Onn Monday I went to see Peter Singer, like the
actual one, give a talk on living ethically in a global sense with a focus on Australia. To be honest it was mostly basic stuff like giving aid, shut the fuck up and sign the Kyoto Protocol, supporting the UN, be nice to refugees. But it's not like I can talk because he really seems to
live this ethical way, not being wasteful, donating lots of money, writing letters to MPs etc whereas I need more shaping up than Gilbert Grape's mother. Although I'm not too keen on utilitarianism and when he's arguing from that perspective I often disagree with him (I mean his ideas about euthanising severely disabled children and so on) I really admire his animal rights (rights and utilitariansim? wuh? I don't really understand how he can argue from both but I will admit that I haven't read a great deal of his work; also to think on it I don't recall his using the term 'rights' very often at all in the talk) and environmental stuff, and of course I agree with what he said about countries' responsibilities to act ethically.
I leave on Monday. I've had to drop two of my classes because it seems I'll be away for nearly half the semester which would effectively fail me, I would miss too many seminars. But the one I was dying to do, Great Literary Texts of Western Civilisation with the awesome lecturer, I can still do. I just have to find time to read and make intelligent notes on about 2000 pages of Great Literary Texts while I'm away, which I think I will probably not be able to do. Meep.
There's a good show on Channel 2 at the moment called "Worlds Apart". They take a well-off American family and give them to this other long-suffering family in some remote part of the world. Tonight it was an
island in Papua New Guinea. It's interesting to see what happens when the American family has to really start interacting with each other while being totally stressed out by having to learn how to live without pre-packaged food and flushing toilets and with three-hour treks to get water. It's especially hard for the mothers who get relagated to jobs they hate. Unfortunately there is not much in-depth stuff about how, for example, the mothers react to a totally different idea of female status and much more physically punished work than they are used to. It was also interesting tonight to watch the meek, passive husband become honorary chief and really enjoy the status and privileges (it seemed all they did was hunt and build huts). But most of the time was spent on the annoying, whiny teenagers. Last week, which was really great, was
Kenya. Meeting the Kenyan family and living that life really seemed to change the American family profoundly, for the better. Interesting stuff, and also really funny.
