Dogged pursuit

re: "Dogs show signs of mourning after loss of canine companions" (BP, February 25, 2022)

Dear editor,

Since we humans share a common ancestor with modern dogs only some 60 million or so years ago, it is not surprising that we today share about 84% of our DNA. Nor should it surprise that such a relatively close relationship presents in shared emotional and behavioural traits.  It was, accordingly, a joy to see the Bangkok Post put "Dogs show signs of mourning after loss of canine companions" (Feb. 25) on the front page of the digital edition.

As usual, it is scientific research that best helps us to generate true understanding of the material world, an understanding always subject to the correction of our fallible efforts. In this case, some solid support for the common anecdotal belief that like ourselves and many other mammals, dogs display grief following the death of fellow creature they cared about. Less happily, the dogs with whom we have been evolving more mutually these past 30,000 or so years also share the common human tendency of indifference, when not outright intolerance, to the death or suffering of those not in their own pack.

It took until about 500 years ago for it to really lift off, but blind evolution has endowed our species with the set of tools needed to develop science as a means to reliable understanding of reality, including ourselves. That same mindless evolution has also given us the tools to develop more complex moral understanding than any dog aspires to. Our science is fallible, as the constant replacement of one theory with another attests: for example, Newton by Einstein; atoms by electrons, protons and neutrons, and those in turn by quarks. Our moral insights are equally fallible and also always a work in progress, subject to review and revision every bit as much as physics, chemistry and biology.

Despite their pretensions to infallibility, it is a touch naive, wilfully ignorant in fact, to think that ancient texts or mystical beliefs better understood physics than does modern science. It is equally naive and wilfully reckless to think that sacred texts recording the insights of our remote human ancestors are more reliable guides to good behaviour than the efforts of modern thinkers in the moral and political realms. We can and should be better scientists than our pet dogs; we can and should also be better able to temper our natural behaviour than the ructions of injustice in Ukraine, Myanmar, the US and everywhere else (as with knowledge, there is always room for improvement) suggest. Progress in science is mainly slow slogging to make small improvements; it is also real. Moral and political progress is equally challenging for humans; it is also real, and in the face of regressive political and social forces, the right choice, the good choice, is surely doggedness.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 26, 2022, under the title "Dogged pursuit" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2270351/toxic-culture

Thailand 1984

re: "Govt mulls internet gateway to fight crime" (BP, February 20, 2022)

Dear editor,

Imagine  your worst nightmare being duly elected prime minister of Thailand, or a worse nightmare unduly making himself Thailand's next dictator prime minister. If you are a fan of Prayut, think Thaksin or proxy as PM. If you are a Move Forward fan, think Thaksin or Prayut 2.0. Would you trust that PM and his or her government with control over a single internet gateway?

Naturally, it would only be used to block criminal activity, "to better control the flow of illegal information online to improve the safety of internet users", as Digital Economy and Society (DES) Minister Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn nobly reassures. It would, happily, be up to the ruling PM and his loyal government to determine what constitutes "illegal information". What could possibly go wrong?

The Thai people will have no more say in dictating what is legal or illegal than justice has today in forming Thai law and its execution to protect those same officially untrustworthy Thai people from the dire threat of understanding Thai affairs so well as to have opinions of well-informed worth, or of sharing those varied opinions on which good people, like those deeming themselves good, often do so reasonably differ.

