Review appreciated

re: "On the naughty Stephff" (BP, Life, April 7, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Thank you Dave Kendall for the review of "Farang Affairs 2" by Stephff, aka Stephane Peray. As a long time fan, Stephff's healthy poking of fun at farangs is rich humour, but the political satire skewering sacred Thai cows is way better. It always brightens the day to see his latest on Prachatai or wherever.

But all was not such wholesome good cheer. Mr Kendall's impertinent phrase "the new woke dictatorship" is sadly all too often right. Once upon a time, instead of attending to his lesson, which must have been history or English from the teacher I remember chastising me for being mightily diverted by what he conceded was indeed highly diverting, I was caught reading a novel by Agatha Christie that has subsequently been rechristened as "And Then There Were None", the original title, "Ten Little N*****s", being unpublishable these days. And this last week we read in world news that along with other great all-brow classics, Ms. Christie's entire corpus is being reviewed to "correct" the language that accurately reflects the sexism, racism and other offensiveness that she had absorbed and reflected as normal in her day.

This sort of nonsense run rampant is what we expect of book-banning American Trumpists and like conservative snowflakes terrified that their delicate children will be forever corrupted by exposure to intelligent, honest, challenging literature. And yet it is now those who pretend to be liberal who are intent on destroying the record of the sexism, racism, totalitarianism and other unpleasantness that abounds in the work of Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl, and pretty much everyone before the 1970s simply because they accurately reflected the less developed moral awareness of their times.  As a reminder of how much worse humans were so very short a time ago,  it is much better not to equate being woke with the snowflake illiberalism of authoritarians intent on opposing the threat of more honest history or improved respect for others. It is much better to keep intact, for example, the black and white record of Winston Churchill's ugly racism, and even Aristotle's certainty of the inferiority of women, the naturalness of slavery, and, albeit nowhere near as bad as Plato, the conviction that farmers and labourers were unfit to be allowed a say in politics. (Aristotle's "Politics" and Plato's Republic" are not for the faint of heart.)

If the latest fulminations of the self-esteeming big wigs of the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party ("UTN leader vows to drive out ‘nation haters’" BP, April 8) now grossly misrepresenting what it is to be a Thai patriot are anything to go by, those who colluded in or cheered on the latest coup against the Thai people's nation have a mindset solidly back before 500 BC, apparently having learned nothing of worth even from the Buddha, whose "Kalama Sutta" they presumably want cast into the flames due to its blunt dismissal of tradition and status as authority to be revered regarding any alleged truth. 

But I'm sure that Stephff can do the UTN authoritarians more justice than me. I look forward to his take on them. 

 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 April 15, 2023, under the title "Review appreciated" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2550094/unnecessary-directive

re: "A.I. Can’t Write My Cat Story Because It Hasn’t Felt What I Feel"

re: "A.I. Can’t Write My Cat Story Because It Hasn’t Felt What I Feel" (The New York Times, March 26, 2023)

The human author perhaps forgets that he is, like all other biological creations, also a machine. The synapses in his brain that generate not only thoughts but also feelings are, so far as we know, albeit only vaguely understanding, work much the same as the switches in the processing unit of an AI. 

At the moment, we biological machines still have the edge. But it took nature 3.5 billion years of fiddling to create us, and we really haven't improved much for at least the last 12,000 years. 

AI in contrast, has only existed for decades, and is evolving at an ever increasing clip. It would seem rash to predict with any simulated or real (Are they different? How can we tell?) confidence what AI might not be capable of reproducing in the next five years, let alone 10 or more. 

But even if it can't feel, what is to stop AI shortly writing a different unique story about a cat that is as good as a cat story generated by the strictly physical processes occurring in David Means' brain? What Chat GPT has already produced in abundance shows that feeling is arguably not a prerequisite for at least some level of artistic merit. 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/26/opinion/ai-art-fiction.html#commentsContainer&permid=124008374:124008374

re: "How to Destroy Truth"

re: "How to Destroy Truth"  (The New York Times, July 1, 2021)

Time to get back to the classics that founded Western civilization before the despotic Middle Eastern invasion of Christianity. What American schools, along with those of every other nation, need is more classes in Homer supplemented by Plato.

