Memory, anger, forgiveness

The other day, on the homeward leg of our regular exercise, our dog dashed off after, presumably, a rabbit or a squirrel. It does remind me of 'Up' where the dogs seem to be only too easily distracted by just the possibility of a squirrel. Anyway, I found myself waiting for Alfi to come back, calling him every so often. Time drags when you're waiting in those circumstances: I couldn't see where he'd got to, couldn't hear any clues. It was probably only two or three minutes but it did drag. Then, Alfi shows himself, loping up the hill towards me looking as happy as a dog ever does.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling annoyed. He's kept me waiting, he's ignored or been slow to heed my calls. If he'd been human I might even have regarded him as being rude or inconsiderate. So I'm cross.

If he were human.

There's the rub. Of course. He isn't. And my feelings are just not really appropriate. More than that, if I act on those feelings, my dog will likely completely misunderstand and I will end up 'saying' to him things which will likely increase his likelihood of staying away.

Firstly, my feelings are not appropriate. At least to some degree. This is because they are based on reactions to models in my head based on human social interactions and their interpretation. Alfi isn't being disobedient, or rude. He's following a strong instinct and we haven't yet found a way to get his attention to stop him doing so when we need him not to do so. He's not making a choice in the way a human would. He's not disrespecting me. My reacting as if he is disrespecting me is simply a misrepresentation on my part. 'Misrepresentation' in terms of my representing the matter to myself; my understanding of it.

And then my dog would not understand this. He's a dog. I'm told that he has a short-term memory of around 7 seconds, meaning that if something happened longer-ago than those 7 seconds, he won't have a chance of associating it with whatever I might do in the present -whether it be to praise or to punish. As he comes back, the main thing in his mind is likely to be that he's coming back to me, not that he ran off and perhaps I called after him (whatever that might 'mean' to him). So if I chide him, all I'll probably succeed in doing is to apparently express my displeasure that he's coming back! He's no means to associate my displeasure with his running off; that's out of the frame of his memory and attention. So my only option at this point is to reinforce that it is good that he's coming back by making something of a fuss of him. I need to do this because, whatever else, it's important that he knows that it is good (for me and so for him) for him to come back. I want him to come back. It's just that I'd like him to be more prompt about it in certain circumstances.

So I'm left reflecting on myself, as so often when considering interacting with our dog. I'm not alone: Raising Hero: "Dogs are here in our lives for one reason; to help us become more conscious". I resonate with that.
I reflect that my own anger/displeasure is borne of my perception of the intentions of the other as well as of being thwarted in my plans or desires.
I reflect that, therefore, suffering a hurt or detriment is one thing; experiencing it (through our interpretation) as a personal hurt is another thing.

I may become agitated because my desire to do something (eg get home at the end of a walk) is frustrated. That may pass once either something else replaces my concern or when the activity can be resumed. That is if it is simply circumstances that have interrupted my ability to fulfil my desire at that point. If, on the other hand, there is personal agency involved in frustrating my aim, the frustration remains even after the passing of the blockage to my goal. It remains because the frustration now associates with the personal 'detriment'. That is, if someone does something to frustrate my goal, and I perceive the frustration to be a result of their personal volition, then the displeasure I feel is associated with that person and in particular their attitude or design; their ill-will. It is now personal, not impersonal.

In such a circumstance, then the mere removal of the blockage to my goal in physical terms (let us suppose) is not sufficient to begin to assuage my displeasure or anger. I need to deal also with the personal relationship dimension: the perceived or presumed ill-will. If that is still there, or thought to be there, then I can't move on. If I discover that there was no ill-will, just a mistake or even 'not unreasonable thoughtlessness'. Then, on the whole, my displeasure disperses, as if the matter were impersonal.

If I discover that the matter did involve some kind of ill-will, or that it has now acquired an overlay of ill-will (because the other party becomes pleased, for some reason, that some misfortune has visited me); that's a different matter. I head towards 'fight', 'flight' or 'reconciliation'. If 'fight', then I seek to impose on the other some punishment or revenge. If the reconciliation then I 'absorb' the distress myself rather than 'export' it by imposing it on the other person. If I choose 'flight' then I absorb it but without reconciliation and it becomes stressful and is likely to erupt in future relating with the person concerned; it is, so to say, a latent 'fight'.

