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I was watching a film just lately, and one of the guys in it told one of the girls in it that she was beautiful, or whatever, and she said thanks and whatever, they hook up or something and live happily ever after. I guess that’s how these things work in film. Oh yeah, before we go any further, this is my warning that nobody is going to agree with what I’ve got to say because, like a lot of my ideas, it’s just too different and will undoubtedly be expressed badly. But even if you do agree in theory, I don’t imagine you will in practice. Hell, I’m not ever going to think about this in a real-life situation, so I don’t expect anyone else to.

Breakdown of a Compliment

When Person A says something flattering about Person B’s looks, Person A can be saying a number of things. The first and most obvious one that comes to mind is that the “compliment” Person A is paying means literally that Person A finds Person B to be visually appealing through whatever it is between people that facilitates that reaction. It doesn’t matter if it’s innate or learned through “society’s standard of beauty” or something like that. What Person A could be saying is that he (for the sake of argument, let’s say Person A is male and Person B is female) likes the way Person B looks through no action on Person B’s part.

Person A might also be making a point about Person B’s specific appearance at that point: “you look nice today” for a (weak) example. Coming across in this instance is the implication that Person A has recognised the fact that Person B has either deliberately or inadvertently made a difference in her appearance and Person A approves.

Person A might also be saying that he finds Person B to be attractive even though most people wouldn’t. I wanted to avoid saying the word “objective” here, because I don’t think there is an “objectively” good-looking person, but there are people that an overwhelming majority of peers would consider attractive, and there are people that an overwhelming majority of peers would consider not attractive (plus, obviously, the whole range in between). If Person A is sincere when he pays his compliment to Person B, he is saying that even though most people think Person B is unattractive, she happens to be to Person A’s personal taste.

For the sake of the argument, I am going to make two assumptions. The first is that people cannot actively choose which physical traits they find to be attractive and which ones they don’t. I don’t think this is too far from the truth, and while taste may change over time, I feel it is largely out of the control of people themselves. That first assumption now lets me make my second, which consists of me lumping together my first scenario (where Person B is “objectively” attractive) with my third scenario (where Person B is not “objectively” attractive, but is to Person A’s personal taste) under the heading of Inadvertent Attraction, and leave scenario two (where Person B has made an effort) as Deliberate Attraction.

So, in this film, the line was something like “you have really pretty eyes,” it doesn’t matter about the specifics. This line fits into my category of Inadvertent Attraction — it wasn’t through any effort on Person B’s part that Person A liked her eyes. Given this, her next line, “thank you,” doesn’t entirely make sense. A compliment is praise or even congratulations for something, but if it’s a compliment for something that isn’t deliberate, why the thanks afterwards? Person B didn’t choose to have nice eyes, so the compliment doesn’t deal with her. The compliment goes to whoever is responsible for Person B being attractive to Person A. Which is nobody.

What am I saying? That nobody should pay each other compliments anymore? No, of course not. They’re nice things to say, and everyone wants nice things said to them and about them. But I am remarking on the realisation that Person B doesn’t get to say “thanks” afterwards. Nothing nice has been said about her, just the unchangeable circumstances that mean Person A likes Person B’s appearance. Person B can’t really take pride in having an arbitrary facial arrangement any more than I can take pride in being white. It’s just genetic make-up that we have no control over.

Of course, the thanks may have only been out of polite courtesy, and that’s maybe how it is the world over. But people flush with pride when they hear something good said about them — I know I do. I just wanted to say to everyone that, on paper, it’s just incorrect to be proud about such things.

Then we get into murky waters with things like nice hair or make-up, which can be part Inadvertent and part Deliberate, and then there are things which are totally Deliberate, like picking clothes or picking perfume. Paying a compliment to deliberate choices people make to please each other is like saying “good job, I approve.” In this society where having free will is an assumption we all live by (even if it’s not true), we are allowed to be proud of the choices we make. So that’s fine.

But good-looking people, beware. I’m on to you.

The film was Hitch, if you were wondering, and it was quite enjoyable.

Idly perusing the internet this afternoon, I made my way to the website of the Basingstoke church near me that I went to the youth group of a few years ago. I’ve been out of the loop there for a while now, because the people are mostly intolerable and that’s ignoring the fact they’re a bunch of theists. I knew they were planning to buy a bigger shack to hang out in, though, since the building they are using at the moment is a bit cramped.

I found out that their intention is to move into a part of the closed down hospital in Basingstoke, called Park Prewett.

Or, as it was also known, the Park Prewett Mental Hospital.

That’s right, a band of Basingstoke Christians have finally come to terms with the fact that the voices they hear aren’t coming from God. It’s just a pity the hospital has been closed down for twelve years. Perhaps they are planning some fundraising event to bring back the men in white coats to staff the place. If anyone knows any psychiatric doctors who need a job, I think I know where there’s going to be an opening.

The good news is that there is room for a thousand beds there and undoubtedly facilities to deal with the more violent patients, so the question of running out of space is solved for now. If the hospital manages to get a high turnaround with treating the mental health of inmates, they won’t run out of room for a huge number of years.

In this day and age of supposed enlightenment, more theists should take responsible action and commit themselves to their local asylums (asyla?). Then maybe we can avoid obviously crazy people getting into power and suggesting things like an anti-blasphemy law in Ireland.

Last week, I had the delightful and inimitable experience of some time in Holland, on holiday. It was all very exciting, but I am not going to give a full account of everything on here. I do, though, have a few thoughts that merit sharing that have arisen as a result of the trip, and one of these thoughts is how much I loved my first experience with air travel.

When I was in Holland, Olivia reported that one of her fundamentalist co-workers once remarked that flight on a plane was something wondrous and terrifying enough to warrant or prompt a belief in a deity. What?

I felt the exact opposite. Within a few minutes of taking off, I was already high enough up that I didn’t care about anyone on the ground. As the cars on motorways that go so fast when you are in them began to resemble crawling ants, it was tough to even conceive the size of the people — real people — inside the cars, let alone how tough it was to empathise with them. It would be like trying to hold conversations with atoms. If there were a god, this is how he would feel looking down on us, too.

And then we burst through the clouds and outside looked like every depiction of heaven there has ever been, and I realised that I was higher than god. Aerotravel defecates in the eyes of god.

Flying was amazing. My suspicions that people who don’t like it are a bunch of wusses were proved to be accurate. I don’t think there was enough sensation, if I’m honest. The flight should have been more intense. Maybe next time I will ask the pilot to do a few more banking turns or a barrell roll. There also should have been more acceleration in take-off. I wanted to be thrown back against my seat, that would have been cool.

I was on a pretty medium-sized plane. I saw a B747 out the window when I was taking off and I definitely want to try one of those someday.

Eventually I’ll be wealthy enough to jet off all over the world. Well, maybe once or twice. But there will be no upper limit on the amount of excitement I’ll experience! And then it won’t just be Europe I’ll tear it up in, but the whole world.

More to come soon!