Britain didn’t start the slave trade but it did end it
This is very relevant to reparations
At the time of writing (2026) the subject of the transatlantic slave trade is high on the list of topics that are at the forefront of political awareness.
Currently there is a call by politicians and activists in several nations that suffered from the effects of slavery for Britain to pay reparations for its role in the slave trade. Britain after all made lots of money out of the trade.
The narrative usually implies that Britain practically invented the slave trade and was uniquely brutal in its execution of the trade. The truth is that slavery has existed almost since the beginning of any form of human society, long before the transatlantic slave trade, and that by its nature it’s often brutal, involving one group of people raiding the territory of another group and capturing and kidnapping some of the inhabitants.
The transatlantic slave trade came to an end when it did very much due to the fact that Britain decided that slavery was morally wrong. The British government passed the Slave Trade Act in 1807 after which Britain actively moved to end the slave trade. This included the patrolling of the seas to intercept slave ships at the cost of many British sailors’ lives and a great cost to the British exchequer.
If you think that you understand things you probably don’t.
A piece of text-based art on the subject of intellectual certainty.
The statement in the work is meant to show the desirability of a degree of scepticism when dealing with any subject that requires a depth of reflection, such as politics or philosophy.
If you think that you understand a concept in politics or philosophy (or many other subjects) the chances are that you’re not taking enough factors into account, which gives you a false sense of clarity.
This is especially true when you encounter a new subject. The first information that you acquire on the subject may seem to make perfect sense, but that may only be because you haven’t yet been exposed to other information which may undermine the original certainty.
There is a well-known metaphor for the acquisition of knowledge which explains what I mean.
Imagine a circle which stands for the total amount of knowledge that a particular person has. The edge of the circle represents the boundary between what the person knows (the inside of the circle) and what the person doesn’t know (the outside of the circle). The person is aware of the boundary and realises that there is some knowledge which is just outside the circle but that is ‘touching’ the circle, meaning that the person is aware that there is some knowledge that is just beyond their current learning. When the person knows very little about something (such as when they are very young or when a subject is new to them) the circle is very small, because there isn’t a great deal of knowledge inside it. As the person acquires knowledge the circle becomes larger. As a result the circumference of the circle becomes larger too, meaning that the person becomes aware that there is more knowledge that is just beyond their current state of learning.
Essentially, the more you know, the more you realise that you don’t know.
but the good news is that when you get a rainbow the rain’s always falling always falls on someone else.
‘You can’t have a rainbow without rain’ is an aphorism of the ‘You can’t have a rose without thorns’ variety.
A problem with it is that due to the optics involved in the creation of rainbows the chances are that the rain isn’t actually falling on the observer, which means that it’s falling on someone else.
When bees create the hexagonal cells in their honeycomb they aren’t aware that they are creating hexagons. The cells in the honeycomb are originally created circular, but the interaction of neighbouring cells makes the walls of the cells move until they fill the gaps between the circular cells and they naturally form hexagons (because each cell is touching six neighbouring cells). The hexagons are not an architectural design feature consciously thought up by the bees, but are a self-emerging feature of the construction method.
Text-based art about anarchy and the rules of spelling
The text in this piece reads “Anarky includes having no rules about spelling”
Under an anarchist system are there any rules about how words should be spelt?
Although anarchism strikes me as a recipe for chaos when applied to most things, I like to entertain the idea that it might work quite well when it comes to spelling, at least in English in England.
Spelling has evolved over centuries and includes multiple imported influences such as Latin and Greek. These imported influences include different rule systems which makes for a complicated network of rules to navigate.
For instance what’s the plural of stadium? Is it stadiums or stadia? Both are acceptable (depending on context to some extent), but why don’t we just simplify it by jettisoning the stadia version and use the general principle that plurals are formed by adding a letter ‘s’ to the end of the single word?
And what about inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation? What about ‘wood’ and ‘would’? Why aren’t they spelt the same? If people were allowed to spell those words the way that they want they’d probably choose to spell them ‘wud’. That’s where anarchy in spelling may actually produce a result that’s the opposite of the chaos that’s often associated with anarchy : spelling would be shaken down so that it’s inconsistencies are filtered out.
“The total absurdity of my political beliefs is proof of my commitment to them.”
This quote illustrates the thinking of a certain type of politically motivated person, especially those who cleve themselves to a cause, that argues that proof of their commitment to their political cause is evident in the very fact that they adhere to the tenets of the cause no matter how incoherent they are.
One of the problems of political commitment is that once a person has committed to a particular political philosophy they become vulnerable to a level of group-think or tribalism that tends to reinforce their views and makes them much more likely to dismiss opposing views.
This approach is very attractive to people who feel the need for a strong identity to reinforce their sense of self or a strong sense of absolutism with no sitting on the fence.
Text-based art featuring the phrase “If you identify as a particular type of person you become a narrower type of person”.
I devised this phrase with contemporary identity politics in mind where in some spheres of life such as sexuality there are a myriad different identities to choose from. My thinking was that as soon as people adopt pre-set identities with which to label themselves they restrict and diminish themselves. Contemporary identities are often seen as being liberating, allowing people to at last proclaim who they really are, but in many ways they are also restricting, allowing people to only operate within the definitions of their identity labels.