This is why memory is so important to this whole issue. Without memory of the detriment, there is nothing to forgive. Without memory of it, relating is not hampered by recollection or reactivation of past wrong.

And of course, if it is no longer interpreted as 'wrong' (as for example when it is recognised to be accidental) it also is not a barrier to relating. Hence, on both counts, forgiveness is not something my dog can give or receive. To forgive and be forgiven we have to both be able to recall a wrong and to associate it with current conditions and/or relationships. We also have to have a concept of 'wrong' to hang it on. Without a sense of ill-will we can't conceive of 'wrong' in anyway except something that happens not to have suited us at the time. Ill-will gives a detriment the status of a wrong and turns a wound into an injury (in-jur-y).

150 friends at most…

If Robin Dunbar is right then this answers a question I've mused on in odd moments. For a number of years I've been familiar with the idea in church growth research/opinion that there is a church size threshhold at 150 or 175 or thereabouts. It has tended to be justified by the notion that around 150 is the maximum number of people we can really relate to. This would appear to be grounded in the kind of research Dunbar is in touch with. For example here: Robin Dunbar: We can only ever have 150 friends at most… | Technology | The Observer: "within the primates there is a general relationship between the size of the brain and the size of the social group. We fit in a pattern. There are social circles beyond it and layers within – but there is a natural grouping of 150. This is the number of people you can have a relationship with involving trust and obligation – there's some personal history, not just names and faces."
My question has been whether this figure is and absolute related to the individual or relative to any particular social context, iow whether an individual can have several networks of up to 150 people. Robin Dunbar seems to say it is the former.

This being so, it means that there is a problem with using the 150-relationships per individual as an explanation for a church size boundary. This is because an individual within the church 'comes' with a certain number of relationships already in place: family, extended family, friends, colleagues etc. Some of these, at least, will be significant relationships in terms of Dunbar's research. Therefore, any individual in church will have capacity for less, perhaps significantly less than 150.

Of course, it may be that something about the way that figures aggregate may still give 150, but I'm skeptical about that. (Anyone able to do the maths on that one?). So I think we need to look elsewhere to explain the 150 or 175 threshold.

A bit Wallace and Grommit, but it works....

I loved this; check it out. Basically a Yorkshireman for £500 managed to take photos 20-odd miles up which got NASA impressed. Trust a Yorkshireman to do it cheaper! The Northerner: Views as sky-high as allotment prices | UK news | guardian.co.uk: "'Nasa had heard what was happening and wanted to know how I'd done it so cheaply,' he said. 'People think this is something that costs millions but it doesn't. You just need a bit of technical know-how. I know nothing about electronics and what I do know, I learned from the internet. My family and friends thought I was a bit mad a first but they were suitably impressed with the results."
Now, that's the kind of thing that makes me proud to be British!

Food at the Last Supper in picture

I find this interesting:
Food culture and the Last Supper | Culture Making:

"From the 52 paintings, which date between 1000 and 2000 A.D., the sizes of loaves of bread, main dishes and plates were calculated with the aid of a computer program that could scan the items and rotate them in a way that allowed them to be measured. To account for different proportions in paintings, the sizes of the food were compared to the sizes of the human heads in the paintings. The researchers' analysis showed that portion sizes of main courses (usually eel, lamb and pork) depicted in the paintings grew by 69 percent over time, while plate size grew by 66 percent and bread size grew by 23 percent."

What I'm thinking about is why this should be. I can think of two or three possible reasons but not yet decide between them.
One of the reasons could be that, rather like the following of social fashion around the production of the painting, the portions are reflecting a greater wealth in society. However, that doesn't necessarily work; these works would have been commissioned by the rich and they probably didn't have stingy portions. But then, how would the painter have viewed that ....

Which brings into play another line of explanation: culture, but culture of depiction. Perhaps it could be to do with ideological considerations about what amount of food one should portray saints as eating. In a culture which values the ascetic, small portions would presumably be regarded as more seemly than large. However, that probably doesn't entirely do it either: ascetic attitudes continued through quite large chunks of this period and yet, presumably, the increase continued.

