First of all, and despite the inflammatory nature of the title, I would like to say that I came to Dennett's work with a relatively open mind. I had seen some of his lectures on YouTube and I had heard about his advocacy of atheism. He seemed to be a relatively rational thinker and a proponent of similar beliefs. I was wary of his advocacy of meme theory, but nothing in his mainstream presence suggested any hint of what I was to find when I started reading his latest book, my first and last Dennett work, Breaking the Spell.
I thought Dennett might be a safe bet because he comes highly recommended by Richard Dawkins. While I disagree with Dawkins' advocacy of socialist politics and his own claims to meme theory, it has always struck me that Dawkins' attachment to memes is more of a kin to humoring an interesting analogy as opposed to seriously proposing it as a foundation for rational debate. He introduced it in The Selfish Gene, a work otherwise highly commendable for its astute and forthright explanation of evolutionary theory. But after reading Dennett's work, I am forced to reevaluate my estimation of Dawkins' intellectual honesty as well. I will give him the benefit of doubt and withhold my judgement till I have further explored Dawkins' works. As for Dennett....he embodies everything that I feared would happen in the world of philosophy when I first encountered Dawkins' suggestion.
Dennett tries to sell his book as an attempt "to investigate religion in a scientific manner". Now, I am an anti-theist, which means that I not only do not believe in any god or supernatural presences, powers, or forces whatsoever, but it means that I think such beliefs are fundamentally harmful to humanity and destructive of science and progressive humanistic thought. In this sense, I mean "progressive" as in advancing in a beneficial manner and "humanistic" as in pertaining to the notion that the lives of human beings should be the standard and focal point of philosophic enquiry. I came across Dennett as one of the so-called "Four Horsemen" of modern atheism, the others being Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. It is in fact the recent spate of media coverage in recent years that drew me to start investigating their works, and Dawkins' own sense of consciousness-raising that inspired me to start this blog as an expression of my own beliefs.
Harris, while his arguments against religion are indisputable, leaves much to be desired when he starts to argue for anything. He tends to convey the impression that his assertion is sufficient to justify any demand on our moral judgments and seems quite confident that the majority of his atheist peers are as hopelessly liberal as he is. While he rightfully condemns moral relativism, he unwittingly falls into the trap of being a moral relativist, as he argues in defense of torture. This is an issue which it is impossible to defend morally unless one assumes that one party is always in the right simply for the reason that it is one's own. He blatantly ignores that if one is to relinquish the moral high ground by engaging in the debased tactics of one's moral rivals, that one sacrifices the grounds from which such one-sided moralizing can be justified in the first place. Harris seeks to undermine the universality of human rights and his argument is half-based on assumptions of some vaguely stated moral solidarity with the American vox populi.
Dawkins, as I have already stated, is at his best when he is addressing his speciality of biology and evolutionary theory. Especially as the only pure scientist of the four, this is to be expected. However, as I have also argued elsewhere on this site, Dawkins is comitted to a form of socialist politic which ignores many of his own conclusions. But I see this contradiction stemming from only the slightest of moral misdirections, his lingering attachment to christian morality and his desire to force it into biology so as to rationalize his view of morality in a world that cannot logically accommodate it. But his attachments to Harris who favors torture and now Dennett who is much worse, seriously demand that Dawkins philosophical work be scrutinized more closely. That is a task which I must regrettably leave for later. I also have not yet had the opportunity to investigate Hitchens' work closely, but that, too, will be addressed in due time.
No, the topic at hand is Dennett and his book Breaking the Spell. What it should be called is Hail the Meme and Other Unsubstantiated Assertions. I could not get more than one third through this book before I became physically ill for trying to choke down the slew of outrageous propositions he tries to foist on the reader. A book, I might add, for which Dennett says, "a reader-friendly flow for a wider audience was more important than the convenience of scholars."
Certainly scholars should have nothing to do with this book whatsoever. Of course the first two chapters deal with relatively innocuous subjects like why we should investigate religion and whether or not scientific investigation is appropriate to or capable of the task. It is the third chapter, "Why Good Things Happen" that starts to rank of shoddy (or perhaps even consciously deceptive) reasoning. I was left wondering that if this is the best Tufts has to offer in the realm of philosophy, perhaps Tufts is not quite worthy of the respect it has been accorded.
