Dear Magdalena,

ATTENTION

In an attempt to further the causes of charity, irony, and knowledge all over the world, I have endeavoured to engage in a particular act for an entire month in order to garner funds for a particular charity.

It is well known to my friends (I should hope so, at any rate,) that I am a vegetarian, and have been so for the past five or six years. It's been pretty cool, and I have enjoyed it mostly.

For the next month, I shall be eating meat for charity. This shall be combined with a decent level of reading on the subject of the treatment of animals in agriculture, as well as other associated ethical issues.

Every single meal I eat, for the next month, will involve some sort of product that, due to my vegetarian ways, would normally be prohibited.

I will then donate the money gathered from kind and generous souls, such as yourselves, to the Taronga Zoo Sponsor an Animal program.

This will mean, at the end of the month, that a vegetarian has eaten meat for a month, in order to further the interests of animals.

( Read on for the FAQ )

If you wish to donate (and I really hope you do) then see myself of xony_kookie and give us a bunch of cash. I will also be holding a party at my place after college war to that end. There will be lots of music, drink, rejoicing, conversation, and MEAT-BASED FOOD. Over 9000 of you will be invited.

Yours,
Nicholas Melas

Dear Magdalena,

A lot of people mention, from time to time, how dissatisfied with the law they happen to be. As a law student, I've spent a lot of time looking at how the system works, what principles it is based upon, and how we have come here after a thousand years of English legal history and jurisprudence.

Now, Rawls points out that Hegel's view of political philosophy served to function as a conciliation between the individual who feels estranged by their political system, and the system itself. He thought that, once you could observe the rationality behind the institution, you would lose some of the rage and frustration you feel at its stuffiness and unwillingness to change, and instead feel compelled to do as the Kantian would - Argue, but obey.

One issue that comes up a lot is what sort of protection a trespasser should have on your grounds. Many people bring up cases where the courts, allegedly, have decided that homeowners are liable to trespassers who injure themselves on their property. This, prima facie, seems absurd, and at law, it mostly is. However, the media does like to ferment the aforementioned rage and frustration at the seeming irrational nature of the law - so obviously it will neglect to mention a few things.

The word "neglect" happens to be a great segue into the bulk of this exposition - the tort of negligence, and the philosophical principles that underlie it. There are five key elements of the tort of negligence:

• Duty of Care - That A must owe B a duty to take a reasonable level of care their actions do not interfere with another - Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562


• Breach of Duty - That the actions or omissions of A have breached the duty, by falling short of what a reasonable man would have done in the circumstance. - Wyong Shire Council v Shirt [1978] 1 NSWLR 631


• Causation - That this breach caused the harm, or was a substantial factor in it - March v E & MH Stramare Pty Ltd (1991) 171 CLR 506


• Remoteness - That the kind of harm sustained was not too remote from its cause - Wagon Mound No. 2


• Damage - That the damage sustained was of a kind recompensable at law.

Now, that's a very rough summary of it, and doesn't explain the majority of what one needs to know, but I'll refer to it throughout this.

Now, lets look at an example case. Penny owns Blackacre, and is planning to build a swimming pool in her backyard on the property. She is half-way through construction, so there's a gigantic whacking pit in the ground where the pool should be. Additionally, construction materials have been left on the site, but in a very haphazard and disorganised manner. One day, Mohammed decides he's going to trespass on her property and steal some things. Mohammed waits until it is pitch black before he enters the property. He climbs over the fence, and walks down the driveway. When he passes the driveway, he enters the backyard and trips over on some construction materials, onto a large piece of fragile glass, which then shatters and blinds him.

In his agony and panic, he tries to stand up, but instead falls into the unfenced pit. he sustains several injuries and is blinded for life. He now wishes to sue Penny for negligence.

In my view, this case should succeed.

Many people have argued about the precise theoretical nature of the tort of negligence. Does it depend upon personal responsibility? Or is it more insurance? Certainly, the courts have not tread either road exclusively, but highlighted the importance of both approaches in determining an equitable system for people who have become grievously injured in situations outside of their control.

You might say, however, that this was within the control of Mohammed, for if he had not trespassed on the property in the middle of the night, none of this would have happened.

Sure. It's easy to blame it on someone who shouldn't have been there, and it seems strange to impose a duty of care towards trespassers upon an occupier. However, consider these counterfactuals:

• The person on her property was a police officer in lawful pursuit of a suspected felon.


• The person on her property was too young to appreciate the risks.


• It was daytime, the person on her property was a lawful invitee, and they happened to trip over a particularly well-concealed steel bar.


• It was daytime, the person on her property was a customer in her business, and happened to trip over a particularly well-concealed steel bar.


• The person on her property was intoxicated.

I could go on, but the point is clear. In those cases, the person was either justified to be on the premises, or their unlawfulness was mitigated by some other factor, yet the nature of the negligence has stayed the same in each situation. Australian Safeway Stores Pty Ltd v Zaluzna (1986) points out that even a trespasser is owed a basic duty of care. They're a class of people who may be expected to be upon a premises from time to time. What is more important is the scope of that duty, that is, what can be expected of a person who owes a duty of care to somebody?

