Finland was recently voted (or rated, rather) best country in the world to live in by Newsweek. Countries were ranked according to a number of criteria, with the specific aim of establishing the best place to be born into at the present time. Finland emerged on top, the article citing factors such as stability, equality and education as the main causes. The national reaction to all this was bizarre, one which in all its perplexing self-vilification speaks more about our nations true character than any comparative study ever could.
You would expect the populace to rise up in red-faced rabble only when their national pride is insulted. Not us though. We as a nation react to news of success like a gothic teenager to a surprise party with pointy hats and a Pinata (ingratitude and outspoken annoyance, that is). Ours is not a culture of compliments or commendation, it is perhaps at best one of mild, introverted self-satisfaction over achieving something while not making much of a fuss about it. Those with money don't wave it around and those with something clever or intelligent to say usually keep it to themselves. If for no other reason, then because showing one's superiority over others is tantamount to social suicide.
This all leads up to the fact that we are genetically not programmed to receiving any kind of veneration, as is made evident from these examples out of the many similar responses to our biggest newspapers initial article about the whole issue:
"This is stupid idealism at its best. I know many who would gladly trade some political stability for just a bit more sunshine"
"When closely examining the article, it's easy to notice that it's mostly economic factors which shine through, meaning that capitalism is the only thing that is REALLY doing well in Finland." (Complete and utter bullshit, FYI)
"Finland is the best country in the world. All we are missing is love, happiness, warmth, soulfulness, originality, color, creativity, emotional intelligence and excitement. Newsweek is a shitty publication"
There might even be some truth in some of these statements, it's the outright rejection if the idea that we could amount to anything that surprises me. Now, its easy to use the anonymity of the internet to be retarded, but one did sense that the media itself was not all that ready to accept the verdict. The shit finally hit the fan when it became apparent that due to an initial calculation error, scores had to be slightly altered on the Newsweek web page. Due to this small correction, we gained a narrow win over Switzerland. (Interesting note: This clerical error, as far as I've read, went quite unreported in any other country except ours).
This probably explainable and harmless incident became a much bigger story than the original article, with allegations of cover-ups and incompetence on the part of Newsweek being thrown around in all the big newspapers. It finally seemed we got off the hook. No-one seemed to be keen to postulate why on earth Newsweek would alter the results to favor us, all that mattered was that we could once again commiserate.
All the complainers clearly have never had to deal with scumbag landlords of rat-infested apartments in Amsterdam, having your favorite shop closed by the Mafia in Milan or witness a 5 year old covered in filth scrounging for food in the middle of the street in New Delhi. It does kind of anger me to see people so unappreciative of what they have, but one must admit it is part of human nature. I know Finland is far from perfect and one must never become complacent with the status quo, but never being happy for what you have means never being satisfied with anything. Being "the best country in the world to live in" does NOT mean we should all automatically be happy and successful. It means anyone has the potential to become happy and successful, regardless of your social or economic background. And that, my fellow miserable fucks, is the best (and at times, admittedly, only) good thing about Finland.
perjantai 20. elokuuta 2010
torstai 4. helmikuuta 2010
Bulgaria WTF
Starting confusingly with a sidenote. I wonder if Finland is by average more racist than other countries?. I mean yeah, we have our old people ("Ryssä on ryssä vaikka voissa paistais", as my otherwise genuinely sweet grandma would put it) and our uneducated lower classes who are projecting their failures in life onto anyone who is vying the same opportunities they themselves have squandered.
It's more of a general consensus thing, it's weird how prevalent anti-immigrant sentiment is in our mainstream culture. But that's not really what I want to talk about, because blogging about racism in its dictionary definition is about as useful trying to argue against the digitalization of movies to an inhabitant of Plato's cave. The jist of this painfully awkward metaphor is that no victories in the battle against xenophobia are won by pretentious columnists, narrow-minded journalists or know-it-all bloggers sitting on a pedestal as tall as the Dubai tower claiming moral superiority over "lesser beings".
Racism is conquered gradually and over time. Those of us smart enough not to cling onto our biological instincts of fearing that what is different are also burdened with the responsibility of showing others the way. Not by hostility , snubbiness and holier-than-thou attitudes, but by empathy and understanding towards the roots of where this ignorance comes from.
