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Atheists, ethics and religion

February 12th 2010 10:14

Is it possible to live, work and play in an ethical way without the guiding hand and stabilising influence of religion?

According to a study at America's Harvard University, it is a result which some may dismiss as oxymoronic and others may dismiss as trivial.

The Harvard researchers apparently thought neither, analysing a series of psychological studies aimed at testing the morality of individuals.

Their conclusion, according to Dr Marc Hauser, a co-author of the final report, is that atheists have a sense of right and wrong which pretty much matches that of believers. The study also found that ethical standards vary little between most religions.

Dr Hauser said the findings could help explain the complex relationship between morality and religion. What he didn't say is that atheists have no need of such an explanation.

The findings of the study were published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions, Psychology

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Don't hold your breath waiting for a mid-life crisis

February 2nd 2010 10:40

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

- Samuel Ullman

What is, for most of us, the happiest period of our lives? When we are young and carefree? When we are old and wise? Surely not somewhere in the middle, in the roiling waters infested by that terror of the psyche — the mid-life crisis.

Yes. Just that.

According to research by Tel Aviv University psychologist Carlo Strenger, not only are our middle years our happiest but their nemesis, the mid-life crisis, is actually a myth.

Strenger and his team got into the heads of about 1,500 people before coming to this conclusion. "Most of them actually say that they are better off and happier and more balanced than they were when they were 20 years younger," he found.

The psychologist Elliot Jacques coined the term “mid-life crisis” around 1970. He had started with the fact that the average human lifespan was 70 years, and he surmised that the average person’s quality of life started going down after age 35. If that was the case, thought Jacques, it was natural to expect some extreme reactions as one contemplated mortality.

"Shiver with anticipation," as Frank sibilated in the Rocky Horror Show.

The surprise responses to Strenger's survey attracted the attention of a another psychologist, Peter S. Kanaris, of Long Island in the US. And he decided they had a point.

The 40s and 50s, Kanaris said, can be viewed as times of contentment. “People in mid-life have reached a time where they are a little more settled and established. Prior to mid-life, people are building families, paying mortgages, developing in their careers at a time when there is much more uncertainty than usual. This creates a great deal of stress.”

By the time we are middle-aged, he concludes, we typically have substantially lessened the financial strains on our lives.

So must we let go of the potential of a mid-life crisis? I mean, let's face it, the word potential there could be replaced by allure. Promise. Attraction, even already. We are talking about, y'know, young women and sports cars and revisitations of youth.

B.J. Gallagher, author of a book entitled It’s Never too Late To Be What You Might Have Been, pours cold water on all that, and agrees with Strenger and Kanaris. "A so-called mid-life crisis these days is really more of a mid-life transition," she says.

It's nice that such revolutionary and revelatory scientific endeavour brings us ever deeper understanding of life.

But what about my Ferrari?

New York Daily News

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: 50s, 60s, Life questions, Mid-life crisis

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Happy 100th birthday, Luise Rainer

January 14th 2010 22:34

Luise Rainer, born in Germany in 1910, celebrated her 100th birthday this week, and said, "I haven't accomplished anything in life." Many would disagree.

Rainer, born in Düsseldorf, Germany, was a major screen star in 1930s Hollywood. She shared a house with Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. She was the first German woman (and is still the only one) to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for the 1936 hit musical The Great Ziegfeld. She won again in 1937 for her role as a Chinese peasant in the film adaptation of Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth, making her the first person to win consecutive Best Actor Oscars.

She swapped ideas with Albert Einstein, who was reportedly "astonished" by her, and she helped Ernest Hemingway during the Spanish Civil War. She personally helped Bertolt Brecht and (with Einstein) many other Jews escape from Nazi Germany to America.

The rise of the Nazis in Germany affected her in other ways. After several Jewish relatives from her mother’s side of the family were sent to die in concentration camps, Rainer became involved in the fight against Hitler. This offended the Hollywood glitter police who hid Rainer's heritage as a German Jew and claimed she was Austrian. The media fell for the dupe, nicknaming her The Viennese Teardrop.

The same studio executives who bent the truth became unimpressed when Rainer bent the rules of stardom. She did unacceptable things like wear trousers in public. She was even known to leave her home without makeup. Perhaps the final straw was to complain that the roles she was being offered were not challenging enough.

Rainer turned her back on Hollywood before she was 30.

“It was always only about money, money, money,” she said. "But I wanted to play good roles. I always wanted to improve, always learn."

With the end of World War 2, Rainer made homes in England and Switzerland with her second husband, English publisher Robert Knittel, and their child, and then largely devoted her time to her family. She turned down a role in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, which became a huge success on Broadway. She agreed to a role in 1959 in Federico Fellini's film La Dolce Vita, but walked out when she found she was expected to share a bedroom scene with Marcello Mastroianni. Fellini reportedly went on his knees to beg her to stay, but she returned to England.

She cared for her family, she painted and she travelled extensively, but it was not until the death of Knittel in 1989 that she considered appearing before the camera again. She agreed to a role in a film adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Gambler. She was 86 at the time. She travelled to Los Angeles in 2003 as an she was an honoured guest at the Academy Awards.

Luise Rainer continues to live in London. We wish her a happy birthday.

www.thelocal.de

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Centenarians

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Love thong

January 11th 2010 22:46

When nature designed the human foot, she did not have thongs in mind as a defining design criterion.

Thongs, for the non-Australians amongst you, are the cheapest and nastiest footwear on the planet. In Britain, they are known as flip-flops. The Americans are too sensible to have them at all

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Health, Corns

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From France, with thanks

January 3rd 2010 21:01

On April 24, 1918, the French village of Villers-Bretonneux was liberated from German occupation. The village, which had been almost destroyed by World War I fighting, was won back only after bitter, hand-to-hand combat.

The soldiers who liberated Villers-Bretonneux were Australians, and the story of their deed, along with details of the devastation of the village and the way of life of its people, was told via news services back home

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: History

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A Christmas story

December 25th 2009 22:23

We offer today a Christmas story for all generations about a boy.

In 1824 a man was accused and convicted in England of the crime of debt. At the time, this was punishable by imprisonment and the man and his dependent family, as was the custom, moved into prison

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Christmas, Literature

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Do hobbits understand what man does not?

October 28th 2009 23:38

JRR Tolkien

JRR Tolkien was once asked if he would write further episodes of Lord of the Rings. His response was extraordinary.

"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Mordor," Tolkien said, "but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice, and prosperity, would be become discontented and restless, while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors, like Denethor or worse. Not worth doing

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions

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Don't jump into exercise

October 21st 2009 23:17

Hong Kong, I once heard someone say, is the only city in the world with the same energy as New York. Hong Kong is a thriving, busy metropolis and Hong Kong people live their lives at speed.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Exercise

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Happy birthday Rick Schoff

October 10th 2009 02:14

When I was about 10, my favourite number was 10. My favourite football team was Sturt and my favourite player was Rick Schoff. I called him Ricky. He wore number 10.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Vintage Sportsman

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The long road back to my youth

September 28th 2009 05:38

There are three principal stages on the road to reversal, by which I mean the dream of a spreading middle-aged man to return to the health, wellbeing and flat stomach of his younger days. Those steps, one might say, comprise the journey from fit to fat and back again.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Exercise, Vintage Sportsman

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