Things like a single internet gateway and strict laws against the peaceful expression of ideas are obviously needed to protect the Thai people from themselves, lest entrenched social mores evolve towards decency. The reigning Thai government's unremitting efforts to bring to fruition Thailand v.1984 are to be applauded.  As so much else is in the land to which happiness is forever being bountifully returned, such selflessness is almost unspeakable.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on MonthDate, 2022, under the title "Thailand 1984" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2267971/house-of-cards

Road to Reform

re: "Where have the media reformers gone?" (BP, Opinion, February 18, 2022)

Dear editor,

In brief, Thitinan Pongsudhirak's too long overdue opinion piece "Where have the media reformers gone?" (Bangkok Post, February 18), in which he incisively dissects the hyper-hyped promises of mythic reform of all things traditionally rotten, could be succinctly summarized by observing that the road map to 1984 is rolling along as plotted long before May 22, 2014.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 20, 2022, under the title "Road to Reform" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2266999/road-to-reform

Demon drink

re: "Man hacked to death by drunk friend" (BP, February 7, 2022)

Dear editor,

Alcohol is such a nice drug, unlike those wicked narcotic drugs that drop users into blissed out stupor. It is fitting that the dealers of this particularly nasty drug of addiction are so richly rewarded by society with wealth and acclaim.

Bearing in mind the blunt assessments reported in such research as: "The Australian drug harms ranking study" (2019, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 33(7)); and in the earlier "Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis" published in The Lancet (2010, 376(9752)), it is nothing new to learn that alcohol is again causally implicated in a gory killing among friends or relatives.

Fights, domestic abuse of spouse and children, rape, murderously reckless driving (think Thai national holiday), and so on have long been known as common symptoms of alcohol use, whether moonshine or champagne. Alcohol is not the most harmful drug to users, with heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine beating it by a little, but  when it comes to drug-harms to others in society, alcohol is far and away the winner. As the authors of the 2019 paper conclude: "Overall, alcohol was the most harmful drug when harm to users and harm to others was combined." And it is surely only harm to others that justifies the state interfering in personal behaviour, isn't it?

It makes you wonder what just laws that regulated drugs according to the evidence would be like.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 16, 2022, under the title "Demon drink" at URL

Don't believe all you read

re: "Don't believe all you read" (BP, Editorial, February 9, 2022)

Dear editor,

The Bangkok Post accurately outlines Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's failures to respect basic principles of truth seeking and speaking in his reckless eagerness to point gnarled fingers when he "accused the demonstration school of Thammasat University of distorting teachings about Thailand's history and monarchy."

But the failure is a tad more profound. The students and teachers at Thammasat demonstration school clearly understand the importance of critical review of current beliefs in protecting us from retaining false beliefs for no better reason than that we inherited those beliefs from others, that, in other words, we mindlessly repeated to ourselves and to others what we uncritically accepted without considering whether the inherited belief was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is a sure path to sincere belief in fake claims.

Honest people who value truth, who do not wish to propagate fake beliefs, which beliefs might in some cases have been around for generations, insist on a healthy discussion that considers other possibilities. This is why each generation's historians must revisit the cherished beliefs of past generations to assess and to reassess in order to establish anew, or not, the worth of some view of history, none of which is true merely because piously believed by a majority for some generations. If such discussion essential to honesty is not occurring, then the national beliefs about history, even if in fact true, are intellectually and morally in the same category as any fake claim plucked eagerly from social media merely because it fits the holders' prejudices. Such beliefs, even those as sincerely held as the certainties of the most zealous anti-vaxxer or flat-Earther diligently immunizing themselves against reason and evidence, are necessarily worthless.

Unless intellectual and moral honesty are deemed by unjust law and deluded social mores to be bad, Thammasat demonstration school, following the sound example of historians who actively review Thai history and society to better avoid mindlessly repeating fake claims, is entirely in the right.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 13, 2022, under the title "Don't believe all you read" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2263391/drug-war-reckoning

re: "McConnell Denounces R.N.C. Censure of Jan. 6 Panel Members"

re: "McConnell Denounces R.N.C. Censure of Jan. 6 Panel Members" (The New York Times, February 8, 2022)

One suspects that the Democrats are hoping that the Republican Party continues to put faith-based loyalty to Donald Trump above reason, reality, and moral decency.

Having now enshrined violent protest to overthrow an election as "legitimate political discourse," it's hard to see how much lower they can take their party.

