Maria Theresia

Listening to Hadyn's Symphony No. 48 in C Major "Maria Theresia".

I was wondering who Maria Theresia was, after whom such a beautiful symphony was named. Perhaps this is worth some efforts of digging in the library:

Maria Theresa (1717-1780), the eldest daughter of Charles VI, who promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction to permit her to suceed to the Habsburg monarchy and Elisabether Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel, was Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and, through her marriage, Holy Roman Empress.

Ignorance and Sentimentality

Why, you may ask, does the Brainless cause harm to us and our society in such a way as I described? It is perhaps a book-length writing in order to keep people (I mean the good people) convinced that I am right. However, it can still be briefly described here. Take an example of a response to a dying baby girl who had lived 9 days, which says, the girl has lived a life of great significance and meaningfulness, and life should not be measured in terms of its length. This message consists of two elements - ignorance and sentimentality. Ignorance is very obvious. First of all, the phrase "life should not be measured in terms of its length" may be correct, it is a matter of value and a judgement of value is not easily absolutely established though it can be established. So I shall presume it correct. But how would "life is short but meaningful" be applicable to this incident in which a diseased girl was brought to our world and let die? The answer is absolute and unquestioned. It is nothing. The diseased girl was not unconscious. How do you know she was not conscious? The answer lies on the answer of this question. What happened to you when you were just born? If she was not even conscious of what was happening to her, then where is such great significance and meaningfuless placed? The answer is again absolute and unquestionable. It is nowhere. As a result, I should say, this person has no idea of what he commented. He just said something other people (including great people) said of a truly moving story, but if this idiot believed what he said was equally applicable to the dead girl incident as any other moving stories of the great people, then obviously he is ignorant. And ignorance is an important element of the Brainless. Now the question comes, why does ignorance harm? We may say, quoting Mill, that as long as one's action does not harm others, the actor should not be restricted from so doing. Yes, I would accept this principle. What if he does, and does to a considerable extent? Sometimes he is harmful indirectly and chronically. Then, I have to say, regardless of Mill and the rationale behind his rationale, he must be controlled and that he is controlled must be known to others, the Brainless or otherwise. If such harm is being done indirectly and chronically, how can we prove it? It sounds tricky. But when a person is ignorant and says ignorant things in such idiotic manner as the "life is short" person, it would not be that difficult to prove the harm this kind of saying would inflict on us (or some of us).

Before we are mature enough to be able to differentiate right from wrong, the intelligent from the stupid, we are prone to ignorant things and have a fair chance accepting ignorant things as intelligent. Especially those things are said and done under the guise of intelligence. "Life should not be measured in terms of its length" and "life may be short but is meaningful". How right these statements per se are! The correctness of those statements in themselves, which may be universal by human standard, despite the fact that this is still arguable, does not guarantee that the matter such statements refer to is by itself correct, and it does not immediately warrant that a correct reference is made between the matter referred to and the correct statements. Obviously, a wrong association is there in the case that the meaningfulness is applied to the new-born baby girl who had not gained the consciousness that enabled her to appreciate meaning and who died subsequently. If such wrong is distributed and those of us who are not capable of differentiating the right from the wrong, for whatever reason, then they will be misled to believe that bringing a child to our world and seeing her die is (a) a meaningful thing to do; and (b) the child has lived a short (really very short!) yet meaningful life by being dragged to the intensive care unit and seen to be dying. Such harm is done by propagating the wrong message that creates such great travesty of humanity that unnecessary suffering is now refurbished to become martyrdom and a cowardly act of failure to face the reality that a child has no chance of living on has turned a heroic act and we should pay our tribute to the hero who faces the adversity and are standing against the darkness of Fate. The consequence is very, very serious. The humanity is now degraded to the extent that cowardice is now heroic, a milquetoast is now a hero. The society would in due course be doomed to be held by cowards and submissiveness, which is not acceptable.