Perhaps it's a bit of both these explanations? A change from portraying ascetic ideals to reflecting actualities. This would fit, to some degree, with the shift to humanism; observation of the actual, valuing of human life as lived, desire by patrons to display wealth ... yes, that sounds plausible at first sight ...
What do you reckon?

PS more recently, a helpful response article on this...

Barbarism, civilisation, and culture

Barbarism, civilisation, and culture: Tzvetan Todorov keynote at The Inner Lives of Cultures conference « Counterpoint

Bishops’ seats & Lords reform

It's right that we should look at this. I'm a bit concerned that the way that the 'official' CofE response lookstoo much like self-serving justification.Church Times - Bishops’ seats threatened again in Lords reform: "“Any notion that a wholly elected second chamber will be other than a body dominated by the main political parties, to the exclusion of bishops and other senior faith representatives (for example the present Chief Rabbi, who is a member of the Lords), and of the many other able and experienced people who are not politicians and currently sit on the cross benches, is fanciful.”"
Of course it all depends on the way that the election was held. I too am not in favour of simply reproducing a Senate with a party political agenda: that would indeed be more of the same that the country seems to be rather sick of. But if we were to consider elections from a different kind of constituency which didn't really suit party politics, and perhaps favoured issues, well, that'd be worth doing: and it could make room for Church representation too ... See my proposals here and more posts here.

Just when you thought it was safe to eat Kit Kat ...

They've put fair traded chocolate on Kit Kat. Great. However ... "Nestle, maker of Kit Kat, uses palm oil from companies that are trashing Indonesian rainforests, threatening the livelihoods of local people and pushing orang-utans towards extinction. We all deserve to have a break - but having one shouldn't involve taking a bite out of Indonesia's precious rainforests. We're asking Nestle to give rainforests and orang-utans a break and stop buying palm oil from destroyed forests."
Greenpeace | Ask Nestle to give rainforests a break:

What a good idea: a folding plug

Why, indeed, has no-one apparently thought of this before?

'When people carry laptops with the UK plugs in a bag, it always causes problems such as tearing paper or scratching laptop surfaces and sometimes it will break other stuff". ... the traditional three-pin plug had not been designed with mobility in mind. 'I've tried to make it much thinner and safer,'

Folding plug wins design of the year prize | Art and design | The Guardian:

Ooffoo Laureate Competition

Ooffoo Laureate Competition Finalists Announced by ooffoo – ooffoo.com: "For a chance to win �1,000 we asked the Ooffoo community to write a letter to a leading world figure with inspiration or ideas to help bring change to the world. We received nearly 100 moving, inspiring and heart-felt entries and we wish to express our enormous gratitude to all those who took part in the competition, the standard this year was extremely high and the choice for the finalists was very difficult. However, there can be only one winner and, after much careful deliberation, short-listing has now taken place."

Some thought-filling stuff here: have a look; which would you vote for to win?

Goodies behaving badly

Quite an interesting little article here:
Goodies behaving badly | Julian Baggini | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk. It comments on some research which shows that people seem to do an individual 'carbon trading' scheme of their own: offsetting virtuous behaviours by seeing that they allow for rather less virtuous behaviours in other areas of their life.
Baggini's comment: "The general truth lurking behind these findings is that the feeling of being pure is a moral contaminant. In ethical terms, the best never think that they are the best, and those that believe themselves to be on the side of the angels are often the worst devils."
This sounds interestingly close to Jesus' critique of the worst of Pharisaism. and he goes on to offer a reason for this: "complacency is as dangerous in ethics as it is in any other area of life where we strive for excellence. If we think we are "good people" we might think less about the possibility that we might actually be doing wrong."
Which, again, sounds close to the critique of Jesus. But it should act as a warning to us all, after all "We are the Pharisees". I personally think this is a key area of ethical self-reflection with major resonances in words about specks and logs in eyes...

Illuminating Hadrian's Wall

I'm a bit dischuffed that I didn't get to hear about this until this morning. Heck, we could probably have seen some of the beacons from our back window ... I'd have loved to go 3 miles north and stood on the wall ... sigh ...
Illuminating Hadrian's Wall | Culture | guardian.co.uk

Bishops Jones and Ipinmoye, gays, GAFCON and warfare

I'm not wanting to comment just at the moment about the main substance of this article; encouraging though it is on a number of fronts:
Church Times - Jones queries conservative view on gays.