Anyway, to my real point of order. All of you have surely heard about the exodus of bulgarians recently flocking over our borders and requesting asylum. This particularly useful legal status entitles them to a roof over their heads, food and a small government handout to cover their basic needs. The bureaucratic idiocy of all this comes from the fact that they are allowed to seek asylum and entitled to all the benefits, but being E.U citizens are automatically denied permanent residence until their paperwork clears (approx. 2 months). They all know this of course, and are here pretty much exclusively for the benefits, this even being the second or third trip for some. Naturally, newspaper message boards are filled with angry, upright citizens voicing their disgust over these leeches, thieves and social bums coming to exploit the welfare state for which they fought tooth and nail for. Because I am trying to subscribe to the mentality put forward in the previous paragraph, I shall refrain from referring to these message board cretins as unevolved darwinian nightmares.
Let me put forward a hypothesis. Let's say you lived in a really shitty country where for one reason or another, you were pretty much hated by everyone around you except your own people. Now imagine someone coming up to you and going "Hey, hows this for an idea. You get a one way plane ticket to this great holiday spot. Its not very luxurious and the food is so-so but the great thing is, IT'S TOTALLY FREE! And thats not all! They also give you spending money on top of it, which you can save and bring back with you. Did I mention that after a couple of months these people also pay for you to get back to Bulgaria, rich and well-fed?".
I don't know about you, but the first thought that would cross my mind would not be the ethical dilemma of where this money is coming from. And even if it would, there is one facet of Bulgarian gypsy culture which collides quite sharply with the moral upbring you and I have received, and that is the concept of property. Their view is that if someone is stupid enough to let something be taken away from them, they can only blame themselves for it. As the adage goes, a fool and his money are soon to part ways.
So don't blame them. Theyre merely exploiting a loophole which a lot f us would be doing as well if our lives weren't so fucking cushy and free of toil. Blame the inefficient bureaucracy (one mans deportation papers took a good 2 weeks to get from the immigration bureau to our center) and our incompetent lawmakers who are basically saying "You can't stay here permanently, but let our government spend loads of money on you while we take a couple of months to fill out some forms".
It's more of a general consensus thing, it's weird how prevalent anti-immigrant sentiment is in our mainstream culture. But that's not really what I want to talk about, because blogging about racism in its dictionary definition is about as useful trying to argue against the digitalization of movies to an inhabitant of Plato's cave. The jist of this painfully awkward metaphor is that no victories in the battle against xenophobia are won by pretentious columnists, narrow-minded journalists or know-it-all bloggers sitting on a pedestal as tall as the Dubai tower claiming moral superiority over "lesser beings".
Racism is conquered gradually and over time. Those of us smart enough not to cling onto our biological instincts of fearing that what is different are also burdened with the responsibility of showing others the way. Not by hostility , snubbiness and holier-than-thou attitudes, but by empathy and understanding towards the roots of where this ignorance comes from.
Anyway, to my real point of order. All of you have surely heard about the exodus of bulgarians recently flocking over our borders and requesting asylum. This particularly useful legal status entitles them to a roof over their heads, food and a small government handout to cover their basic needs. The bureaucratic idiocy of all this comes from the fact that they are allowed to seek asylum and entitled to all the benefits, but being E.U citizens are automatically denied permanent residence until their paperwork clears (approx. 2 months). They all know this of course, and are here pretty much exclusively for the benefits, this even being the second or third trip for some. Naturally, newspaper message boards are filled with angry, upright citizens voicing their disgust over these leeches, thieves and social bums coming to exploit the welfare state for which they fought tooth and nail for. Because I am trying to subscribe to the mentality put forward in the previous paragraph, I shall refrain from referring to these message board cretins as unevolved darwinian nightmares.
Let me put forward a hypothesis. Let's say you lived in a really shitty country where for one reason or another, you were pretty much hated by everyone around you except your own people. Now imagine someone coming up to you and going "Hey, hows this for an idea. You get a one way plane ticket to this great holiday spot. Its not very luxurious and the food is so-so but the great thing is, IT'S TOTALLY FREE! And thats not all! They also give you spending money on top of it, which you can save and bring back with you. Did I mention that after a couple of months these people also pay for you to get back to Bulgaria, rich and well-fed?".
I don't know about you, but the first thought that would cross my mind would not be the ethical dilemma of where this money is coming from. And even if it would, there is one facet of Bulgarian gypsy culture which collides quite sharply with the moral upbring you and I have received, and that is the concept of property. Their view is that if someone is stupid enough to let something be taken away from them, they can only blame themselves for it. As the adage goes, a fool and his money are soon to part ways.
