Alan Turing’s anniversary 7th June

So many things going on today, like the D-day celebrations- though I am busy preparing notes on the problem of evil and the existence of heaven. Nevertheless, I thought it might be interesting to direct you to Jack of Kent’s website (http://jackofkent.com/about-the-law/) and specifically to his article in the New Statesman on the prosecution of Alan Turing (http://www.newstatesman.com/david-allen-green/2013/07/putting-right-wrong-done-alan-turing). The 60th Anniversary of Turing’s death is tomorrow and, while he has now received an official pardon and statues are springing up in Bletchley and other places to commemorate his astounding achievement, it remains a fact that Britain comes out looking very shabby from this story, as indeed it does from the parallel story of Oscar Wilde’s disgrace and subsequent death. It is not just the disgrace of Wilde that is important in the 19th Century, but the way that everyone connected with Wilde was brought down too with one puritanical salvo. I have been thinking alot about Aubrey Beardsley whose brief period of activity was certainly cut short by the Wilde scandal. Of course, the Turing story could have been much, much worse. Had he been “caught” a few years earlier, it is likely he would have been imprisoned and never completed or maybe even started his work at Bletchley. It may just be speculation but I fancy the war would have gone much worse for us without the development of the “mechanical brain”. The hand-wringing, therefore, about laws in Putin’s Russia looks a bit rich coming from the UK- Russia, at least, can sit back and lay claim to the fact that it had no hand in the comparable murder or suicide of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, that it has not yet driven great writers or great thinkers to their death because of some puritanical and outrageous piece of knee-jerk legislation- not yet, anyway… There are some curious aspects to the process of the law in this area in the UK. One of the men who was responsible for tightening up the laws against sodomy/buggery was a man called John Atherton, an Oxford man and later protestant Bishop of Waterford in Ireland. He was accused of having an affair with his servant, a tithe-collector called John Childe and both of them were hanged in 1640. In all likelihood, he was the victim of a conspiracy but it is worth reflecting on the way public sentiment turns against any form of salacious puritanism and how easily mud sticks when someone is accused. Maybe it is because our National hands are dirty/soiled, therefore, that we have a duty to talk to other countries about the stupidity of enacting silly restrictive and irrational laws that perpetuate prejudice, discrimination blackmail and fear. Because we understand the danger and the appalling consequences not just to the country itself but to the lawmakers.

I did some drawings of a man, Robert Jenrick, who won against UKIP last night in the Newbury by election. His acceptance speech was a bit of a mess, but he clearly mounted a very good campaign against stiff opposition from Labour and Farrage. Congratulations.

Author: timewilson

animator director and teacher View all posts by timewilson