No. What I want to try to understand is what this bit means.

"Bishop Ipinmoye’s reiteration that he wished to remain a mission partner, in spite of Liverpool’s stance of being “on the way to a position similar to the Church’s attitude to pacifism on matters of homosexuality”."

What it appears to say is ... well, 'in spite of' indicates, normally, that what follows is disagreed with by the speaker or the reported-speaker. So, what follows should be regarded as stating a position with which Bp Ip inmoye disagrees. Therefore, what Bp Ipinmoye seems to be saying is that -given his perspective, remember- that pacifism is unbiblical and a novelty to Christianity brought about by compromise with cultural trends. Of course, this is the reverse of the truth. Pacifism is almost universally recognised to be the more biblical position for Christians (it's the natural interpretation of Jesus's teaching) whereas the non-pacifist set of positions is the 'concession' to cultural and political 'realities'.

The irony is, of course, (assuming that the reporting is fair and I've interpreted it about right) that by accepting the (I assume) just war position the bishop is adopting a basic hermeneutic and ethical manoeuvre which he is presumably disallowing in the sexuality debate. Yes folks, that's right; I think that if you can justify bearing and using arms as a Christian, then you have done the basic ethical and hermeneutical work to accept homophile marriage.

The hard work is really for those who are more disposed to the NT and the Church's original approach to warfare. For those who have already agreed that 'hard reality' and/or the demands of justice sometimes trump ethical 'niceties', then the game is up. GAFCONs emperor has no clothes.

So I call on GAFCON members either to take a distinctly and unequivocal pacifist position, or to recognise homophile relationships as marriageable.
If you'd like to see what James Jones said, look here.

Rapid response denial: could be self-defeating

This is something that anyone involved in news, propaganda, advertising and PR should pay attention to.

in reference to:

"In 2008 the Washington Post summarised recent psychological research on misinformation(6). This shows that in some cases debunking a false story can increase the number of people who believe it"
- Monbiot.com » The Unpersuadables (view on Google Sidewiki)

Ulterior motives?

"To approach the dialogue process without this awareness, as some evangelicals seem to have done, is to run the risk of manipulation by international Islamic interests. We are concerned that some of the Muslim leaders involved in the Common Word project may be manipulating Christian naïveté and feelings of guilt to further the cause of Islamic da‘wa"
- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

Given that many Muslims think that this is what western Christians are up to, this smacks of pot calling kettle black. Especially as in some cases it is actually true of some westerners, Evangelicals in particular. It is hard, therefore to be entirely sympathetic with the statement that follows: "To approach the dialogue process... as some evangelicals seem to have done, is to run the risk of manipulation by international Islamic interests. We are concerned that some of the Muslim leaders involved in the Common Word project may be manipulating Christian naïveté and feelings of guilt to further the cause of Islamic da‘wa "

We should recall that part of the mission of Christians is dialogue: it is directly implied by neighbour love, incarnation and the blessing of peacemakers. By all means do it as 'cunning as serpents and innocent as doves', though.

in reference to:

Yes, but that misses the point

I also agree that, of necessity, certain Christian doctrines are likely to offend Muslim sensibilities (and this has always been the case in mission: some gospel stuff cuts across accepted mores or 'politeness' fields). However, that is not the issue named earlier in the paragraph. The statement allegedly being taken issue with says: "Da‘wa and evangelism should focus primarily on a positive presentation of what one believes, not on negative attacks on the other's faith". This is not about the inherent incompatibilities of different world views and the potential thereby for degrees of offence, rather it is saying, in effect "no negative campaigning', don't set out to offend, don't build your communication around denigration; build it round a positive presentation of what you value and believe rather than what you don't believe. Don't be abusive or argumentative ....

in reference to: Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

Lest you think that I think it's a bad article:

I agree with the writer here:

"While in certain contexts it might be wise to perform a secret baptism so as to protect the convert, Love seems to go beyond that precautionary attitude and to be willing to subordinate a basic Christian rite and doctrine to Muslim perceptions. He also ignores the context of this special baptism, in which the Pope was responding to complaints by converts from Islam in the West that the Church was ignoring them and their plight and was not willing to offer them protection and refuge."

