Labi Siffre - Into The Light

In the minutes without rain

On the planet Nirrin

It snows black snow

Corrosive gooey stuff

Rain or snow the Nirrin don’t kill each other

Some you lose some you win

Life is tough

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Relativism Does Not Mean Anything Goes

(as Benedict XVI well knows):

“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goals one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” ... Pope Benedict XVI

It is precisely because we live in a relativistic universe that politics* rules. In effect, might is right. One hopes it is the might of kindness over cruelty, care over indifference, nurture over brutality and courage in all of the former over courage in all of the latter - because the callous and the cruel, also, can be courageous.

The relativistic universe is not an abyss to be feared. It is a responsibility to wear or to run away from. In the lethal cold of an indifferent universe, I prefer to be clothed.

Pope Benedict’s disingenuous and misleading definition of relativism continues his refusal to take responsibility for his behaviour in matters ethical and “moral”. Ethics and morality are not carved in stone by a supernatural being. It is our responsibility (the responsibility of human beings) to ensure that kindness conquers cruelty and that all are equal before the laws of humanity.

The difference between a relativistic universe and a theistic universe is a matter of personal responsibility. In a theistic** universe, no chief rabbi, ayatollah, pope, priest or imam is responsible for their assessment as to what is good and what is bad, what is good and what is evil. They hive that responsibility off onto a supernatural being whose existence is unprovable.

In a universe of relativism, a relativistic universe, that responsibility is the responsibility of each and all of us. It is a pity that our religious leaders continue to avoid that personal responsibility of deciding what is good and what is bad, what is good and what is evil and, in addition, lack the courage to justify their selections - in their own names.

*politics: the wielding of power, authority, control, persuasion, influence.

**theism: belief in the existence of a god or gods, esp. belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures.
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untitled - thus titled

the round (or, like the planet, not?)
belling brown clock with the roman
face says V past X (how close to a truth
should mechanics be held to account?)
celestially in place in the landscape (politic
ally ordained by me) it speaks a languid
language i barely understand and always
too (boo!) late

behind time the stone wall displays
its fluid nature every time i look (see, there
it’s done it again – another face and there
another!) and with the ninety three percent
that is the bulk of language it says longer than
you by two hundred years i’ve been here
without fear without joy without needing
understanding my place in the cosmos i know
more and will always than you no matter
how long you ponder

but you, i sneery say, are dead even molten
you were and have always been so
and you, says the wall, in universal terms
are dead though you clearly don’t know it

you mean dead and alive be the same to
the universe it not being sentient but sentience
means merely being able to react to sensation an
amoeba does that bacteria do that and the uni
verse definitely reacts to a super nova does that
mean perhaps the universe reacting is therefore
sentient i mention it only because we pat our
selves on the back with our third arms constant
lie for being so solely designated

somebody get a dictionary, look up 'feeling' and
'sensation', and clear this shit up so we can all
go home ok
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