So don't blame them. Theyre merely exploiting a loophole which a lot f us would be doing as well if our lives weren't so fucking cushy and free of toil. Blame the inefficient bureaucracy (one mans deportation papers took a good 2 weeks to get from the immigration bureau to our center) and our incompetent lawmakers who are basically saying "You can't stay here permanently, but let our government spend loads of money on you while we take a couple of months to fill out some forms".
tiistai 22. joulukuuta 2009
The Pig Question: or How Some Clever P.R and Partisan Journalism Shifted Public Opinion
Heated coffeetable talk for the past few weeks has been dominated by the subject of pigs. A few weeks ago, animal rights group Oikeutta Eläimille published videos filmed at Finnish pig farms, detailing the allegedly gross abuse of pigs on factory farms. The little Napoleon's were forced to live in abhorrently small pens, being unable to turn around and occasionally chewing each others tails (do pigs have tails?) off out of irritation. Pretty gruesome, we all agree. But nevertheless, quite standard stuff.
I have long ago resigned to the fact that people intentionally fool themselves to thinking their moral code holds water when exposed to completely objective and rational criticism. Maybe it's not animal cruelty because they're not the ones carrying it out. Maybe it's more justified than other forms of animal cruelty because the ultimate result of it is not wanton suffering but nourishment. I don't know and in any case am not here to debate omnivorous moral hypocrisy.
When I said the videos were all standard stuff, I mean that it's all been done before. There is plenty of footage from farms detailing animal abuse. The strike of genious from the part of Oikeutta Eläimille was to realize just that, and to understand that more than shooting a movie and putting it on Youtube needs to be done to really get a point across. They have made a damn good job of establishing a constant presence in the media and presenting themselves in a way which challenges the average persons view of animal activists.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Most people have a highly misconstrued view of the type of person who vocally campaigns for animal rights. They are seen as snotty upper middle-class kids raised in a little bubble who have nothing better to do than push their black & white world view on respectable citizens. The average persons view of an "animal activist" has pretty much ensured that their message would go unheeded, until now. The group has launched Sikatehtaat, a site with expert opinions from reporters, philosophers and doctors as well as your less credible musicians, artists and NGO hippies. Judging by the comments on the Helsingin Sanomat discussion board, (and if hs.fi isn't the true echo of the voice of the sheepish Finn, I don't know what is) public opinion has indeed shifted to a more favorable view of activism. Stunts such as interrupting a parliament session are another part of this cleverly woven web of pr, and one can only applaud the ability of a grassroots organization finally adopting t the same tactics of media manipulation that are standard practice in politics and business. But there is one more key ingredient to the success of Oikeutta Eläimille, one that which is both a blessing and a curse in mainstream Finnish media.
I hate to say this, especially since I am usually the first one to lament about the decline of journalistic objectivism, but one can't help but feel a tiny pang of glee when bias once for leans the towards a just cause, even if inadvertently. I've come to the conclusion that Hesari most definately carries a strong anti-Keskusta agenda. Our comedically corrupt Agrarian Party does seem to be more than others on the receiving end of political exposé's, a misplaced pile of planks and the media kerfuffle that ensued coming immediately to mind. The media's witchunt may be morally questionable, but not nearly as much as the bulvanic nature of the party's fund gathering techniques or the magnetically faulty moral compass which guides the opinions of among others, minister of agriculture Sirkka-Liisa Anttila. God I hate her.
So some good has been done, and we all should be glad for that. Even meat eaters seem to be waking up the fact that while there may be some cultural, if not logical justification to their lifestyle, the conditions where their food has been brought up contradicts every possible aspect of human decency. We can only hope that some permanent change has been instigated. It's utopistic to think that meat eating is going to disappear anytime soon (it will eventually, mark my words), but some moral soul searching seems to have taken place on a wider scale. Merry Christmas.
I have long ago resigned to the fact that people intentionally fool themselves to thinking their moral code holds water when exposed to completely objective and rational criticism. Maybe it's not animal cruelty because they're not the ones carrying it out. Maybe it's more justified than other forms of animal cruelty because the ultimate result of it is not wanton suffering but nourishment. I don't know and in any case am not here to debate omnivorous moral hypocrisy.
