Lying

I believe that whether or not lying is good or bad, it's inevitable. Everyone lies. I wish I could find a link to it now, but I remember reading about a psychological study that some people did where they found out that children lie, even while they're too young to have learnt from others.

As mentioned in the lecture, it depends on the severity of the lie. People are not likely to lie about trivial things. If you've just got up in the morning and ask for the time, not many people are going to say "10 pm!!", or something. It would just be pointless. I believe that people lie more than they think. It seems like the lie counts as a lie only if the person considers it immoral. An example of this could be when someone asks "How're you?". Most people will say "Not too bad" or something similar, despite how they might really feel. This is lying, but not many people would consider it as such.

I suppose it's all down to opinion.

Bad Comedians

There are many different forms of comedy, and thus many different types of comedians, from Eddie Izzard to Peter Kay to Bill Bailey. Which humour is 'good' and which is 'bad' is, in my opinion, quite subjective though. In the lecture, some good points were made describing humour which is a reaction to things that the comedian doesn't agree with, which are sometimes quite racist or xenophobic.

One point that could be made though is that humour would not exist at all if there were no people to make fun of, as humour is almost entirely concerned with making fun of the outsider, whether or not the outsider is unfairly criticising a minority, or if the comedian is criticising the comedian for being prejudiced.

Personally, I don't like comedians that make racist, homophobic or ethnocentric and xenophobic jokes. It's hard to think of what to do with these people though. It was mentioned in the lecture that if you censor these kinds of comedians, you're just going to make them more attractive. Plus, there's the issue of free speech, whatever the person has to say.

On a larger scale, maybe we should just wait for 'bad' comedians to die out. As a country, we are becoming more and more tolerant of different cultures and lifestyles. It could be argued that 'bad comedy' comes from intolerance, so we have to just wait?

Gambling

Is gambling really a bad thing? Seems like it's becoming more and more acceptable in modern society. In the lecture though, we discussed things that are not usually considered gambling, car insurance for example.

So if something as common as car insurance is considered gambling, surely it can't be a 'bad' thing. Ask someone in the street though, and the majority would tell you that gambling is not a positive thing, so what exactly about gambling do we not like? Well, maybe it's not the gambling itself that is a problem (although that's not to say that sometimes it can become one) but the things that some people do to cheat you out of your money under the guise of a gambler.

Could it be the perceived image of gambling and people that gamble that hold the negative connotations? Or is gambling in general a bad thing?

Tattoos and body piercing

This was an interesting lecture, even if I had mutilated people stuck in my head for the rest of the night. It's amazing what some people will do to themselves, or do to others. Generally, my opinion is that a person has the right to look how he or she wants to, but a point was made in the lecture about using patterns that describe someone's heritage, which could certainly be seen as wrong. Perhaps people don't research what they're doing to themselves well enough before they get tattooed with a particular design.

Another aspect of body modification being 'wrong' could be the associations with class that tattoos have. The lower classes have historically been vilified by the upper classes (a form of prejudice that sadly seems to have been overlooked in recent attempts for social equality). If the lower classes have tattoos, then other members of the population could perceive that particular appearance as being 'bad', although it's interesting that tattoos originally were popular with the upper class. It's very unlikely that the upper classes would have any kind of body modification in modern society.

As a whole, I don't believe that body modification is bad, as long as it's well researched and does not offend anyone. There are a lot of negative stereotypes associated with tattoos and piercings, but maybe that will change in society.

Being ‘too religious’

It seems like being religious has, perhaps ironically, become a sin in modern society. This is from the mocking of religion from the general public to the Islamophobia and blatant racism of the media (yeah, I'm looking at you, Daily Mail).

So why is religion seen as something bad? Well, it could be argued that it has caused a few religious wars in the past. An argument against this though could be that it is simply human nature that causes a war, not religion.

