigger space station and in the smaller space station lies a teleporter. John goes through it and there lies a mysterious figure that starts walking towards him."who's there?!" screams john at the top of his lungs."tell the guider, you've sw him." Says the mysterious figure.the mysterious figure disappears and john goes straight to the guider and without stopping, john tells the guider that he saw him..."go and retrieve the golden water."says the guider. John goes into the same spaceship and explores the universe and finally comes at top speed onto the planet "earth"! and, due to a terrible miscalculation of scale, his entire ship is almost swallowed by a small fly...the ship is only one third as big as his house so he suffered terrible demands for air resistance, escaping earth was going to require some serious speed power & muscle. His first attempt got him crashd on a small piece of grass. And finally, after 27 attempts, he finally left earth and got on his way to find the golden water. Dawning through space at an incredible speed, he finds a small blue planet and lands on it, luckily this time the calculation of size works perfectly...

Or so it seems! He was a giant compared to the beings on it, and he asked if anyone knew where the golden water is, and only one replied saying"its in sector 999999999999999999 alpha fifty."

"any simpler quadrance?"asks john.

"alpha nine, just say it in the ship you have." "thanks,!" john happily replies. John gets in the ship and says "alpha nine", and the ship goes to auto pilot. A few hours later, he crashed down onto a planet and manages to escape with the ship beyond repair. But then he saw it.the golden water... a whole five meter long river of it. About roughly 10 meters deep, stretching as far as the eye can see. The shining golden water reflects enough heat to burn the fuel leak in the ship as it blows up in a ball of fire and somewhat confusing radiation.john creeps into a hole that suddenly cracks open with the top whooshing into the sky! In the cave it is silent and a single drop of fresh cold-golden water falls on john's head..."you've collected some!" says a voice sounding like the guider.

_________________________________ --- ----_____

--- -- Aaaaaaaahh!! -- _ --- __

Says john by a matter of fact, who is thinking about how odd this event is...

he falls through the vortex next to the guider and the golden water is extracted and put into a rather confusing thing that looks like the kind of thing you would hae a wedding thing in...

The Garden of Eden According to Francesca Stavrakopoulou

Today I learned a lot about the study of Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou, a senior lecturer of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter with a PhD from Oxford University. She makes some very interesting claims about the story of Eden and the Fall which I'd like to share in this blog post.

So I'm assuming you all know the story: God creates a beautiful garden for Adam and Eve, who are created completely innocent. The snake shows up and tempts Eve to taste the fruit, who then tempts Adam, and so God expels them from the garden to live a life of suffering and death. It's the foundation of the notion of original sin and the biblical origin of the idea that we're all born bad people.

Dr Stavrakopoulou (I'll call her Dr Stavra for short) thinks that the origin of this story is not what we'd think. She believes that Eden was a real place on Earth, a man-made garden created by man.

In ancient Near-Eastern culture, kings were seen to have a special link to the Gods. They were the connection between the physical world and the heavens. One of the roles of the king would be to construct a lavish garden for a God to dwell in, and some of these extravagant gardens are pictured on reliefs such as the one featured on the right from Nineveh. It matc

hes descriptions of the Garden of Eden, with flowing water. It also has a very visible tower on it belonging to a king. Gardens such as this were believed to be a place where there is a true connection with God, unlike anywhere else.

Dr Stavra therefore believes that Eden could have been made by human hands. Not only that, but she also believes that Adam himself was a king. He was the gardener of God, given the task of keeping the garden and looking after it, all the while maintaining a close relationship with God, similar to the Near-Eastern kings. The fact that Adam was a king is not mentioned in Genesis, however Stavra claims that an earlier biblical account is a previous version of the story, and it describes the fall of the king from his garden.

The sin in this case was not eating a fruit. In Ezekiel 28:6-19, a king is described as having gained too much ego and considering himself to be as good as God. This is comparable to the Genesis version, where eating the fruit results in having knowledge like God does. God sends a message to this king, the King of Tyre:

"You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you. [...] Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you." - Ezekeil 28:11-15.

This much earlier mention of Eden says that the king believed himself to be "as wise as God" and had participated too much in dodgy trade business and violence. The punishment God gave him was to send all his enemies against him in an act of defiance to his reign and to bring him down, banishing him and all his successors from the throne. It speaks of a fire which burned down his palace in front of him and his people.