In the case of a trespasser, this is unlikely to be a very extensive duty, but it would probably include fencing off gigantic fucking holes in your backyard, or making sure that dangerous things which could cause harm to people, like construction materials, are kept in one spot so that people have to try really hard to injure themselves on it. Actions like that are looked upon by the courts as trying to meet the standard of a reasonable person, after all, what more can the reasonable man do to prevent harm to trespassers, other than make sure that there's nothing obviously foreseeable that they're going to fuck themselves up on? It is an issue of whether you breached your duty in allowing the trespasser to come to harm on your premises. If you can't maintain your property to an extent that obviously dangerous shit is taken care of, then why should the court sit back and let you have a free ride off the fact that the person who suffered due to your negligence wasn't meant to be there?

But if your premises are dangerous for anybody, let alone a trespasser, what the court may do instead is apportion the liability between yourself and the trespasser. The Civil Liability Act 2002 (NSW) ss 5R and 5S provide that liability can be divided between plaintiff and defendant, even up to 100% contribution by the plaintiff (thus defeating the claim.) It's here that the fact that Mohammed has trespassed onto property in the middle of the night without a torch is going to be relevant. What this is effectively saying is "He may be a trespasser (and probably stupid), but that doesn't change the fact that you're negligent. He may have contributed to the harm, but so did you." It is an issue of causation, where both parties have played a part in causing the harm.

Conclusion: Those who argue that the law on negligence is bad because it "protects" trespassers have sadly missed the point. Rather than protecting trespassers, it holds individuals who are grossly negligent in the maintenance of their premises liable when they cannot even be said to uphold a minimally decent duty of care which might be afforded to anybody. Personal responsibility works both ways.

NB: This is not intended to constitute legal advice. Anybody who would take this as advice and use it in any way which might have some legal or any other kind of consequence is an idiot. Speak to a lawyer instead. Idiot.

Look, why are you doing this to me?

Over the last week, you've picked at least three sensitive topics for me right at this point in my life.

So my personal life is very weird, and LJ is asking me the questions I simply don't want to answer.

So fuck you LJ.

Fuck you.

Yours,
ninja.

Well it's a little more complicated than that. To answer that question in brief, yes and no.

To elaborate a little bit...

One could easily take the existence of this social phenomenon of monogamy as proof-in-point that there is indeed a compulsion to be monogamous, so to not believe in monogamy is like not believing that there is a compulsion to obey the laws of a society. Yet this doesn't really explain a lot about what it is to believe in something, nor does it really address what we mean by a compulsion.

I mean, there are compulsions, and then there are compulsions. I would posit three ways in which one might be compelled to do something:

• Artificial compulsion: This is where one's compulsion is entirely the result of a reaction to an external force, like the threat of violence, peer pressure (though this is debatable,) environmental factors, etc. These compulsions can exist outside of a social-normative framework, that is to say, one could be artificially compelled by something outside of the norms of a societal group.


• Subversive compulsion: This category is trickier. It concerns the effects of social norms, or other external influences upon our thinking, or is the result of an external force which triggers something greater than a mere reaction. Things like peer pressure are an external force, but they shape the way our ethical reasoning works in ways we often do not even detect. Nietzsche appeals to the existence of a kind of subversive compulsion by claiming that the emergence of the Priestly class encouraged a "slave revolt in morality" and, through religion and other subversive ways of influencing culture and norms, have changed the behaviour and the thinking of people. The links between artificial and subversive compulsion are obvious - again using Nietzsche's thoughts, the artificial force of torture and imprisonment upon generations of humans have made fear of authority, obedience and responsibility emerge in them, thus creating subversive compulsions to act in certain ways.


• Inherent compulsions: These are animal instincts, Jung's collective unconscious (thank you Karly,) the various animal ways which often will make us want things which we know aren't sensible, such as fatty foods where we intellectually know that it isn't sensible to eat those kinds of foods as we don't use as much energy anymore and don't need the warmth.

Whilst it seems to me that this pretty much covers everything, all readers are welcome to reply with "Citation Needed." Keep in mind - this is a conceptual framework, a theory, something which just seems to make sense.

Applying this framework, where does monogamy belong? More interestingly - is it in competition with another compulsion? Do you necessarily have to choose which to believe in? Is your belief immaterial to the existence of these compulsions?

Surely, it is assumed by many that monogamy is an inherent compulsion, and I surely don't believe that - or at the least, that this is the full story. For some, it seems quite inconceivable that things could have been a different way. Let me demonstrate how this issue could be considered another way.

Rousseau had this theory about the development of society, which I will not recount to you in full as it's not all relevant, but describe to you the initial stages, and the first civil groups.

