Suffering: meaningful versus meaningless. Sun 5th Nov.

The subject is in the news, as always, in particular around the question of whether Iraqis are suffering more now than they did under Saddam Hussein. The answer to that question depends of course on whether they were actually suffering directly under that regime: those who were, or were reasonably afraid of doing so, tend to feel their suffering is now less while the opposite is true of those who felt relatively safe from the excesses of tyranny. If George Bush and Tony Blair had taken seriously the lessons to be found in the Bible they would have been less surprised or confounded by the reactions of Iraqis who say that things are now much worse. They would have expected to get the reaction that Moses got from the children of Israel who wanted to return to slavery in Egypt. Freedom normally requires much more daily effort than any form of imprisonment or restriction. Therapists, trying to free people from neurotic restrictions, have to deal with this regularly. From my perspective the suffering currently being experienced in Iraq is infinitely preferable to what went before because it is being born by people straining towards a positive goal which is achievable rather than being suffered because the negative goal of personal power over them has been achieved and is being maintained.

Sun 12th Nov. An Anglican bishop has suggested that it would be appropriate to allow seriously ill and handicapped newborn babies -- premature newborns I think -- to die. Hallelujah! A glimmer of sense, common and spiritual, at last. The church has for a long time accepted that it is not necessary at the end of a life to prolong suffering by officiously staving off death; the Bishop is only attempting to treat the beginning of life by the same principle. In both situations the prolonged suffering would be without meaning. I shall continue this under the Saltpetre heading.