Libya’s Gaddafi is widely known as a murderous nutter. In 1976 he collected some of his hackneyed wisdom in a tome called The Green Book. It is rambling, illogical but mercifully short, so I gave it a read. Like communism, there is some broader sense to the ideals he writes about, but the implementation his just dumb. His solution for the ills of representative democracy, for example, is local councils which elect representatives to higher councils. Not exactly a solution. Underneath the madness and lies, however, is a splinter of a bigger point. Representative democracy has problems. We might be entering the era of change.

I went to a thing by Transparency International. The chair obfuscely said that conversation was off the record, which was odd for a session on right to information. JC Weliamuna’s presentation was very interesting, however. He talked about the agency model of government and a court case which said that right to information was part of right of thought. Both very interesting ideas. While doodling I thought of something of my own, which was that you can either control or flood information, either having the net effect of people not caring (and leaving you alone).

Yesterday I wrote something in the Leader about how societies can collapse, including Sri Lanka if it follows the Chinese model, or China itself. “In his study of how complex societies collapse, anthropologist Joseph Tainter found a pattern. Civilizations from the Mayans to the Romans tended to follow a curve of development, a curve that often turns into a cliff. Essentially, they find a good resource and begin to grow. In order to manage this growth, they become more complex. As this resource runs out, that complexity becomes a burden and the society collapses.”

I went to the market to get some fish. The butcher had a whole cow’s head onto the block. He sliced the bottom, cut the tongue out, and put the head on the ground. I was a bit shocked but he and everyone in line looked nonplussed. I eat beef, but I am not accustomed to looking it in the eye. This is extra strange because cows are effectively my neighbors. Yesterday this big pregnant white cow came into the garden to eat some grass. We hand fed it a few mangos and I petted the beast, which was really quite sweet. The thing that gets me is the eyes. Even on the dead cow, the same poignant eyes.

Getting a kid to bathe is often like asking them to be flayed alive, but perhaps they’re on to something. We’ve gotten so used to modern conveniences that we’ve forgot that they’re modern and think these things are eternal. As an example, showering daily and using deodorant. It seems a necessity, but it was not always so, and it may not be even now. Some people in America are now bathing less, according to the NYTimes, and they’re not all hippies. Frequent showers and use of deodorant may be a social more worth discussing to see how much it actually makes sense.

California recently voted down a move to legalize marijuana. Which is a shame. As I heard in this linked biography, all cultures adopt some psychoactive plant and reject others. In Sri Lanka the ruling political party runs under the symbol of the narcotic betel leaf. We, however, seize and arrest people for possessing marijuana. Drug policy is obviously not designed rationally. A recent Lancet study reported that alcohol is by far the most harmful drug (socially and personally), but it is also the most widely used and accepted. As the study’s co-author said, “What governments decide is illegal is not always based on science.” Indeed drug policy is often cultural. In the right social context, a dangerous drug like alcohol can be managed. What many people don’t like to think is that this type of managed intoxication may be possible with other substances as well.

If the Europeans hadn’t colonized Sri Lanka, we’d probably be a Muslim country. The clash of civilizations is that old. Europeans and Muslims fought over the Indian Ocean and Europe won. That, however, was only one round of many. In his book, Monsoon, Robert Kaplan cites a myth about the Portuguese Prince Henry: “Henry began to plan a grand strategy to outflank the Islamic world from bases in the Indian Ocean. Thus, Prince Henry, this myth continues, developed an obsession with India.” He goes on to say that this myth is a true reflection of the unconscious strategy of the time.

Humanity is a strange thing. We literally say one thing and do another. Our economics is predicated on rational actors, yet our actions are anything but. Our great faiths are predicated on great morality, which only seems to emerge in one person every few thousand years. It is as if our language has a life of its own, while our loins keep springing life infernal. International discourse, for example, is dominated by ideas – democracy, dictatorship, diplomacy. Indeed, for much of western history its seemed that there’s been a stead progression from feudalism to monarchy to democracy. Marx said the next steps were socialism and communism. Yet, what if rather than being an abstract progression, these systems were actually adaptive?

If you get to know anyone, closely, you realize that the public persona is very different from the person. Myself included. We acted shocked when celebrities have break-ups, affairs, commit crimes and get drunk but it’s really a game of childish peek-a-boo. Of course we know that people do these things. We do them ourselves. We have enough drama within our own social circles. It is as if there is this illusion we must sustain in language to keep the horrifying reality at bay. I am constantly struck by the benign hypocrisy of humanity. We say what we want to be and are what are. When the illusion is broken we somehow consider it newsworthy, like a child surprised at a face it saw two seconds ago.

During the election the Elections Commissioner ordered the police to take down political hoardings (billboards). In the most public display of (illegal) defiance, Mahinda Rajapaksa erected a 60 foot high image of himself at the end of Horton Place. This image was later stripped, leaving a Mahinda shaped skeleton. That too was stripped, leaving only a vertical spine. It was this structure that a lone protestor climbed today. He was literally trying to get into Mahinda’s head. The man has sat there all day, in hot sun and now darkness. He is wearing a motorcycle helmet which permanently obscures his face. He has no visible source of food or drink. He has no shade. He must be tired, hot and hungry, but still he remains. His only demand is to meet the Mahinda. What on earth does this mean? What is going on?