Secondly, when something as grand as "life is short but meaningful" is from the mouth of such an idiot, such a Brainless as this "life is short" person, then the Brainless believe that they are grand and great, for they know what the grand and great know, and behave what the grand and great behave, and are moved by what moves the grand and great. Are they truly moved by a story of a dying girl who in fact was brought to the world and all of us saw her die? Has she lived a full life? Has she gone to Heaven? Is she living a blissful life after suffering the 9 days (though she may not really suffer the pain to the same extent as a grown up, for, as I said, she was not even conscious of herself and her sufferings)? If she was not let out after being diagnosed as having the disease while in the womb, would she not be brought to Heaven and be living as blissful a life as she had been seen to live through the 9 days, fully logged and commented on and sighed for? I am not entirely sure, even I am a Christian, a Catholic, an intellectual, a person who has striven to learn about our world. The parents, irresponsible and ignorant, believe it is their responsibility to bring her out so that they can go through some "great" moments as heros who face their adversity. As a result of their faith in God, the dead girl is now an angel, living happily and eternally beside God. And only these parents who had self-proclaimed, though indirectly but wilfully, themselves as heros and God's servants, then this girl could become angel. Otherwise, no, she might be condemned, for she had not been a human and been blessed with God's grace, such Grace being given by such distributors of grace as her parents. What the world has become? This is not entirely an appropriate answer, for the world has always been as brutal and ignorant as before, and we should be not surprised that distributors of God's Grace are always around as we see insurance agents, financial planners and cosmetic sales every day every where. The Brainless turned themselves to heros, the grand and great, and perhaps even thought of leaving a mark in their worthless history, being servant of God, being such salesman of Heaven, being the crooks of Grace, being undeserved acceptors of knowledge and information. They created such sentimentality that only the Brainless would buy. The hypocrisy that this story tells us is very obscene - to those who truly appreciate life and have lived a truly good life. But let me tell you, the Brainless, the parents of a dead girl, you are worthless, regardless of how many tears you have shed by creating a pseudo-moving story. You have squandered your life and if there be Heaven, you should return the ticket to it, for there are more people who strive to create a better, to make a difference to this Another Heaven, our Human World, deserving this ticket than you do. So please admit to yourself and your God, if there is one, that you are the Brainless. You created such stupid stories and made yourself a hero. Then, you let the other Brainless feel they were heros too. Sentimentality has paved the way to hell; but in fact I do not care when and how you go to Hell, but I do care you bring those worthy of Heaven with you.

The Storied Suppression; The Benevolent Despots remembered

The unwarranted arrogance that comes with the Brainlessness gives the Brainless such excess that the world, our brave new world, has been damaged to the extent that it is irreparable. The human world that we were once proud of and wondered has turned into a confusion immersed in excess, condemned by eternally spiralling confusion. The true people, who may be called the elite for ease of reference, are confused, but remain mute to what has been happening, for they still have the advantage, or believe they do, being the elite. In spite of the fact that the elite enjoy the privilege that the Brainless cannot imagine, the latter are so noisy and enormous in terms of absolute number that it is they who somewhat exert influence they deserve not, and the elite, in a democratic world, have to bear the price of freedom, the freedom that has been granted to the undeserved. At some point, enough is enough, the elite will yell, and when they fight back, they fight back fiercely. They swing the pendulum back to the other extreme, for they need to swing it back to such a magnitude that the equilibrium will ever been set right. How would this happen? In history, I have so far seen many cases resembling the scenario I have just mentioned, although I cannot for sure ascertain these cases mean exactly the status of my description. I have to say, regardless of what triggers such action which aims to counter uncontrolled liberalisation, eradicate the Brainless and cleanse the arrogrance of the Brainless which is unjustifiable, there are moments which must be looked upon with care, the moments of blemishes in human history that many were, so to speak, persecuted and killed; many had their dignity deprived, the kinships torn apart. These moments must be carefully recognised, thought about and understood. The figures who stood on top of these moments, those despots in history, those who handed down bestial cruelty that brought blood on the parchment of history, should be remembered in such a way that, with a balance of what evil has done to counter another evil, we shall recognise what harm the hypocrisy, arrogance and naivety of the Brainless have done to our world. Only by such thought, we give the world what others have overlooked or dared not look at, but it should be case.

