Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30 (Vigil) Joseph & Mary Quinn, (Anniv).
11.00: Christina, Noel and Kevin Naughton, and Eamonn Dunne, (Anniv).
6.30: Thomas Duffy, (R.I.P.)

AS I WAS SAYING.....

Forget the cuckoo! It's the flight of the politicians that signals the true onset of Summer. Our Sunday newspapers today will contain outraged rants directed at the long holidays enjoyed by our politicians. We complain about them when they are here. We complain about them when they are gone. And we then go out and elect the same ones (more or less) over and over again. What power have they in fact? How realistic are our expectations of them?

The debate on 'crime in society' will serve as a good example of political impotence, rather than incompetence. Crime statistics are published on a regular basis. Invariably, the graph seems to be climbing. This is the cue for commentators to ask: 'What is the Minister for Justice doing about it?' Again, the answer is very simple: 'Very little' for the simple reason that there is very little he can do about it!

Can politicians and the Gardai turn dishonest people into honest people? Can they turn hardened crooks into pliant citizens? The obvious answer is No! The roots of such behaviour are many. And of course there's free will. But the debate on crime has today become totally politicised.

We have dropped most of the vocabulary we would need if we were to discuss it in any terms other than political. A hundred years ago the public debate about crime would have assumed that criminals were sinful people, and what was needed was for them to reform their morals!

Both the criminal justice system and the prison system as we have it today still bear the strong imprint of that approach. They also assume that people have been faced with the choice between right and wrong, and have chosen to do wrong. But words like sin, right and wrong, blame and guilt, are just too crude for the airwaves today. We live in 'a culture of victimhood'; people don't do things; people get things done to them!

Modern philosophers tell us that belief in free will is a category mistake - we are what our genes make us. Our behaviour is determined. A hundred years ago nobody would have thought of blaming the government for the state of people's morals. Since crime and sin were interchangeable terms, the blame for a rise in the crime figures would be placed at the door of the local parish priest rather than the Minister for Justice! (Is it any wonder so may of them were out with the blackthorn stick?)

The politicisation of crime is an aspect of secularism. And secularism weeds out from the language of public discourse all the words and ideas that pertain to religion. Sin has religious connotations, so it must go. So too with morality. (As we saw recently, underage sex can only be discussed now as a component of Public Health; introducing categories such as 'morality' is simply confusing the issue and acting the idiot.) We can still use these terms privately, behind closed doors with the curtains drawn. But in the public arena, crime is merely a political problem for the Minister for Justice and a managerial problem for the Gardai.

I am not saying we should go back to the terms of public debate of a 100 years ago: they got things wrong too. But let us not fall into the trap of thinking that more Gardai will somehow make us better - and more moral - people. Or that, if our politicians gave up their holidays and worked harder, we would all be much happier. Yet the illusion of 'political power' remains essential to our democracy.

-Dick Lyng

Pilgrimage to Knock

The Augustinian Pilgrimage to Knock takes place on Saturday next, July 15. A bus will leave from Merchant's Rd. At 12.00 noon. Tickets, at €10, are now available at the Priory Office.

Le Grand Finale

A computer did predict before the start of the world cup that Brazil would lift the trophy and that France, Germany and Holland would all get to the semi finals. It also forecast that England would not get beyond the quarterfinals.

On the threshold of the final, we now know better. The dramatic results of some of the world cup matches have proved the computer wrong. At least the Samba boys from Brazil no longer stand a chance of winning the 2006 edition of the world cup.

Bookmakers had favoured Brazil, many people feared that the five-time winners were set to take home the coveted cup yet again even the computer gave the same prediction. But it took Brazil five matches, ninety minutes on the field of battle with France and a strike off the boot of Arsenal's goal merchant, Thierry Henry, to prove bookmakers all wrong, including the computer.However, many may be wondering what had a computer machine got to do with football prediction and if a computer prediction has ever come true.

It is pertinent to note that the game of soccer is changing rapidly. The passionate interest with which football is been followed across world has now turned the round leather game into a fanatic religion. The entire planet stands still when the world cup, which is played once in every four years is on. The technology of computer cannot afford not to get involved. On many occasions computer simulated football results have turned out to be correct. In the 2002 FIFA World Cup jointly hosted by South Korea and Japan, almost no one was able to predict that France the then defending champion would suffer a defeat in the opening match at the hands of debutants, Senegal. But a computer did.

Even in the ongoing games in Germany, England did not get beyond the quarterfinals, which the computer had predicted. This is the second time that computer predictions have gained worldwide attention before the start of a FIFA world cup.

Meanwhile, it remains uncertain if computer predictions on football results will someday become prophetic. In the recent years computer machine have been forecasting weather situations with a very high degree of success. It yet to be seen if it will translate this into sports and football in particular, though it has always been said, that football is not mathematics and as long as this is true, computers cannot predict with 100 per cent certainty the exact outcome of football matches.

Items of Some Interest

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