In the beginning, our "state of nature" as the political philosophers like to refer to it, humans were inherently and completely independent of each other. Now, I know a lot of you like to think we are social animals right off the bat - applying the earlier framework, is sociability an inherent compulsion then? Could there have been a time where humans, due to limited numbers, or not having the requisite capabilities, did not rely on the society of others? To me, it seems strange that, from the get-go, humans had society, for a working group of humans implies firstly communication, and secondly the presence of mind to understand that there are other human beings who think the same way that you do. Let us assume that there was a stage without this, and that these functions developed later.

So, this independent human animal probably didn't have a conception of monogamy - it needed to survive, and its genetics needed to survive, so it procreated with whatever was compatible. However, once it did develop higher intellectual capabilities, it made this recognition of others being similar to one's self, and did form groups based upon this. These groups included men and women, and their children too. It's a hop, skip and a jump to the point where the father recognised the mother, the mother the father, and the parents their children. A division of labour followed amongst these small communities, for they found that it was more efficient if the men hunted and the women tended to the children and the rest of it. This serves as the possible starting point for a compulsion to monogamy.

If we rejected this view, we could always go back to Nietzsche's argument of the subversive character of slave morality, and the institution of monogamy as being part of this fallacious construct of objective morality. At any rate, my point is that the compulsion to monogamy could be seen as a subversive compulsion - something which might not have to have occurred, which could have played out differently on a different set of historical facts. That's not to say that it was the wrong way to go, or that it's less honest to ourselves. It is only saying that to believe, or to not believe in monogamy concerns a greater number of facts than simply matching up how you feel about having more than one partner and answering the question accordingly.

For me, the answer remains, yes and no.

Does it exist? Yes
Is it beneficial? Yes, generally.
Is it the only thing that I want? No.

Dear Magdalena,

My birthday is in six days! I've already received my first present! A few of you may be able to experience, first hand, what this present is.

Thank you xony_kookie!

I should write more about my life.

Another time.

Yours,
ninja.

Probably sarcastic_fucks or wtf_stupid

Hi there.

I'm an ex-fortian, poor Arts/Laws student (at UNSW) who has moved out of home and has no job. Yes, me, and the rest of the world, right? Right.

Now, when Woolworths Ltd. keep on knocking back your resume, you *know* something is either wrong with you, or with the economy.

In a desperate attempt to prove to myself, my landlord and Westpac Banking Corporation that I'm not a useless layabout and it's the economy's fault, and to further the cause of HSC students everywhere, I have decided that I shall become a tutor!

So, allow me to give you the run-down.

I did my HSC in 2006. My UAI was 97.30. My marks went down a bit like this:

Course	             External Mark	Internal Mark 	Total HSC Mark	Band
Drama	                97/100	        91/100	        93/100	        6
English Advanced	88/100	        89/100	        89/100	        5
English Extension 1	45/50	        39/50	        42/50	        E3
English Extension 2	38/50	        46/50	        42/50	        E3
Legal Studies	        93/100	        91/100	        92/100          6
Modern History	        94/100	        90/100	        92/100	        6

Frankly, I was a little miffed by English Extension 2 and English Advanced, but that's ancient history to me now.

For English, the Paper 1 topic was Journeys, I am led to believe it has changed since then. Whatever really - it's just talking about a different concept in relation to the text. For English, Paper 2, I studied The Pardoner's Tale/A Simple Plan for Section A, In the Skin of a Lion for Section B and Frontline for Section C.

In Extension 1, I studied Postmodernism, with such fine *cough* texts as Orlando, Possession and Dead White Males.

For Legal Studies, my modules were Family Law and World Order. As a law student, I feel pretty capable of helping with pretty much any part of the course, as well legal essay writing generally speaking.

Modern History was Germany 1919-1933, The Arab-Israeli conflict and Yasser Arafat. Do you really need tutoring for Drama? Really?

Since leaving high school, I have maintained a near-distinction average (72.something) and written several high-distinction level essays (including one which was 29/30, marked by a reputed "tough bastard.") Proof upon request, of course.

I'd like to think that I'm knowledgeable and capable of helping someone improve their essay writing skills, and assist them with some of the coursework if that's possible. Research skills are also a critical part of several subjects (e.g. Modern History and English) so I endeavor to spend some time in libraries with the lucky, lucky student to get them some academic authority for their essays.

I have not done any tutoring before, but I'm enthusiastic. Considering the prevailing rate for tutoring is around $40-$50 per hour, I shall set my price at about $35 an hour, and additionally, you will get my email address for any last-minute drafts, questions or calming you down before trials, and free, probably bogus legal advice! I live in North Strathfield (two mins away from the station) and I study at UNSW, so I'm willing to meet the victim candidate at nearby libraries, their school or at either of our homes - this all can be negotiated, but must be fairly near to public transport.

If you are interested, and wish to talk more, please give me a call on 0434287020, or email me at z3217435@student.unsw.edu.au

You talking.

Of the State of War

The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man's life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
-- Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, s16

Dear Magdalena,


1. Reply to this post if you want/need me to tell you how cool you are!
2. Watch my journal over the next few days for a post just about you and why I think you rock my socks.
3. Post these instructions in your journal and give your friends a much needed dose of love and adoration!

Yours,
ninja.