A robust dialogue with Muslims means that Muslims have to deal with the fact of Muslim-backgrounded people turning to Christ (just as we have to deal with the reverse situation). I don't expect Muslims to change their practices for reception into Islam and I don't expect that they should assume we would change ours. This is part of the point of the statement engineered by Philip Lewis referred to previously, incidently.

in reference to:

- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

There's so much wrong with this I hardly know where to begin ...

"it is only through the unique Messiah Jesus that salvation is offered and only in the Church He founded as His body that fellowship is to be practised. The Insider Movement encourages Muslim background believers to distance themselves from traditional Christian forms, but rather than returning to the New Testament paradigm, it at least implicitly endorses Muslim doctrines, rites and traditions, many of which were developed in conscious opposition to Christianity and the Bible"

First: the appeal to the Samaritan woman does not refute the Insider position: if anything it may support it: if salvation is really in the Messiah and worship de-localised, then that is no problem to the C5 Insider; rather the reverse: it is the fetishising of 'Christian' culture, buildings and religiosity that is the problem in a similar way to the fetishising of Temple and Kashrut.

The other major thing is the blind spot this exhibits to the 'compromises' made with culture and religion in the course of western cultural and mission history; it smacks of pulling up the ladder after we've climbed up. Every problematisation of C5 stuff in this paragraph can be paralleled with 'acceptable' things in western Christianity.

This is not to say that there aren't problems with the C5 Insider position, but they aren't quite those presented here. Furthermore, the presentation here is unfair on the actual issues 'in the field' and the ways that those involved wrestle with them.

I still think that there is serious merit in the thought that 'if it doesn't risk syncretism, it isn't mission'.

in reference to:

- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

Inconsistent scaremongering?

in reference to:

"These notes use the Qur'an to help shed light on the Biblical narrative. The notes suggest (albeit only by implication) that the Qur'an is somehow, and to some extent, authoritative and useful in Bible study, as it sheds new light on God's Word. The Bible is not to be understood only in its own terms, but also in light of the Qur'an."

I'm finding myself increasing irritated by the slurring involved in this kind of argument. In principle, the notes referred to are probably not doing anything different from using, say, the poetry of Tennyson (or Paul's use of Greek poetry or John's use of stoic ideas) as dialogue partners for considering our own scriptures. In fact we all do this all the time: we interpret the scripture through the lens of our own experience, concerns and pre-understandings. This doesn't mean we are elevating such things to the same status as the Word of God; merely that we are seeking to integrate the Word into our thought patterns more thoroughly and to give the space for scripture to help us to view the world around us more insightfully and wisely. In principle this is what we should be doing, cannot avoid doing, in fact.

I therefore take issue with the sly implication that to do this is to subordinate scripture to something else. The implication of this passage is that the Bible should be hermetically sealed off from other areas of experience, thought or nurturance. To take someone else's designation of something as a source of reflection or authority seriously is not necessarily to agree with them. It merely means recognising that it is so for them. Unless we do that, we cannot do the work of trying to make connections between what we believe to be important and what 'they' believe to be important.

- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

This is not what the text says

in reference to:

"the document encourages Christian and Muslim preachers to say only things about the other religion that are well received by their neighbours and colleagues from it. This principle appears to suggest that no Christian critique of Islam can ever be legitimate, and might even be seen by some as an implicit acceptance of dhimmi status, which forbids non-Muslims to do anything objectionable to Muslims."

The text referred to actually talks about not saying things that the other would not recognise. It is phrased in such a way as to allow critical comment but to disallow or discourage unfair criticism. So it would allow Muslims to say that Christian religion has been used to justify morally repugnant acts in the Crusades, however, it should discourage them from making the accusation that the doctrine of the Trinity is polytheism. Far from a reproduction of the conditions for a cowed dhimmitude it is actually a call to truth-telling and the discipline of neighbour love: to do to the other what we would have them do to us; in this case to speak fairly and charitably. I fear that this bit of the statement is in danger of failing that test.

- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

How many infinite transcendent-yet-immanent Creators of the cosmos can there be?

The article near the beginning says:

""believers in the One God", a phrase that assumes the word "God" to have the same referent in Islam and in Christianity."