The reason is memes. Unlike Dawkins' scientifically cautious approach to the concept of memes, Dennett charges head-on taking all sorts of wild conjectures for granted. I quote:
"If boatbuilders or potters or singers are in the habit of copying old designs "religiously," they may preserve design features over hundreds or even thousands of years. Human copying is variable, so slight variations in the copies will often appear, and although most of these promptly disappear, since they are deemed defective or "seconds" or in any event not popular with the customers, every now and then a variation will engender a new lineage, in some sense an improvement or innovation for which there is a "market niche". And lo and behold, without anybody's realizing it, or intending it, this relatively mindless process over long periods of time can shape designs to an exquisite degree, optimizing them for local conditions."
...The italics are Dennett's....the confusion is mine.
First of all, as a linguist, I cannot help but notice that Dennett strategically uses the passive voice to avoid betraying who or what it is that is acting upon the design process of boats and pots and songs. He also strategically places these "customers" in the circumstance of the phrase. An approach that those familiar with Halliday's functional grammar will recognize as being extremely useful for hiding the impact of a participant or obfuscating their role almost entirely. The fact that Dennett is desperately trying to obscure is that boats do NOT design themselves. That the process of copying or innovation is something which is consciously decided by human minds, by active participants in their own existence, by active participants in the contents and products of their own minds.
But to state that humans actually DO something would be to give up the game and declare from the start that what he intends is ludicrous tripe. In fact, in order to substantiate even the possibility of his beloved memes, Dennett must beg the question by first assuming that there is no such thing as free will, as self-modification of one's mental structure, as the ability to choose which ideas one accepts and which ideas one rejects and which ones and how one modifies. Dennett must use the passive voice to obscure these facts because when they are placed directly next to the assertions he draws, it becomes obvious that what he is saying isn't worth the paper on which it is printed.
Again I quote: "Here we have the design of a human artifact-culturally, not genetically transmitted-without a human designer, without an author or inventor or even a knowing editor or critic."
THIS of boatbuilding. Where, one is forced to ask, would Dennett be if there was not some convenient boat to copy? Presumably he would be up the creek without a paddle, because he has already dismissed the possibility that somebody could conceive of a new idea and create a paddle much less a boat to carry him. Without a human designer? How could a boat come to be without a human designer? I am really forced to wonder if not only Dennett but his editor and publisher were not all smoking crack when they were going over this drivel.
If only because they permitted Dennett to start from this rather dramatic and unsubstantiated assumption and progress to "make a point that should be uncontroversial: cultural transmission can sometimes mimic genetic transmission, permitting competing variants to be copied at different rates, resulting in gradual revisions in features of those cultural items, and these revisions have no deliberate, foresighted authors."
No authors? Who is supposedly making these cultural artifacts if not human beings? Of course Dennett has already decided that humans have no free-will or control of their consciousness, so naturally they cannot be an active participant in the creation of anything. Dennett sees some undefined class of artisans who mindlessly copy designs passed down by some mysterious and undefined source and who copy even mistakes mindlessly without appraisal with no judgment whatsoever as to the content of that work. One is forced to question whether this isn't what Dennett truly hopes that humanity is and is desperately trying to substantiate it as opposed to truly scientifically investigating human nature at all.
He then moves on to try and appropriate linguistics to substantiate his 'meme-ological' musings. Language is well-understood to be a characteristically unique cognitive function. The interrelationship between language and thought is anything but a settled issue. And strong versions of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis have been almost thoroughly ruled out by rigorous scientific study. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis basically states that our cognitive functions are influenced by our language. The strong form of this theory would imply that a person's cognitive processes are defined by their language. Theoretically, this would mean that a person cannot conceive of ideas that are not encoded in the language. This is clearly not true, as new words are coined to accommodate new concepts and inventions as they are introduced into the environment. This is a major factor which drives the invention of words, something that Dennet ignores completely. By saying that language evolves itself without any conscious modification, he is ruling out the participation of the actors, the ones who actually voice and write language, us, the human beings.
"On even rarer occasions," he says, " individuals may set out to invent a word or a pronunciation and actually succeed in coining something that eventually enters the language, but in general, the changes that accumulate have no salient human authors, deliberate or inadvertent."
?!
