Nothing Is Certain.

Hello dear readers!

So here we are with the first of the promised weekly blog posts. It's been a bit of a squeeze to be honest, as this weekend has been particularly busy, with a work night out, a three hour drive, and a meal out with the long suffering Mrs Seated Perspective’s church, so please do excuse the late hour.

That being said let's crack on with the meat of this week’s offering shall we?

Now those of you that have had the misfortune to follow my previous posts will, perhaps, have become accustomed to a measure of levity in my posts.. This week of all weeks however that seems out of place.

As I write it is a mere nine days since the tragic events in Paris. Events that shook the world. On that fateful night 127 lives were ended, a number that has since risen to 130. That's 130 lives extinguished, 130 families ripped apart, 130 centres of someone's universe suddenly gone. And truth be told that is just the tip of the iceberg. The Paris attack hit us who live in the west hard, it hit us where we live, brought home the immediacy of the violence but IS, or whatever they want to call themselves, have been dealing out such attacks in the east for longer than is comfortable to admit. It would seem however that because those atrocities were committed at the other end of the world they somehow slipped though the collective consciousness (in the main.).

The response to the attack, has, for the most part, been a noble one. The sight of  50,000 football fans perfectly observing a minutes silence in the England v France football match was extremely moving and tribute after tribute and comment after comment have built on that. Of course, there will always be those whose knees will jerk in response to such events, those who will call for responses filled with shock and awe, who want to see a whole religion punished for the actions of a relatively few terrorists and there will always be those who use such sentiments to further their own agendas. These (on my social media feeds anyway.) have been in the minority and a refreshing number of calls for solidarity, for reaching out to Muslims rather than closing up borders and throwing the nasty job stealing benefit thieves out of the country, have given me a sliver of hope for this crazy race we call human.

And that takes us nicely to the reason for the title of the post. The people who make such calls, the right wing organisations looking to profit, and the perpetrators are linked, in my mind at least, by one thing. And that is the certainty that they are right.

It's not just an opinion, it's not just a belief; it is an unwavering, unfaltering surety that their world view is correct. It takes such certainty for a belief, be it in a religion, a political ideal or the inhuman nature of a particular group of people to become something to kill and die for. Such certainty is hard to combat. Once a belief becomes so diamond hard, it becomes almost impossible to argue against using logic. Sources will be doubted, goalposts moved, and conspiracies conjured up. It's truly amazing the amount of double-think people can use as justification for knowing, just knowing, that X is true.

Now, I'm by no means perfect, far from it in fact, so I know that I'm capable of exactly the same type of error. What I think is important, is to understand this all too human failing and constantly check one's own axioms to ensure that they stand up to external scrutiny (i.e. what evidence of this could I show to someone who does not share my belief? Is that evidence objectively compelling? Is there a possibility I could be wrong?) This is difficult, as the act of self-questioning is not one that comes naturally (at least for me). I do however think that it is a worthwhile exercise, and that the world might just be a better place, with perhaps a touch more empathy and understanding, if more people carried it out and embraced a little more of life's uncertainty

Of course I could be wrong

Until next time...