 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/politics/republicans-censure-mcconnell.html#commentsContainer&permid=116817698:116817698

re: "G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’"

re: "G.O.P. Declares Jan. 6 Attack ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’" (The New York Times, February 5, 2022)

It's cute that the Republican Party have now officially given their stamp of approval to mob riots that are violent, destructive and bent on mayhem, euphemistically labelling them ‘Legitimate Political Discourse.’

Will these same Republicans now start applauding all the violence and other excitement some have associated with the Black Lives Matter and other expressions of ‘Legitimate Political Discourse’?

But I still think that attempting to overthrew an election by deliberately attacking government offices is a tad more serious than anything any other protest group has done in recent years.

The Republicans have now officially set an extremely low bar for what they will accept in protests by those who are displeased with any decision made by the US people.

Way to go, violently disordered and unlawful Republicans!

 

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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/us/politics/republicans-jan-6-cheney-censure.html#commentsContainer&permid=116758589:116758589

Moral maze

re: "Shaming the lawbreakers" (BP, January 30, 2022)

Dear editor,

The great weakness with the theory that shaming lawbreakers might work is that the Thai people too faithfully follow the example set from on high. There is, first, the illustrious example of the most happy story of the righteous Capt. Thamanat Prompow, who has been not so much shamed as seriously honoured; but that elevating story of a man unquestionably great in the Thai way is merely a follow-up detail in the greater example set by his own moral exemplars.

When those who commit, collude in, and enable coups against the Thai nation fail to show any decent shame whatsoever for their high and mighty deeds against the Thai people's popular form of democratic government, how could it be expected that anyone will feel deterred by shame for any lesser acts legally deemed crimes?

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 5, 2022, under the title "Moral maze" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2259215/maximum-overload

Don't rely on karma

re: "Do not mistake ritual for repentance" (BP, Opinion, January 31, 2022)

Dear editor,

Whilst true as Paritta Wangkiat writes that "taking a genuine responsibility for our actions would be a good way to start atoning," it is false that "at the end of the day, we all, Pol L/C Norawich and his ilk included, will pay for our sins in one way or another." And that falsehood is a dangerous one.

the blunt reality is that unless it be done here on Earth by their fellow human beings, justice will not be done. There are no gods handing down infallibly impartial judgements, with special deals for those who ruthlessly impose their gods' will on others or raise gorgeous temples, cathedrals, or mosques in their names. And there is no karmic accounting department allocating rewards and punishments in the rebirth business, with special deals for those who donate generously, or enter the monkhood, or pay for a proxy to do so. Unless their fellow humans insist on justice in the here and now, many bad people will prosper mightily, and will go to death undeservedly rich, at ease, and respected by all.  

History, when such truth speaking is not criminalized, might in some cases later discover the truth about them and reassess their moral and other worth, as we see in the reevaluation of many once commemorated in statues that have rightly been ditched or removed to museums of the less than saintly. However, since the perpetrators memorialized in stone, bronze, poetry, ceilings, or whatever no longer exist, such posthumous correction of myths exacts no justice on those who prospered mightily by collaterally harming others during their lives.

At best, an improved historical awareness allows some material justice to be done among the generations now living. Their children cannot be guilty of the sins of the mother or father. However, if a fortune was, for example, acquired unjustly, such as by conquest or corruption, then that unjust initial acquisition, like the fruits of the harms inflicted on those from whom it was unjustly taken, does continue to affect later generations, and for those very real present consequences of past injustice, reparations can and should be made, especially by a due redistribution of wealth, preferably by voluntary acts of those holding it, to better serve distributive justice in the here and now by correcting the baleful influences of historical wrongs. This is why some narrowly defined forms of affirmative action can also be just.

It is also held by those who value truth seeking and speaking that the impartial quest for right understanding of history and its figures is a good thing in itself, a value that, while often unkind to myth, comports perfectly with justice as with truth.

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on February 3, 2022, under the title "Don't rely on karma" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2257871/dont-rely-on-karma