How would Dennett then explain the invention of words like "computer", "robot", "bug", "virus" or the slew of technical computer-based terminology which inundates us today? The invention of these terms was not an outgrowth of already extant phrases that somehow "evolved" through the accumulation of minor changes via the reproduction process and limited by natural selection. These were terms and senses that sprang out of their functional necessity, out of the emergence of new objects which had previously not existed. Objects, machines, devices, which were created, not out of some natural process, but by the dedicated application of human thought to solve real problems in a real universe, not in some magic fantasy land of actorless dynamics like the foggy cloud of disembodied determinism gone mad that rattles around Dennet's echoing chamber of a cranium. Changes in the existential universe mandated changes in language. So, too, changes in modes of thought, changes in our understanding of things have always mandated changes in our language. Language and cognition are intricately intertwined.
However, even though the words we use, through the influence of things like accent, can produce an almost evolutionary shift in language so that German becomes English or Latin becomes Portuguese, the concepts expressed by language remain steadfastly connected to ultimately concrete descriptions of the world around us. As such, the word's meaning does not change as much as Dennett would like us to think. Perhaps words can be shifted to mean things that they were not originally intended to mean, like "gay" or Dennett's pet term "bright". But when they do so, the concepts (for as long as they remain valid concepts in human knowledge) will engender the birth of new phrases which are then needed to express potentially ancient concepts which have been left unheralded by the detachment from the word which had previously served that function.
"Cat" may be "gato" or " neko" or any number of words in any number of languages, but a cat is still a cat, no matter which language you're speaking. And it doesn't take a genius to see that a word is very different from a boat. So, one once again wonders why Dennett doesn't realize this.
After becoming physically ill at this point from trying to understand how someone could present such a mishmash of arbitrary assertions which contrast so starkly with physical reality, I decided to cut to the chase and read Dennett's proffered Appendix which is a reproduction of his article "The New Replicators" originally published in the Encyclopedia of Evolution from Oxford University Press. It was hoped that reading something a bit more technical could help dispell some of Dennett's own mumbo-jumbo.
Unfortunately, fully dissecting that would take another post almost as long as this one, and it would simply be a reiteration of the arguments I have already presented. To sum it up, while accepting that there is no basis in physical reality for the existence of memes, he claims that they are simply because they are possible. However, their very possibility once again assumes that people do not have free-will or active control over the contents of their own minds or the products of their labor. In short, it assumes that ideas are generated by the very processes that would need to be established to prove the existence of the process proposed. If this circle of logic makes you dizzy, then you can sympathize with the motion sickness I got while reading Dennett's book in my living room.
Perhaps Dennett is happy ruminating on his prophesied day "when a cleverly turned phrase in a book gets indexed by many search engines, and thereupon enters the language as a new cliche, without anybody to read it." But if nobody reads it, it is doubtful that it can be said to have entered the language at all. At the very least, it can only be hoped that both Dennett and his abuse of human reason are not long for this Earth. Although with the support and following of so many prominent intellectuals, it may be that he will instead be remembered as the messiah of a brand new breed of totalitarian rhetoric, yet one known to readers of Ayn Rand's philosophical work as the "Aristocracy of Pull." For once you have abdicated belief in you own mind, then you will be very easy to control.
And petty hacks like Dennett have long yearned to pull the trigger in the face of humanity.
Translator
Friday, June 27, 2008
Happy 4th of July!
As we come upon yet another celebration of America's political and philosophical independence, I'd like to offer this video commentary made by Michael Berliner of the Ayn Rand Institute. In it he pays eloquent tribute to the spirit that made America a colossus astride the world and recognizes the philosophical as well as political nature of the revolution itself.
Enjoy:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWv5VZWlwRQ
Enjoy:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWv5VZWlwRQ
Monday, June 23, 2008
George Carlin, Atheist Comedian, Dies at Age 71.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25322638/
George Carlin, a very funny man who made his living pulling the pants down on institutionalized hypocrisy, died on Sunday. He was 71. As a tribute, I hope you enjoy this clip of his routine on religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZWDGLIKyY
George Carlin, a very funny man who made his living pulling the pants down on institutionalized hypocrisy, died on Sunday. He was 71. As a tribute, I hope you enjoy this clip of his routine on religion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZWDGLIKyY
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Child Abuse in Schools & Homes (plus I believe in Latin License Plates)
Today there's several news stories I'd like to comment on.
1) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25284886/
All I have to say is GOOD RIDDANCE. I am so glad that this guy was ejected from the school. They ought to arrest him for physical assault and child abuse. What can I say? God and science definitely do NOT mix.
2) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25281287/
The jury may be out on whether religious indoctrination as such constitutes child abuse. After all, all children are immersed in their parents' ideologies from birth. The challenge to every individual is to grow out of those beliefs that one later finds to be false and to take the responsibility to re-engineer one's own psyche.
That having been said, what kind of parent sits and watches their child die of a curable disease right before their very eyes? What kind of human being could do such a thing? Could you imagine watching your baby girl sick with fever, with a scared and pleading look in her eyes? Could you look into those eyes everyday and NOT do everything in your power to save her? What kind of monster could be so cruel, so uncaring? Freedom of religion? Do the children have freedom of religion who are told that they must die by the will of god? Did they have a choice about the faith of their families? And must they pay the price for the arbitrary assertions of others?
If a child isn't protected by the same human rights as all of us, then where do we draw the line? Do parents have the right to murder their child, if their religion demands they do? Do they have the right to punish the child to extemes so that the child dies of exposure? Do they have the right to take sexual advantage of their children because their religion says so? Of course not. The reason is that children ARE entitled to the same human rights as we all are.
But as children they are also dependent on care and guidance. The kind of parenting exemplified by zealots who sit and watch their children die, when they CAN do something about it, is an act of gross negligence. It is an abdication of the responsibility of being a parent. It is little short of murder. And should be punished as such.
3) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25270095/
I believe...that the answer to this problem is not to vote for Christian zealots. Period.
4) http://www.newsweek.com/id/142217
Who cares? Is God Roman? I suppose he can't understand properly unless they pray in Latin. Maybe the scientologists should start holding their ceremonies in ancient greek. At least then it may be harder to get new converts. Woohoo, Atheism!
1) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25284886/
All I have to say is GOOD RIDDANCE. I am so glad that this guy was ejected from the school. They ought to arrest him for physical assault and child abuse. What can I say? God and science definitely do NOT mix.
2) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25281287/
The jury may be out on whether religious indoctrination as such constitutes child abuse. After all, all children are immersed in their parents' ideologies from birth. The challenge to every individual is to grow out of those beliefs that one later finds to be false and to take the responsibility to re-engineer one's own psyche.
That having been said, what kind of parent sits and watches their child die of a curable disease right before their very eyes? What kind of human being could do such a thing? Could you imagine watching your baby girl sick with fever, with a scared and pleading look in her eyes? Could you look into those eyes everyday and NOT do everything in your power to save her? What kind of monster could be so cruel, so uncaring? Freedom of religion? Do the children have freedom of religion who are told that they must die by the will of god? Did they have a choice about the faith of their families? And must they pay the price for the arbitrary assertions of others?
If a child isn't protected by the same human rights as all of us, then where do we draw the line? Do parents have the right to murder their child, if their religion demands they do? Do they have the right to punish the child to extemes so that the child dies of exposure? Do they have the right to take sexual advantage of their children because their religion says so? Of course not. The reason is that children ARE entitled to the same human rights as we all are.
But as children they are also dependent on care and guidance. The kind of parenting exemplified by zealots who sit and watch their children die, when they CAN do something about it, is an act of gross negligence. It is an abdication of the responsibility of being a parent. It is little short of murder. And should be punished as such.
3) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25270095/
I believe...that the answer to this problem is not to vote for Christian zealots. Period.
4) http://www.newsweek.com/id/142217
Who cares? Is God Roman? I suppose he can't understand properly unless they pray in Latin. Maybe the scientologists should start holding their ceremonies in ancient greek. At least then it may be harder to get new converts. Woohoo, Atheism!
The Morality of Fairness: Objectivism and Christianity
This is a continuation of the ongoing debate I'm having with a friend of mine. To catch up on where we started from please see my blog entry here:
T: I actually just finished reading a philosopher discussing "what is philosophy," and he was saying how many believe philosophy to begin with doubt. He believes, instead, that it begins, and in fact encompasses, wonder. To see the world and be caught off-guard is truly the first step of coming to understand some of it. Of course, though, in the end, the word "philosophy" itself means "love of wisdom," and not "wisdom," and so we must find our way towards something that cannot be achieved, if we take the etymology of philosophy to hold any sway at all (which I do). To hold loyalty to the truth, and not one's opinion of the truth, is the true act of the philosopher. Or at least that's how I see it. Regardless, thanks, and know that I see you in the same light. I once described your views to a Catholic friend of mine, and he asked, "You two are friends?" I laughed, and responded, "Yes, of course! We never run out of things to talk about."