When I said the videos were all standard stuff, I mean that it's all been done before. There is plenty of footage from farms detailing animal abuse. The strike of genious from the part of Oikeutta Eläimille was to realize just that, and to understand that more than shooting a movie and putting it on Youtube needs to be done to really get a point across. They have made a damn good job of establishing a constant presence in the media and presenting themselves in a way which challenges the average persons view of animal activists.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Most people have a highly misconstrued view of the type of person who vocally campaigns for animal rights. They are seen as snotty upper middle-class kids raised in a little bubble who have nothing better to do than push their black & white world view on respectable citizens. The average persons view of an "animal activist" has pretty much ensured that their message would go unheeded, until now. The group has launched Sikatehtaat, a site with expert opinions from reporters, philosophers and doctors as well as your less credible musicians, artists and NGO hippies. Judging by the comments on the Helsingin Sanomat discussion board, (and if hs.fi isn't the true echo of the voice of the sheepish Finn, I don't know what is) public opinion has indeed shifted to a more favorable view of activism. Stunts such as interrupting a parliament session are another part of this cleverly woven web of pr, and one can only applaud the ability of a grassroots organization finally adopting t the same tactics of media manipulation that are standard practice in politics and business. But there is one more key ingredient to the success of Oikeutta Eläimille, one that which is both a blessing and a curse in mainstream Finnish media.
I hate to say this, especially since I am usually the first one to lament about the decline of journalistic objectivism, but one can't help but feel a tiny pang of glee when bias once for leans the towards a just cause, even if inadvertently. I've come to the conclusion that Hesari most definately carries a strong anti-Keskusta agenda. Our comedically corrupt Agrarian Party does seem to be more than others on the receiving end of political exposé's, a misplaced pile of planks and the media kerfuffle that ensued coming immediately to mind. The media's witchunt may be morally questionable, but not nearly as much as the bulvanic nature of the party's fund gathering techniques or the magnetically faulty moral compass which guides the opinions of among others, minister of agriculture Sirkka-Liisa Anttila. God I hate her.
So some good has been done, and we all should be glad for that. Even meat eaters seem to be waking up the fact that while there may be some cultural, if not logical justification to their lifestyle, the conditions where their food has been brought up contradicts every possible aspect of human decency. We can only hope that some permanent change has been instigated. It's utopistic to think that meat eating is going to disappear anytime soon (it will eventually, mark my words), but some moral soul searching seems to have taken place on a wider scale. Merry Christmas.
maanantai 21. joulukuuta 2009
Someone please take out Rupert Murdoch
While I decided that the tone of this blog would be very tongue-in-cheek, I really have to get a few things off my chest. I, like many others spend a lot of my day mindlessly browsing news websites, trying to push aside, if even for a moment, the drudgery and boredom of uneventful middleclass existence. Living vicariously through the typewriters of journalists has been a hobby of mine for many years now, but only recently has the astounding level of fresh, steaming BULLSHIT which squeezes through every crevice of the global news media become apparent to me.
This is not a simple case of anti-mainstream "angry disillusioned young silver spoon-fed urban twat with too much time on his hands" rhetoric, there really is an alarming trend of even the supposedly impartial news media towards a more flashy, entertainment-based "fast food" approach.. The combination of the hectic pace of the information age and the increasingly neo-liberal approach (money first, everything else second) to business has also put a real dent in the once revered art of fact-checking. Online and print media frequently relies on news agencies (such as Reuters or STT here in Finland) for their stories, trusting them to properly check the validity of their sources. Sadly, the agencies are just as vulnerable to being forced to deliver on a seconds notice, with quality and truth sometimes taking a back seat.
The media is also alarmingly susceptible to "Flat earth stories", or stories which for some baffling reason the media shoves down our throats without a hint of solid evidence. 2 very good examples are the apocalyptic pandemonium of the Y2K scare and the weapons of mass destruction fiasco leading up to the war in Iraq. Some of us were still in our early teens when the millenium changed, but surely we all remember the headlines where a barrage of experts gave their opinion on the matter. Some were less and some were more optimistic, but NOBODY seemed to point out that there was literally no basis for this claim. Think about it for a second. Since out of every computer system that controls almost everything that happens anywhere in the world exactly ZERO malfunctioned in any sort of way, isn't it reasonable to discern that the media slightly exaggerated the reality of the peril we were all facing?