And the other shining fruits of thousands of years of thinking and story telling. But start with Homer and Plato: the best antidotes to Bible thumping bigotry in all its myriad forms.
 

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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/2021/07/01/opinion/patriotism-misinformation.html#commentsContainer&permid=113490678:113490678

re: "Stephen Fry Would Like to Remind You That You Have No Free Will"

re: "Stephen Fry Would Like to Remind You That You Have No Free Will"  (The New York Times, May 3, 2021)

 
That was fun, what, as Bertie might say, engendering a Jeevesian rejoinder on the soundness of Spinoza.

The free will bit is interesting. The very notion is problematic; to believe that our choices are free in the way that free will advocates want is to directly deny science.

Science gives me my smartphone. Science gives me Google search, and their choices are so often so brilliantly spot on that faith in science is the only sensible choice. That means that free will is not free.

I think its the same sheer terror that confronted the establishment when Copernicus and mates proved that the Earth was not the centre of the universe 500 years ago, the same sheer terror that establishment felt when Darwin proved 150 years ago that humans were nothing specially ordained by any goddess or even by mother nature.

The exposure of the illusion of free will as a cultural tale founded on mindless evolution need distress us no more than the reality of our position in the universe and among the living on Earth. It just allows a healthier insight into our emotions and moral sensibilities. Could that be a bad thing, however scary for the fake old certitudes?
 

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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/interactive/2021/05/03/magazine/stephen-fry-interview.html#commentsContainer&permid=112689278:112689278

  

re: "A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies"

re: "A Better Way to Think About Conspiracies" (The New York Times, March 2, 2021)

 
George Orwell has already shown us what a reality czar does. Winston worked for that aspect of the Trinity that was (is?) Big Brother. He is called the Ministry of Truth.
 

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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/2021/03/02/opinion/misinformation-conspiracy-theories.html#commentsContainer&permid=111833337:111833337

  

Orwelling Orwell

re: "How ‘Orwellian’ Became an All-Purpose Insult" (The New York Times, January 13, 2021)

 
It is a superb irony, positively Orwellian, that those whose catch cry was "Stop the steal" should be using "Orwellian" to demonize all three branches of the US government, the legislative, the executive and even the judicial, all of whom agreed that a majority of Americans in a well-run election voted their free choice for president on November 3, 2020. I'd always thought that as governments go, that of the US, especially its judicial branch, was about as unOrwellian, on my understanding from close readings of Orwell over several decades, as any ever has been. But I can't dispute that Orwellianism is thriving in the US of A these days.

Other terms recently seen thrown about with with similar intent are "leftist" and "communist." This despite the fact that it's hard to think of any group more decidedly capitalist than the likes of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Amazon. I would have thought them eager devotees of unfettered capitalism, busily making money from free markets.

But when the great faker himself castigates, absent any substantiation or even explanation, as "fake news" the entire set of news media that worry about accuracy and balance in reporting the news, the standard is set. If thinking that such beloved standards need to be smashed makes me a radical leftist, I guess I'm guilty, despite having always thought myself a conservative who respects long fought for standards of truth and honesty.

Do such conservative values also make me Orwellian?
 

_______________________________

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

It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/books/orwellian-1984.html#commentsContainer&permid=111093123:111093123

  

Doubleplusgood?

re: "Orwellian Thailand" (PostBag, June 20)

Dear editor,

In reply to Felix Qui's "Orwellian Thailand" (PostBag, June 20), one must also wonder whether the PM general, faithfully backed by his ever dutiful Ministry of Truth, will next have the honest Squealer explain that they really hate the apples and milk which they grudgingly award themselves out of a purely selfless desire to better serve the slightly less equally equal?

After all, if he won the post of PM by an overwhelming majority following an election, everything must be as authoritatively democratic as it is incorruptibly legal, so all entirely doubleplusgood, 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 June 22, 2019, under the title "Doubleplusgood?" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1699744/doubleplusgood-
  

Orwellian Thailand

re: "Climate of fear must end" (Editorial, June 19)

Dear editor,

His zealously loyal fans, having perhaps taken too much to heart the PM general's recent endorsement of Animal Farm, have apparently also been studying Orwell's even more famous 1984. How else to explain their efforts to refashion Thailand's traditional institutions into the awesome tools of their very own Ministry of Love?