I agree with what you said about my diatribe on an ad's use of the word "goddess." Of course, language changes, and the natural phenomenon of such is something that should not be regretted. Mostly. The north eastern American culture (the only one with which I am in contact at the moment) is not exactly, in my opinion, a healthy culture. It seems that for the most part reverence is given to oneself. I understand your views on the individual (or at least I think I do, correct me if I'm wrong), but "oneself" and "the individual" are two very different things. One who reveres "the individual" can look past themselves to others; a person who reveres "oneself" cannot. One of the most unfortunate effects of the growing dissatisfaction with religion in this part of the country is that very few people know how to revere anything.
I'll definitely look into Ayn Rand, regardless of her atheism or her feelings towards altruism. I've read Anthem and loved it, though Atlas Shrugged, with it's size, makes me feel like Atlas himself, haha. Has she written philosophy other than her fiction? I wouldn't mind reading what she has to say without her trying to say it in a story (though, the story is one of the best ways to get one's opinion across).
Though I agree with you on morality, I disagree that religions focus away from the "why" towards the "what." There is a rather large difference between the way in which some religious leaders act and the way that person's religion is meant to be. I will admit that there are many Christians who wish for people to "follow the rules" cause God said so. It's unfortunate in my mind that Christianity encompasses these people and ideas, but, well, humanity encompasses short sighted folks every generation, and we can't argue with a system that, in the end, does not encourage such an opinion for stupidity. I think you will probably respond to this with: "But does Christianity not support the general idea that, because a higher power demands things to be this way, then they ought to be this way?" In one way, yeah, it does, but more along the ways of "because I'm a human being I shouldn't go around acting like a dog." Religion represents in many ways the human predilection of thinking "this can't be all there is!" and directing that feeling, that hope, towards a view of humanity that is larger than the single person. Humans are animals, and we need to be fed, taken care of, etc. Yet if one only focuses on meeting one's physical needs, a person can grow rather focused on "oneself" (again, different than "individual"). Religions developed from the feeling humans have that physical needs are not all there is about life, not all there is about being a true human being. We are not beings locked in the mere environments that surround us. Most religions I've heard of understand this, and they try to remind those who listen of that fact.
I've gotten off track, haha, sorry. Back to the why as opposed to the what. I again can only speak of Christianity, but I believe religions explain more about the why than rational morality does. One can say that "to do good to your fellow man" is an important piece of morality because it solidifies society and prevents squabbling over resources (or whatever the problem might be). But one might ask, "Why is that important?" The answer would then be, "Because we don't want to get everyone in a state of fear of their neighbors, so that we can live in a somewhat peaceful fashion and not get killed." But, then again, why is peace important? Why is life important? Why is protecting one's family important. In the end, a person (any person) has to stop and say "because it is." What religion does is answers the "why" of that statement. Why is it important? What makes it important? Where does importance come from? Or rather, religions allow a person to begin to understand the answer to these questions. In the end, God is quite the mystery, and I can't think of many religions where God, The Great Cause, etc. is anything but a quest (not even in a religion that believes that Being came down and became one with our corporeal reality).
I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean in your paragraph on "fairness," but I'll see if I can say a few things about it. Any story taken out of context is rather worthless, really, whether it is used for finding happiness in one's life or a bit of laughter. Taking a story from a religious text and forgetting what comes before and after, or, really, what the very words meant to those who wrote them, is rather foolish (one of the reasons people got so upset about translating the Bible). The difficulty comes in, though, with what you're saying about where any story really comes from, or, rather, any general feeling that something is innate. Is the sense that things ought to be fair innate? I could say yes and you could say no and we could sit here with unhappy red faces, and that's unfortunately what a lot of people do, haha. I suppose, for me, my reasons come from plausibility. I ask myself what is more plausible: humanity understands innately that they will be dealt with fairly in a spiritual sense and, due to their having both a body and a soul, confuse the spiritual fairness with a physical fairness that does not exist, or do people learn it as "a function of values encoded in our society," to use your words. Well, where do those values come from? I suppose you might answer "from cultural evolution." Yet they had to have begun somewhere. I suppose they might come from a desire to retain life, to stay alive: basically from a sense of survival. Survival is an instinct, but I was already wondering in my last email about how instinct isn't an ought, it's a suggestion. I've probably dug myself a rather nice hole of supposition here, so I'll leave off this paragraph for now.