The difference between the news media and the rest of the media is that people tend to trust what the news say. Berlusconi is not popular in Italy because Italians are idiots. Well they are, but not more so than other humans. Berlusconi controls every single mainstream television station in the country, and you can bet that the picture that is painted of him there is drastically different to the one we have here. The reason for the draconian laws and stone-age attitudes towards drugs in Finland is not because someone doesnt want you to have any fun, but because the people who make the rules and run the newspapers come from an age where using scaremongering over facts was not only acceptable but favored. And because the younger generations are unable look at news with a skeptical eye, we get headlines with celebrities lamenting about the state of the world because their friend likes to do a line of coke every now and then.
What we really need is media criticism to become a compulsory subject in our schools. Kids need to be taught to look at the source where they receive their information with a healthy sense of skepticism, even if the news media has forgotten how to. Nasty shit can happen when bad people with too much money can manipulate the information received by people who have not been taught to distinguish the truth from agenda-driven lies.
This blog however, will not be a collection inconsequential rants about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I will periodically look at news items from various sources, dissect them, point out obvious fallacies and offer an alternate view. Sort of like the Daily Show, but less funny and focusing on what you can read online. I'm going to start tomorrow with the whole pig-farming scandal here in Finland. Or maybe something else. We'll see.
This is not a simple case of anti-mainstream "angry disillusioned young silver spoon-fed urban twat with too much time on his hands" rhetoric, there really is an alarming trend of even the supposedly impartial news media towards a more flashy, entertainment-based "fast food" approach.. The combination of the hectic pace of the information age and the increasingly neo-liberal approach (money first, everything else second) to business has also put a real dent in the once revered art of fact-checking. Online and print media frequently relies on news agencies (such as Reuters or STT here in Finland) for their stories, trusting them to properly check the validity of their sources. Sadly, the agencies are just as vulnerable to being forced to deliver on a seconds notice, with quality and truth sometimes taking a back seat.
The media is also alarmingly susceptible to "Flat earth stories", or stories which for some baffling reason the media shoves down our throats without a hint of solid evidence. 2 very good examples are the apocalyptic pandemonium of the Y2K scare and the weapons of mass destruction fiasco leading up to the war in Iraq. Some of us were still in our early teens when the millenium changed, but surely we all remember the headlines where a barrage of experts gave their opinion on the matter. Some were less and some were more optimistic, but NOBODY seemed to point out that there was literally no basis for this claim. Think about it for a second. Since out of every computer system that controls almost everything that happens anywhere in the world exactly ZERO malfunctioned in any sort of way, isn't it reasonable to discern that the media slightly exaggerated the reality of the peril we were all facing?
The Y2K was an oddball incident in the sense that the media's distortion of reality can not be traced to a clear culprit pulling the strings on the marionette of public opinion. In cases such as the leadup to the war in Iraq, it was obviously the governments of Britain and the U.S who used the media as a tool. But the media should take a large share of the blame, because taking the word of government reports as fact without checking them for basis or merit hardly qualifies the kind of journalism which I expect from my daily source of whats the happyhap.
The difference between the news media and the rest of the media is that people tend to trust what the news say. Berlusconi is not popular in Italy because Italians are idiots. Well they are, but not more so than other humans. Berlusconi controls every single mainstream television station in the country, and you can bet that the picture that is painted of him there is drastically different to the one we have here. The reason for the draconian laws and stone-age attitudes towards drugs in Finland is not because someone doesnt want you to have any fun, but because the people who make the rules and run the newspapers come from an age where using scaremongering over facts was not only acceptable but favored. And because the younger generations are unable look at news with a skeptical eye, we get headlines with celebrities lamenting about the state of the world because their friend likes to do a line of coke every now and then.
What we really need is media criticism to become a compulsory subject in our schools. Kids need to be taught to look at the source where they receive their information with a healthy sense of skepticism, even if the news media has forgotten how to. Nasty shit can happen when bad people with too much money can manipulate the information received by people who have not been taught to distinguish the truth from agenda-driven lies.
The Blog
This blog however, will not be a collection inconsequential rants about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I will periodically look at news items from various sources, dissect them, point out obvious fallacies and offer an alternate view. Sort of like the Daily Show, but less funny and focusing on what you can read online. I'm going to start tomorrow with the whole pig-farming scandal here in Finland. Or maybe something else. We'll see.
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