The phenomenon doesn’t only apply to contemporary identity politics though: it’s a recurring feature in much of human social engagement. It’s particularly easy to see it in teenagers, who after all are young people who are often desperate to be seen in certain ways so that they can be part of a particular group, with clothes, hairstyles and music often being the signifiers of their chosen group. A teenager (or anyone else) doesn’t wear a particular item of clothing because of its innate aesthetic qualities but because it is the preferred clothing of their chosen group (Of course it’s arguable that some aesthetics are actually generated through this association). Within a group other styles of clothing, hairstyles and music are verboten, so as a result being a member of a group restricts the choices of the member.
A great artist is their own biggest critic: a bad artist is their own biggest fan.
A piece of text art about the attitudes different artists may have about the quality of their work.
An observation about artists attitudes to their own work. Of course it’s not a universally true observation. All I can say is that I’ve come across some averagely talented artists who seem to think that they are in fact pretty damned good and some very talented artists who think that they are in fact pretty inadequate.
Maybe one of the reasons for this is that good artists are more aware of where their work falls short of their intention and are generally more critical of their work, while less good artists may not have the critical facilities to judge their own work: they may even just be intoxicated by the fact that they’ve created anything at all.
Shame on you for being so insufferably smug and self-righteous that you use the phrase “Shame on you!”
I think I first heard the phrase “Shame on you“ when it was chanted on a political demonstration in which I was taking part. My memory tells me that the demonstration may have been an anti-Trump demonstration during his first term in office. The chant was being directed towards the police and was an admonition of the fact that they were protecting this man so that we, the demonstrators, couldn’t get at him. Shame on them indeed.
On previous demonisations one of the standard taunts directed towards the police had been the sarcastic “We’re only doing our job” (chanted as though it was the police themselves who were saying it as a justification of their stance). This coming from demonstrators the majority of whom probably didn’t have jobs.
The phrase “Shame on you” is now one of the go-to phrases for many demonstrators, and in some circles is used as a stock admonition directed at people who hold different opinions. Unfortunately it tells us more about the people who are using the phrase than about the people whom it’s being directed towards.
It’s a phrase that is redolent with the smell of moral superiority. True, for most people morals are (hopefully) very important, and quite a lot of people aspire quite laudably to a state of moral superiority; but true moral superiority involves the virtue of humility. The moral superiority of the person with the “Shame on you” mindset is the moral superiority of the smug, the self-important and the self-righteous
It’s also a phrase that is dismissive of the person to whom it’s directed. Those with the “Shame on you” mindset feel that they don’t have to engage with the arguments of those whom they disagree with because such people are morally wanting and are therefore unworthy of engagement.
The phrase is meant to diminish the person to whom it’s directed but it in fact diminishes the person uttering it.
Science is wrong. An antiscience message (that’s wrong).
Text art about the notion that science isn’t to be believed.
The wording of this piece is “Science is wrong if it thinks that it can topple people’s faith in the irrational”.
Science is by definition the seeking of truth through experimentation and the study of the material world. Using observations gleaned from these studies and experiments theories are propounded that propose an explanation of a nature of the world around us, of how it works and what lies behind its surface manifestation.
Science is at its essence a method of seeking the truth.
By definition scientific methods are the best way to seek explanations for the working of the world and the universe beyond. After all, what other methods are there? Guesswork ? Making things up? Interpreting dreams? Intuition?
People who dispute scientific findings point to erroneous conclusions following scientific investigations as proof of the falability of science. However, false conclusions in science are usually a result of human error in the pursuit of science. For instance a scientific experiment’s methodology may be flawed. An example could be when experiments fail to take all factors into account, possibly because the experimenters are unaware of what all of the factors are (unknown unknowns). Another example could be to do with the personalities of the experimenters themselves, resulting in the experimenters unconsciously devising biased experiments that give the sort of results that they are expecting.
These are not flaws in science though – they are flaws in the pursuit of science, the result of the fact that human beings and their thought processes are flawed.
Fortunately, as part of the scientific method for the pursuit of truth, when flawed scientific theories are proposed other scientists would do other experiments (different experiments) in order to test the theories and to either reinforce or question the conclusions.
Any criticism of science and the scientific method can equally be applied to any other method of the pursuit of truth, so in many respects criticism of science it’s also a criticism of all methods of the pursuit of truth.
People sometimes don’t like the scientific method because they see it as being cold and inhuman. But in fact that’s one of its strengths – it tries to be dispassionate and analytical (although sometimes it’s criticised for notbeing dispassionate and analytical).
For some people the problem with science is that it comes to conclusions that they don’t like very much. Some religious people for example have a problem with the theory of evolution, preferring to believe that humans were created fully formed by a god rather than being the product of endless eons of gradual change.
Some people have a problem with western medicine. This often focuses on the large drug companies that produce medicines, the argument being that the companies are only interested in making huge profits, and that they do this at the physical expense of the patients. Critics see this as science being used for profit and they may then be tempted to turn their backs on it and to embrace alternative medical practice such as homeopathy or herbalism which are seen as being untainted by financial greed (although you may disagree when you consider the tactics and the balance sheets of high street health outlets).