Your friend's comment on the big three monotheistic religions confuses me, though again I can only speak from a Christian perspective. I don't think Christianity is xenophobic or that it promotes violence against non-believers. In the end, yes, the Old Testament is rather xenophobic, but the message Jesus (the center of the New Testament and of Christianity as a whole) is one that breaks down barriers that had been set up by society. One of his big messages was that religious leaders are not the sole possessors of religious knowledge and that the "kingdom" that Judaism was waiting for was not a kingdom won by battle or that was to be lorded over by a high king above everyone else, but that Jesus, a poor man, was to bring everyone (and that means everyone in the world who follows the path of the spirit) into a spiritual kingdom where all are equal. This thought, developed during the middle ages (as well as before and after) split people's minds from the view that worldly power can conquer all as well as from the ethnocentric viewpoint that most cultures held. Unfortunately that process is still going on, but that is not due to any work of Christians, but the works of men who use religions to hold sway over people.
What a way to end a letter there! I can only say that I don't think his "demands" are that horrible. And I dunno about siding with Satan in Paradise Lost: though his descriptions of heaven weren't as interesting as those of hell, I certainly would rather be quite far from the petty squabbling and hierarchy of the place. And anyway, "serving" and "rule" are just outdated terminology that should be done away with. There's not much serving going on with living in tune, completely, with reality.
American Antitheist: I appreciate the anecdote about your friend's bewilderment at our friendship. I think it's because we only really differ at the very base of our assumptions, the main difference probably being reducible to your belief in religion and the religious moral structure and my non-belief in religion and my belief in an objective moral system derivable from a common reality. But even then, I'm not sure how much we differ there. Like you said, "To hold loyalty to truth, and not one's opinion of the truth, is the true act of the philosopher." This implies that we both hold that there is a common reality, an existence which exists regardless of our perception of it and about which we can investigate and determine its properties and nature. To us, therefore the major difference comes from the God premise. A universe that includes an all-powerful God has to be fundamentally different from a universe where there is none. So, the difference in this premise unavoidably alters our subsequent judgments of what is or is not possible in this testable universe. Primarily, that difference being that our standards of evidence must be somehow different.
For me to believe in something I require proof of existence. Now that proof can take various forms. Of course the most certainty comes from directly observable and repeatable experience. But obviously one can't be bothered to recreate every single experiment that has ever been done to have a secure basis for knowledge. That is why there are certain checks and balances in the world of scientific discourse which make it very hard for an idea to be adopted and make it very easy for an idea to be discarded. Theories, as such, come and go. But the basis behind that is simple. It only takes one counter-example to disprove a theory. But conversely, if a theory can provide no predictive value, or there is a lack of supporting evidence then it is equally dubious. In order for an idea to be accepted by the scientific community it must run the gauntlet of the double-blind peer review process. It must face criticism and attack from all directions. It must be able to stand on the merits of its rational discourse. And if it cannot, then it is discarded or modified as necessary until it can face such criticism. Everyone's career is at stake. From purely selfish motives, the inestimable benefit of scientific progress is distributed to all humanity to use as they wish. And having been vetted through that process, the reliability of science in our current era is greater than knowledge from any other source. This is the basis of belief from rational argument based on the scientific method.
However, I think, that to believe in God, one must put faith at a higher level than reason. That the existence is presupposed to the evidence, as there is none. Believing without evidence is a presumption that one is somehow directly privy to that which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It means, in short, that at some stage one has to know first and then search for evidence to bolster that belief. Whereas the scientific method is to suspend belief until after one has found sufficient evidence, or to form beliefs that explain the evidence at hand. I think this is why scientific "beliefs" are prone to change more readily than religious ones. This is because the basis of belief is different. If the basis of science is fact, then beliefs must change to accommodate that which we have learned. If the basis of religion is faith, then we must hold our beliefs, despite the evidence. In short, science encourages the humility of self-correction, whereas at some level religion encourages a kind of metaphysical obstinacy.