It is believable enough that a king's ego could turn nasty and cause people to want to bring him and his kingdom to an end. However, Dr Stavra's claims become a bit more bizarre. She claims that the Garden of Eden may not have been a garden at all, but a temple.

1 Kings 6 tells the story of King Solomon building a grand temple to God in which he can dwell, and she believes it was this temple which was the Garden of Eden in which the King and God could have an intimate relationship. But how can a temple be a garden? The passage describes the temple as having walls not of stone but of fine cedar, with the floor made of pine and no stone to be seen. Into the stone was carved gourds, palm trees and blooming flowers. Cherubims of olive wood guarded the temple, as they did in the Genesis account of Eden. There were pillars, at the top of which was images of two hundred pomegranates and lilies, and a vast image of "the sea" stood upon statues of bulls. There were many basins and "sprinkling bowls" and gold images of flowers and leaves adorned the entire interior of the temple. It was a truly magnificent place.

The king says that this is a house for God, and God responds to him graciously and says that if the king were to ever fall out of line, he would smite the temple and cause all his enemies to turn against him and his city. Later on, God is displeased with Solomon and tells his enemies that he is going to take the kingdom from the hands of his successors and give it to those who will overthrow him. Apparently, Soloman's 700 wives and 300 concubines had turned him away from God and made him worship false idols, so his position as king was taken from him by God.

So this is Dr Stavra's explanation for Genesis. But what about Eve and the snake? Well she states that the symbol of the snake, before the book of Genesis, was a valuable religious symbol and wa

s worshiped in Christianity, for example the staff that Moses carried had the form of a snake. Snakes were also used in medicine and the snake is still visible on the emblem of pharmacies to this day.

Somewhere between these stories, snake-worship became associated with evil. Dr Stavra seems to believe that after the king showed his true colours, his ideas of snake worship also became evil and demonised.

As for Eve, it is common in the New Testament for women to be shown as evil temptresses who lead men astray and this could be reflected in Genesis, because at the time this was the vision of women and the blame was placed on Eve to relieve Adam a bit of his sin.

Well, that's that. I'm not sure how far to take Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's claims, they do seem a bit far-fetched, especially when she claims to know exactly where Eden was. However I thought it was an interesting thought and wanted to share it with you all.

For more information watch her BBC documentary on the subject "Bible's Buried Secrets: The Real Garden of Eden".

That's it from me for now, hope you enjoyed this and it wasn't too long!

60 Transitional Fossils in 4 Minutes

Heya. Sorry I haven't written a blog in a while, I've been busy, but to fill the gap until I finish all my work, here's a video I made this evening.

The Evolution of the Stickleback Fish

People often ask questions like "yeah, but how does evolution work though?" and "how can such massive changes happen so quickly and stick around?". They are good questions, and as it turns out, they've been answered.

In this post I'll look at the example of the stickleback fish, a small fish characterised by three little spines attached to its pelvis (right) which it can push out to counter predators, essentially turning it into a swimming pincushion. This was a very useful trait as you could imagine. However, over time the stickleback population began to move into more freshwater regions, where their spikes were a disadvantage as large insects like dragonflies could just pluck them out of the water by their sticking out spikes. As you would expect, the spiky sticklebacks began to die out and through natural selection a species of stickleback without the spiky pelvis began to emerge and thrive in the freshwater regions.

This is simple enough to understand on a basic level, but we can dig deeper. How did the stickleback lose its pelvis in the first place? Evolutionary biologist David Kingsley of Stanford University has researched into this question thoroughly and has come back with very convincing results. What he managed to do was isolate the stickleback's gene which was responsible for the production of the pelvis. What he found was that this gene is present not only in the marine sticklebacks with the pelvis, but also the freshwater sticklebacks.

What we can tell from this is that even though both types of fish have the same gene, there is something turning off that gene in the freshwater population - a kind of switch. These gene switches control when a gene is turned on and in what places. So as it turns out, it is not the genes themselves which are mutating, but the gene switches. As a result of this we find very different species can have very similar gene patterns, it's just that some of those genes are switched on or off.

It's likely that this is why we sometimes see mutations in the

human DNA that reveal parts of our ancestry, such as tails (yes, they do happen).

We share 99% of our genes with apes. Yet how do we look so different? The mutations needed for these changes are so so small, but can make such a huge difference in appearance. In my next blog post I might go into how the human brain actually evolved to be so much bigger than the ape brain.

It is all down to tiny mutations.

So what do you think guys, should I have been an evolutionary biologist?