 Felix Qui

_______________________________

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 June 20, 2019, under the title "Orwellian Thailand" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1698368/orwellian-thailand
  

When pigs take over

re: "Activists face chilling threat" (Editorial, June 5)

Dear editor,

The latest violence against human rights workers is but another symptom of the "peace" and "reconciliation" promised by the Orwell-loving Napoleon when he overthrew democracy to save it. The dictator has since exemplified the same use of intolerant force to "solve" his problems, which example from on high is what violence against human rights activists follows.

But after five years, could anything else be expected from such incredibly "good" selfless pigs as Napoleon and his growing horde backed up by his loyal dogs rewarded with milk and apples stolen from the hardworking Benjamin, Boxer, Clover, hens and other actual producers of the nation downtrodden by the pigs who make up the law to selflessly serve themselves as they collaterally grow ever fatter?

 Felix Qui

_______________________________

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 June 6, 2019, under the title "When pigs take over" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1690136/defence-off-limits-
  

Immoral intrusion

re: "The state has no business in people's sexual lives" (Opinion, May 4)

Dear editor,

Ploenpote Atthakor lucidly sets out why the state has no business in people's sex lives, although it is worth adding, as I am sure she would agree, that this is true except to prevent non-consenting harm to others, which is what justifies laws against rape and the abuse of minors.

Exactly the same arguments and similar facts entail that the state has no business interfering in any citizen's personal affairs except to protect others from direct harm. This is John Stuart Mill's famous harm principle in the opening chapter of "On Liberty" (1859), a moral principle that the rule of law too often fails to respect. This moral principle is why it is wrong to criminalize sex toys, wrong to ban the sale or use of drugs such as alcohol, yaa baa and marijuana, wrong to punish heterodox religious beliefs, wrong to suppress the free expression of deeply offensive and unpopular opinions that are not incitements to harm others, and wrong to stop adults enjoying pornography, and so on.

Of course, state interference in the private lives of citizens is a great boon to corruption, as the US experiment with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s proved every bit as well as did the earlier Chinese experiment with banning opium, and the more recent Thai experience with banning prostitution. With such profits to be made by criminalizing personal decisions that do not harm others, it is understandable why the corrupt favour such intrusive laws that treat most citizens as the property of others or of the state.

We might not like some people's personal decisions, we might even think them, with good reason, to be both extremely foolish and deeply immoral, but that cannot justify the state intruding into those decisions with the force of law to force the prejudices of some, even a large majority, on all. The state's role is to enable free citizens to live their lives as they see fit, not to turn some into the tools or playthings for the prejudices of others.

 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 May 5, 2019, under the title "Immoral intrusion" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1672168/poisonous-billionaires
  

Uncivil tales

re: "Future Forward's Piyabutr denies charges" (BP, April 17)

Dear editor,

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre" of blatant persecution of the elect, at least the regime of politicians ruling unelected have given up the hollow pretence that it was to bring reconciliation that they overthrew the supreme legal foundation of Thailand as a democracy with a constitutional monarchy. The post-election moves show the divides nurtured in the festering dark of the past five years to be deeper than ever.

There is, however, a silver lining seen in Future Forward's stunning success in the election. This growing glimmer of happiness is that a large number of Thais, the better informed, more critically aware, more reform minded, likely also the younger and less tolerant of the traditional corruptions, no longer believe the tales spread to justify uncivil control over the Thai people, which hobbling has for decades held the nation back economically, socially, politically and morally.

It is hard to avoid the suspicion that it is these fault lines exposed by Future Forward's popularity that has led to the amazing accusations being levelled against those people judged good by the Thai electorate.

The events unfolding make us wonder with Yeats, writing one hundred years ago:
 "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 
  Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

 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 April 19, 2019, under the title "Uncivil tales" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1663724/uncivil-tales

References

• Yeats, W. B. (1933). Sailing to Byzantium. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43291/sailing-to-byzantium
   
• Yeats, W. B. (1933). The Second Coming. Retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming