The importance of doing nothing

While doing nothing, I came across this.  An excerpt:

In 1963, the German writer Heinrich Böll published a fictional story of a visitor to a small fishing village somewhere in the West of Europe. His visitor carries with him the full conviction of the work ethic. Spotting an apparently lazy local fisherman resting in his boat, the visitor asks impatiently why the man doesn’t spend more time fishing, catching more, eventually building a lucrative multi-vessel business. With that effort, he could hope to work his way towards time away from work. It falls to the simple but not so naive fisherman to point out the irony of that recommendation. With no pressure to make something of himself, the fisherman is free — enviably so. He has what many seek: his own idle time. He has it by default.

Stay-at-home dads in the news

With Clarke Gayford set to be a stay-at-home dad, stay-at-home dad-ing is in the news.  That's good; more talk will hopefully mean more normalising.

Book review: Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind

You've probably seen, or at least heard of, some of Hayao Miyazaki's awesomely beautiful and creative animated movies -- movies like Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, and so on.

I've been a fan of Miyazaki for a while now.  When I first encountered his movies, I realised just how flat and lifeless the English-based animated movies (Disney, etc) typically are.  Miyazaki's animated movies are so rich and deep in their visuals, and are incredibly beautiful to watch.  And the storytelling matches the visuals.

I'd been looking forward to when Mulan and Miya were old enough to enjoy Miyazaki's movies.  A few months ago we watched, as a family, both My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.  The girls really enjoyed them.  We will probably watch his other movies at some point, but we thought these two were the sweetest ones to start with for Miya.

There are also comic book (aka graphic novel) versions of the movies, and soon after watching the movies we borrowed the book version of both Totoro and Kiki from our local library.  Mulan and Miya both enjoyed reading them, speeding through them very fast.

I also wanted to get out the book version of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (I think it is my favourite Miyazaki story).  Unfortunately, our library system only had volumes two through seven of the multi-volume book -- it seems that volume one was missing.  But the Auckland Library system is excellent, and we put in a request for them to buy volume one.  A few weeks later the book had been bought, and we picked it up at our local branch (along with the other six volumes we requested to borrow).

We decided that Miya was a bit young to read Nausicaa, as it is quite complicated as well as violent in parts.  But it was no problem for Mulan, and she jumped into reading it.

As Mulan finished a volume, she passed it on to me and I would read it too (I'd already read it several years ago, but it is definitely worth repeat readings as we continue to see new things).  I then passed it on to Mama to read.  Mulan and I have now both finished all seven volumes of Nausicaa, while Mama is partway through volume three.

One thing I like about reading these books is that they retain the right-to-left reading of the Japanese, even though they are translated into English.  It is a great brain exercise to read in a different way, and it is interesting to think about the sorts of unconscious cultural assumptions we make thanks to our left-to-right written language.

I haven't watched the movie version of Nausicaa for several years, but if I remember rightly, the movie, while still excellent, is a much shorter, simpler version of the book.  I'd recommend both, but I prefer the book and I wanted Mulan to read it first before watching it.

So, what is Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind about?

It is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where wars and over-industrialisation have damaged and polluted the world to a civilisation-ending extent.  Humans still exist in towns and villages, partly surviving through farming and partly through scavenging from the ruins of pre-apocalyptic cities.  Plants and animals have mutated in extraordinary ways, and in the mutated forests humans need to wear masks to protect them from the poisons.

Nausicaa, a teenage girl, is the daughter of the ruler of a small, semi-independent farming village (The Valley of the Wind).  She is the heart and moral centre of the story, deeply feeling for each and every living being, no matter who and what they are.  Her steady and constant attitude is to help everyone, without fear, and regardless of who they are, whenever they need it.  She keeps up this ethics of care, even as she and the Valley of the Wind are dragged unwillingly into a war between their two bigger neighbours -- the Kingdom of Torumekia and the Dorok Principalities.

What I especially like is that Nausicaa is an awesome role-model -- caring, curious and courageous, and most importantly seeing the beauty and worth in every single being, no matter who they are.  She accepts everyone, and she does whatever it takes to help those in need.

For a comic book, the story is pretty complicated and deep, as we follow several characters in a fairly sizable world.  Its themes are both political and environmental, as we see Nausicaa's ethics of care become more nuanced as she leaves the Valley and encounters new people and situations.

As I see it, the final several pages are the most thought-provoking, as a now more experienced Nausicaa is forced to make a final difficult decision.

I don't want to give away the story too much, so in what follows below I am intentionally abstracting certain details:

Gradually, it is revealed that the pre-apocalyptic people had stored knowledge and more in vast centres, to be slowly returned to the world in the appropriate time.  The problem is that these knowledge centres are an ongoing corrupting influence on the people, with frequent wars for power and dominance over the gradual knowledge release.  Even initially well-meaning rulers had fallen into corruption over time.

 Nausicaa's final dilemma was to either:

(a) trust the pre-apocalyptic people that they were knowledgeable and well-meaning enough such that their centre would eventually assist in the creation of a future Utopian human world, even though current generations of humans continued to suffer greatly because of the centre, or

(b) destroy/kill the knowledge centre and hence its possible Utopian future, to reduce the suffering of the currently existing people, trusting that current humans will somehow muddle along into a better future.

It is certainly a tough one.  Should we care more about the wellbeing of currently existing people, or should we care more about future, unborn people?  As Nausicaa knowingly makes her decision she says, "I shudder at the depth of my sin."

Book review: The Once And Future King

T. H. White's The Once And Future King is a funny, thought-provoking, sad and incredibly beautiful tragic story.

First published in 1958, it is yet another retelling of the King Arthur story, with Merlin, Lancelot, the sword in the stone, the round table, the quest for the holy grail, and so on.  Those of us who grew up within the English cultural tradition know the story well, and so in writing this White had the challenging job of keeping the story fresh and interesting while also being honest to the tradition.

White most definitely meets the challenge, and this book is a must-read.  I'd put it on my list of great world novels.

A large part of this is because the book is both excellent storytelling and penetrating social commentary.  And at 637 pages, there are a lot of words to do both.

The storytelling starts with Arthur as a child (then known as the Wart) growing up as a less privileged noble -- that is, still with a pretty decent, comfortable life, but nowhere near the top of the social pecking order.  He meets up with Merlin, who becomes his personal tutor.

In White's version of the story, Merlin's magic is that he lives his very long life backwards -- he remembers the future and is heading into the past.  So, Merlin is our connection with modernity and modern thinking, as he remembers living through our current modern times.  The nature of Merlin's magic is left unclear, but he appears to be able to talk with people out of this world who help him perform the magic.  There is the suggestion that his magic is technology from our future (Merlin's deeper past).  Unfortunately, however, Merlin's help is inconsistent because often he is (understandably) confused and cannot remember what has happen versus what will happen.  Merlin is also absent for most of the time that Arthur is king.

But Merlin means well, and does a decent job of raising Arthur to be a caring, well-meaning man.  The driving force of Arthur's rule as king, what he learnt from Merlin, was

that humanity was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly: that good was worth trying: that there was no such thing as original sin (p. 626).

And this is the heart of both the tragedy of the story and also White's thought-provoking social commentary.

Part of the tragedy of the story is that we English readers know that things don't go well for Arthur.  We like Arthur and we recognise a lot of his values as our own.  We want him to win out and transform Medieval society into a just, humane, modern-like society.  We want him to be happy.  And yet, as we read we cannot keep from our mind that White has to follow the traditional story and it would be wrong to rewrite it into a happier ending.  And yet, and yet, we still hope for a happy ending as we read.

So, White's storytelling has us hooked.

But as I say, the book is not merely storytelling, but also social commentary.  White's characters are deep, three-dimensional, complex, imperfect, real people.  There are no real "baddies", and even the bad-ish ones are understandable and have our sympathies.  Likewise, none of the "goodies" are completely good -- they all make mistakes (sometimes pretty serious and awful).  This allows White to raise some deeply challenging questions regarding who we are, how we should act, and what is the best sort of society.

White's social commentary is in turns serious essay-style exposition, biting satire and ironic wit.  He has elements of Jonathan Swift, Rudyard Kipling and P. G. Wodehouse, and is, in places, laugh out loud funny.  (Some of the funnier parts, for me, involved the older generation knights, who could have been Bertie Wooster's mates.)

Some of the social/ethical issues raised included:

(1) How should we, as individuals, balance our obligations to the wider community with our preferences towards our own interests and loved ones?  Arthur exemplifies this challenge.  He deeply loves both Lancelot and Guenever.  But at the same time he is driven by Merlin's Grand Idea and his obligations as king and ruler.  Circumstances drive him to have to make the impossible choice between personal love and impartial justice.

(2) Is Merlin's Grand Idea true?  Arthur lives his life assuming it and working towards a better future.  And yet, circumstantial events result in mistakes, which seem to snowball to crush Arthur's plans.  At the end of his life, Arthur is left wondering if his life's work was a mistake.

(3) On-the-whole decent people can make mistakes so bad that it is hard (impossible?) to forgive them.  To what extent can (and should) victims forgive those who wronged them?  And what happens if these victims go down the path of anger, hatred and revenge?  What sorts of sympathies do they deserve, especially when their anger creates more victims and hurt?

(4) To what extent are we products of the circumstances of our past?  Or to what extent can we break free of our upbringing to recreate ourselves?  The characters often seem to be tied to the circumstances of their pasts, and this is often intergenerational.  Is there some truth to the idea of Original Sin?

(5) What is the nature of love relationships?  Arthur, Lancelot and Guenever have a complex love relationship.  In more modern times they may have even worked well as a committed romantic threesome (I think!).  White informs us that in modern (1950s) times Guenever would have simply run off with Lancelot, leaving Arthur and so avoiding the tragic consequences of the story.

These sorts of thought-provoking questions have no easy answers, and no easy answers are provided in the book.  This means that this book could be an excellent conversation-starter for older teens and up.

Don't use ACE, Abeka or BJU

This article (and the linked 8 min video) does a good job of pointing out how bad the textbooks are from ACE (Accelerated Christian Education), Abeka and BJU (Bob Jones University).

Sadly, these three names pop up often in homeschooling conversations and it seems a lot of homeschoolers use them.

This is from an ACE high school biology book.

And this is from a BJU 8th Grade Social Studies book.

UPDATE 25/6/2018: In case you are wondering what is wrong with raising the idea of the possibility that dinosaurs and men (and presumably women, too!) lived alongside each other, it is worth checking out The Panda's Thumb (browse the archives -- there's heaps there).  This website often has very good articles that carefully look at the reasoning put forward for Young (and Old) Earth Creationism (including the "seems" and "possibly" ideas in the ACE book above), and clearly shows that it is weak to nil.  Given the lack of evidence, it is irresponsible to introduce it as a serious idea in a biology textbook for teenagers.