My opinion is that the cause of tension between religious and non-religious people is just the old fear of something that is different. The same tensions that have been affecting the human race since presumably we were cavemen. The only difference now is that a new player has been allowed to surface, which is the belief that there is no God: atheism. Sure the people that have anti-religious views have some very valid points, especially since recent technological and scientific developments and methods of reasoning. Atheism is not the perfect solution though. There are some questions that atheism can't answer, and I'm an atheist myself.

Bandits and Outlaws

What is a bandit or an outlaw? Well, most of us would have associated these words as having negative connotations, but then, as discussed in the lecture, Robin Hood is maybe the most famous and popular outlaw character in modern culture. How famous is Robin Hood? Well, google.co.uk says that Robin Hood has roughly 1.5 million pages worth of famous. Another outlaw Jesse James, who was also discussed in the lecture has nearly as many websites as Robin Hood.

It seems therefore that although the words 'bandit' and 'outlaw' have negative connotations, certain characters that could be described as a 'bandit' or an 'outlaw' seem to take on almost an anti-hero status. In my opinion, there are very few, if any of these types of people in real life that would take on the life of a criminal for the greater good of the people. Maybe it's just people's attraction to the notion that there exists a 'good guy' that does things his own way. Whether or not this is a real person though, or has ever been a real person is a different matter entirely.

Infidelity

I think most of us would agree, whether or not we've been unfaithful in the past, that infidelity is bad. The question we need to ask though, is why? Isn't it human nature to have as many partners as possible? After all, genetic diversity is what makes us a successful species.

First, you would have to look at something else that's instinctual, which is the feeling of jealousy, and I think most of us would have experienced at one point or another. Most of us will also know about someone who, although entirely willing to enter an 'open relationship' will get very jealous when their partner finds other people, so polygamy isn't really an option either.

Looking at these points, the logical thing to do would be to stay in a monogamous relationship, as people do, sometimes not even speaking with other people that could be perceived as being attractive. This however has it's negative aspects; thinking about the first point, people biologically want to be with other people. This is, in my opinion, the thing that causes all the trouble in people's relationships. There's not necessarily anything 'wrong' with people that cheat, other than maybe a lack of willpower not to do so. The problem tends to be a conflict within people themselves, and which is, unfortunately, very natural.

Masturbation

Well, this was, to put it one way, an interesting lecture. I'm guessing that other people thought so too. I've never seen so many people in that lecture room before. It made me think though, why would so many people want to come to this lecture in particular? Or more to the point, what is it with people's obsession with sex, and in this case, masturbation?

To summarise the lecture, it was said that if you can control something as natural as masturbation, then you can control almost anything anyone does or thinks. I have to agree with that point, and in my opinion, the reason why so many people turned up was because they still feel like they're being controlled. Socially, there is still a taboo regarding sex, and especially regarding masturbation. Also, if you oppress a certain group of people, there is understandably a lot of interest from the oppressed group, which in my opinion, explains why this is such an interesting subject to us.

I believe the underlying issue is not about masturbation, but about sex in general, and although some people may point out that we're almost force fed sexuality by the media, that is really not what I support. Sexuality shouldn't be hyped, but it also shouldn't be a taboo subject. It should be accepted as something that just is. That would be a healthier view, in my opinion.

Smoking

British society, in recent times, seems to have polarised on the issue of smoking. Personally, I don't know many non-smokers (besides myself) that are 'okay' with other people's smoking. Since the middle of last century, smoking has become more and more unacceptable, even to the degree of the government deciding to ban smoking in pubs and clubs around the country. So the government is looking out for us, right? Well, maybe not, as some may argue that such things as being able to drink 24 hours a day is giving an opposite effect, since alcohol kills many, many people in the UK every year.

So if the government are not trying to protect us from other people's smoke, why pass this law? Well, some could say that the government's decisions are simply a reflection of the populations' wishes, and if so, then the people of Great Britain must really hate smokers. My personal opinion though is that we really need to put this subject into perspective. If you live with a smoker, or if you're exposed to a lot of smoke, then fair enough, complain away, but how many anti-smokers can claim that's the case? One of the great things about modern western society is the freedom to choose what a person wants or doesn't want to do. Let's not take that away, not even issues such as this.