The Brainless

After all those festivities, it is the right time to continue the Brainless series. I do not want to be vague about that. The Brainless is harmful and detrimental to us, to our health and to our mentality. The fact that a moving story is being made at the expense of a dying baby is nothing more sentimental than such sentimentality you can find in a soap opera, where a melodramatic kind of lack of intelligence immerses and spreads. We should be very fortunate to be living in a world that we live in, for the knowledge and information we can get access to everyday is unprecedented - not a single intelligent man in the 19th century could every imagine the way we acquire knowledge and grasp and digest information. I have to say, people are cleverer. But statistically, I still can say, people are idiots. The reason is simple, only 5% of people are clever and there are more people than any point in time previously. We meet more people than our ancestors and we meet even more idiots in terms of absolute number. So the statement that people are idiots is statistically correct. And it extends to the fact that these idiots are very much in lack of intelligence, despite knowledge and information being available around them. They cannot think properly, understand properly and deduce properly. They believe this dying baby has lived a life "of great significance" and "meaningfulness", regardless of the life being short. What is this all about? The baby had not even developed the consciousness that she would know she ever existed in the few days she lived. An unconscious infant talks about such meaningfulness and life being long or short? This is nonsense. I have choked with such nonsense by many people - some are cunning and lie to their own benefit. Some are stupid and talk without a brain. Some are naive and propagate the good but pave the way to hell. I would admonish you that the Brainless are as harmful and detrimental as those cunning folks, for the latter who lie and set you up, whereas the former preach the good and lead you to hell. Pray believe me.

Gerald Ford

'There were many times in his long life when Gerald Ford felt he had reached the top of the tree.' The orbituary in The Economist says. And it continues, 'Mr Ford, after 13 terms as a congressman, had risen to become a popular minority leader in the House, with no ambitions but to be speaker one day if control swung back to the Republicans. Still, as he told Betty [Warren, his wife], the vice-presidency would make a “nice conclusion” to his career.' But '[I]t is not the conclusion.' He became the President of the United States on 9th August 1974 when Richard Nixon stepped down in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Mr. Ford is described as disliking fuss and he worked like hell. 'As he made his inaugural speech in the East Room of the White House—“just a little straight talk among friends”—the very flatness of his Michigan vowels, his stumbles over words, his mistiness whenever he talked about prayers, seemed like a gale of fresh air.'

In fact, I say, the writing of the orbituary is also like a gale of fresh air.

2007

Theodor Mommsen's A History of Rome describes Roman life as follows:

Life in the case of Roman was spent under conditions of austere restraint, and, the nobler he was, the less he was a free man. All-powerful custom restricted him to a narrow range of thought and action; and to have led a serious and strict or, to use the characteristic Latin expressions, a grave and severe life, was his glory.

"Austere restraint" was required of a noble man in Rome. Truly the custom put the restraint on him and led him to live a "grave and severe life". With deeper thought, I do not entirely object to a grave and severe life (the term is generally defined in this statement, whereas, I have to say, it can be strictly defined if the audience requires me to do so).

In The Name of The Rose, the venerable Jorge says, without fear people will lose faith to God (idea). Hence, he forbides the reading of Aristotle's Comedy (which is in fact lost) by applying poison to the pages.

You may want to ask why it is necessary to exert fear on people and why we are afraid to lose faith to God and what the benefits are living a grave and severe life and abstaining from worldly pleasures. The answer is not easy, but not impossible. On the whole, a grave and severe life is much satisfying than that full of worldly pleasures and fully liberal. I do not forsee a trappist life totally detaching from worldly pleasures, but instead would like to see one lead a life in the balance in the sense that the enjoyment of worldly pleasures comes the understanding of the higher satisfaction of abstaining them (or minimising them). A nobleman is noble only when his mindset dictates what he chooses to do in a noble manner. Some of us can do it at ease, perhaps physically more superior with his brain, as neuroscientist likes to promote - well probably correctly. A lot or most of us have to go through a painful process, but I admit, with my own experience, that through it I see the truth of a simpler, graver and more severe life.