The rain eased off a bit today and we had intermittent showers, although it rained heavily overnight. Sydney is well on track to record its wettest year since rainfall records began. We’ve recorded 1768.6 mm since the start of 2022, and the wettest year ever recorded was 2194 mm in 1950. We’re barely halfway through the year, so if the second half is similar to the first we could potentially end up with over 3000 mm.
A new week of ethics classes started today. I wrote up the new topic: Fighting. I’m asking the kids questions such as:
- Is getting into a fight ever justified?
- If two people agree to have a fight, should it be allowed? With fists? With weapons?
- Is it okay to carry a dangerous weapon, for the sole reason of self defence?
- Are combat sports like boxing or mixed martial arts, where the goal is to actually hurt your opponent, okay or not?
I think this is a good topic, as it’s generated some interesting and diverse answers in the first three classes tonight!
New content today:
Wrong question about the fighting – it’s not “is it justified”, it’s ” can it be avoided at all”. It’s in our nature to feel angry and want to lash out. It takes a lot of education to suppress it to a level where we use language and not our fists, and even more effort to keep the langauge clean and mild.
Since it’s very hard to avoid, violence in sport where the goal is hurt and not kill is preferable to the other kind. This is why self defence will not go away any time soon.
Still – if the responsibility to defend us from violence moves to the police, it’s better than letting everybody defend themselves.