What is in Kelvin's Head?

For the cartoonists

07/01/2015

I used a cartoon, and a religious cartoon at that, on, my blog yesterday and yet I live.

I sometimes pray for satirists – those who come to occasional services in St Mary’s may occasionally have heard me do so. They don’t usually get enough prayers. Today, sadly, the thoughts of the world are with them.

The killing of the journalists and cartoonists in Paris today made me think of a divinity class I was in long ago. We were talking about feminism and ethics, that being the stuff I was made on. We had discussed non-violence and non-violent protest. Inevitably we had made an excursion around Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr and had probably had a go at whether Bonhoeffer was justified in getting involved in the plot against Hitler. We noted that these were all men, of course, and and talked about whether that was inevitably so.

Eventually, someone said, “Yes, but what about real tyrants. What do we have to say to people facing real tyranny. Do we tell them to go floppy in the middle of the road as part of a protest when they will just get killed for it? What about tyrants – how do we deal with them?”

There were no answers forthcoming from the class but there was from the person teaching it.

“Make people laugh at them” she said.

I’ve never forgotten that answer and I don’t forget it today, for all its problems.

I realised then that words and ideas were always more potent, always more powerful than force. It was a moment when something significant made sense to me for the first time. Humour can be savage and sometimes needs to be.

The killings in Paris do no honour to any god. They dishonour our common humanity.

And so I turn back to my prayers.

For satirists, humourists, cartoonists.
For journalists. For bystanders.
For those who take risks to disturb our peace of mind.
For those who take risks to give the peace and security for them to do so.

Lord in your mercy.
Hear our prayer.

cartoonists, Charlie Hebdo, killings, Paris

9 responses to “Biobank – an ethical question”

Rev Ruth

25/10/2007

I’ve been asked too. And I got so excited – you know how I love all things medical. My mind had already raced off into the realms of them finding that I had some mysterious disease… But now that you put it like that, I guess I’d better give it some more thought.

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Raspberry Rabbit

25/10/2007

I haven’t been asked. Radical foreign clerics must not be on the list.

I’d be hesitant to do it anyway. Too much information is being stored about us in anticipation of the day when it might prove useful. Best to keep your head down.

RR

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Tim

25/10/2007

Eeek. I saw the phrase “Do you want to do something good today? Not just for yourself, but for our children and our children’s children?” near the top of the page and instantly the thought occurred, “what’s the potential cost? Where are the privacy controls?” Not as though anyone’s asked me anyway, but that sort of thing worries me from the outset too.

A little more investigation shows http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/faqs/confidentiality.php , particularly #5 etc; it seems too vague, just a gloss to placate the masses. I don’t want `computers unconnected to the internet’; I’d want a guarantee that they never will be, that no floppy disks or other methods will result in data coming off them, and that they’re well secured in a bunker somewhere.

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chris

25/10/2007

We’re involved. My sister-in-law first; she asked my husband; we discussed it and decided the potential for knowledge and research into – for example – the hereditary factor in clinical depression – made it something we wanted to do. Our sons have also expressed a willingness to participate. I personally don’t care about what happens to my DNA (other than its continuation in my family!) and if some good can come out of it then that’s just fine. I trust scientists every bit as much (or as little) as I trust anyone else.

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asphodeline

25/10/2007

Have you seen Heroes???? Sounds like a sneaky plot to find more 🙂

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kelvin

25/10/2007

I have not seen Heroes. Is it about eugenics?

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asphodeline

26/10/2007

Ah. It has a hint of eugenics. Part of the plotline involves some form of research into the DNA of people with supernatural powers!

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kelvin

26/10/2007

Ah, I see why you associated it with me.

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Andrew

19/03/2008

My wife I also each received one of the so called invitations today, my first reaction was anger over the wording of the invitation which by telling me I have a “provisional appointment” assuming I am gullible enough to fall for the use of false authority syndrome.

I am really concerned a lot of less literate people will not fully understand the “invitation” and assume it something they have to do.

What really makes my blood boil is the that even if you don’t want to take part you have to reply to get your name removed from the records, this raises real civil liberties issues.

The thing is if I had been asked to participate in I a nice way I would have been very keen to do so, however the whole tone of the letter stinks of authoritarianism and reminds me of the kind of thing the Nazis were doing in the mid 1930s.

If you get one of these invitation say no and tell them why — or better still rip it up.

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