This is ridiculous and really ought to be lost from Evangelical discourse. How can the referent be any other than the same? It may be that our understandings of some aspects of 'God' are different but that would be on a par with a dispute about whether one of my friends was, say, opinionated: no one seriously doubts the person in question is my friend; it is the way they act in some situations and how that is to be interpreted that is at issue.in reference to:

- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

Inclusivism or pluralism?

I'm concerned here that the word 'inclusivism' is used when I think that something else is meant:

 "The liberal tradition of Christianity, which dominates the Christian presence at the interfaith table, has long espoused a theology of ecumenical inclusivism"

What appears to be meant, using the following sentences as a guide, is 'pluralism'. Inclusivism is a position which is not pluralist and is also not exclusivist. I'm concerned that by lumping the label inclusivism with liberal 'pluralism' a theological straw man is being moved into position to only allow exclusivism as the legitimate 'Evangelical' position. Even if I'm being too sensitive at this point, the misuse of the term still needs to be flagged up so as not to mislead readers in other discussions where the terms are used in the more generally accepted ways.
in reference to:

- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

Dates before Twin Towers fall

So far this article is an interesting account of interfaith and dialogue initiatives between Muslims and Christians. The article started by framing this as an after the Twin Towers thing. These following dates, however, are before that incident. That's not to invalidate what's being written here, but it is important to note that the issues predate the 'crisis'.
in reference to:

"in 1997. He helped set up a joint Christian-Muslim Planning Group in 2000 and a larger Reference Group of Christian and Muslim leaders in 2001"
- Barnabas Fund - hope and aid for the Persecuted Church | Persecuted Christians : Recent Changes in Christian Approaches to Islam (view on Google Sidewiki)

Mistaken for Jon Venables -the new face of witch hunts

It is said that medieval witch hunts were stitch-ups: famously Monty Python and the Holy Grail showed how it was supposed to work: if she floated she was a witch -kill her. If she drowned she was innocent -but dead. And the evidence in Monty Python's sketch was always interpreted in the worst possible light for the victim of the lynching. So it is worrying in the extreme to see the spirity of the lynch-hunt is still alive and anyone could fall foul of the lottery of co-incidence. See here: Man mistaken for Jon Venables on Facebook fears for safety | UK news | guardian.co.uk

The poor guy has presumably just enough resemblance and admitted once that he'd been in prison:

"'People have been turning up at my neighbours' houses with pictures of the killers printed off the internet, and saying one of them is me. Now I hear that threats are being made and I'm worried that someone will come for me or my girlfriend or hurt my kids,' he said. 'I'm too scared to go out of the house now. I have these people saying they will get me out no matter what and I'm terrified at what they might do.'"

The problem is, when the person they are actually seeking te victimise has been given a false identity, including a fictitious life history, any protestations of innocence by someone like Mr Calvert are likely to be met with 'Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?' or 'It's fake: they had to give him a false background.' Effectively, there's no way to 'prove' your innocence.

These people need a crash course in why it is so important that we all abide by the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty'. The rest of us need to say so firmly and not pander to the lynch mentality of 'guilty until proven innocent'.

Robin Hood tax: what the Republicans tried to censor....

I'm tempted to say that if the USAmerican Republican in the 90's engineered effectively to censor the idea, then it's an idea worth knowing about. Of course it's now being taken seriously.
What’s not to like? | Inside Story: "Republican senators in the United States had started misrepresenting Tobin’s proposal as a “UN tax.” This was nonsense, of course: taxes can only be collected by governments. Yet that fact didn’t prevent the Republican-controlled Senate from including in the bill authorising payment of US dues to the United Nations a clause prohibiting payment if Tobin’s idea was even discussed in the UN."
The article this quote's from gives some helpful details and summaries of research related to the tax. Here's the summarising final paragraph.

American Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman argues that a financial transaction tax “would be a trivial expense for people engaged in foreign trade or long term investment; but it would be a major disincentive for people trying to make a fast buck (or euro, or yen) by outguessing the markets over the course of a few days or weeks.” “What’s not to like?” he asks. Critics claim that it would be avoided, but the centralisation of such transactions makes them relatively easy to monitor – if there is a will to do so. The tax is one way of shrinking bloated financial sectors and of raising revenue from those who have benefited most from the explosive growth in the volume of international financial transactions. •