I'm sorry for going on a tangent of sorts, but I still think it has some relevance to our current discussion, which is why I indulged myself a little to address it. I agree that morality is a code of values for humans. It has to take into account that we are not dogs. It has to recognize the nature of a human being, in all respects. It has to take into consideration, emotions, psychology, genetics, family bonds, loyalty, betrayal, desire, ambition, genius, and incompetence and so on. The problem is, does religion adequately do so? I agree that focusing purely on one's physical needs is insufficient. That, again, would be ignoring human nature, the qualities that make human beings unique, or at least unique as we understand them to be.
I disagree slightly with your distinction between "individual" and "oneself" or perhaps I'm just not clear on what that distinction is. The way I see it, the ability to look past themselves is not necessarily a good thing. One needs to include oneself in all decisions. That does not mean to turn a blind eye to the people around you. That would instead be an evasion of reality, an intentional obfuscation of the necessary facts upon which a rational moral code must be based. Objective reality is quite simply everything that is around you, everything you act upon or that tries to act upon you. To ignore oneself for the sake of others, or to ignore others for the sake of oneself are simply both sides of the same coin, they entail some level of intentional evasion of reality. A truly integrated appreciation of human social existence must take into account that neither side is something to be sacrificed for the other. The individual self is not something which should be sacrificed to others. Likewise, others are not something which should be sacrifice to oneself. The only moral basis for the interaction for people is therefore a mutually agreed exchange of values. One in which there is no coercion or threat of violence of any kind. One in which people are free to decide who they will deal with and on what terms. This is the morality of objectivism. It comes from the recognition that this IS all there is. That there is no rational basis for believing otherwise. That to believe that "this can't be all there is" is to actively suppress everything that your senses tell you, everything that the standard rules of logic and nature tell us about existence. A rational system of morality cannot spring from a source which is decidedly arbitrary in its origins.
If God is not arbitrary, if there is indeed such a being, then naturally we would have to base our moral decisions on its existence. But then the question becomes which god is the one to which we should adhere? How do we make the distinction? Are they all right? How could that be? For me it's hard enough to find a religion that is internally consistent much less one that is consistent with all other religions as well. In fact, they are as diverse as human cultures are, and as varied as language and ideology. So then, how do we know which is the truly moral path? If our decisions for morality must be based on and come from religion must we then assume that those who follow other religions are inherently evil because they follow a moral system that differs from ours? Or must we retire completely from moral judgements and say that they are all equally moral despite their differences? But if we do that, then don't we surrender the concept of morality entirely? After all if all moral systems no matter how different can be regarded as moral, doesn't the concept of morality become meaningless? Clearly, neither of us believes this. So, what then are we basing our moral judgements? What then are we deciding that this religion is moral, or that action is wrong? I am not in the least bit religious and yet I would bet that we would find similar things to be immoral.
Child molestation, murder, theft, rape, fraud, extortion....these are things which are objectively wrong. And the reason they are wrong to us, is because we recognize at some level that they are anathema to life and to the generation of life. They are facets of destruction, they kill life, ebb its luster, and threaten to darken the horizons of the future if unchecked. They attack life. They rob people of the choice to live in freedom. They rob people of the choice to decide how best they should live their own lives. They represent an imposition of an external power upon the life of the individual. No matter what one's personal religious beliefs, acts of this nature are clearly wrong. But why? Not because god says so. They are wrong because they work against everything that is held to be of value to someone who values life. They are wrong because they work against everything that it means to be a human being, to be a man among men, a woman among women. This is the why of morality, and one that I don't think is adequately explained by religion.
I'm sure that you know that there are parts of the bible which at times either condemn or extoll rape. There are parts that promote or admonish against slavery. There are areas which even condone incest and the sacrifice of children, whereas other areas would punish such things. Where then is the explanation as to why it was moral for Lot to conceive children by his daughters, or Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son? And yet Lot's wife is condemned merely for the sin of curiosity? Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden for the same sin, and yet the Bible states that before they ate the apple they did not know good from evil. So, how then could they have known that it was wrong to eat the apple in the first place? This is one of the things I refer to when I speak of the irrational demands of God upon his creation. If God is a rational, benevolent being, why would he place demands on mankind that we cannot meet by the very nature of our creation? To say it more simply, if we were created with a certain faculty for discerning reality and then we are judged based on principles which are outside the scope of that faculty, how then is this standard of judgement fair or even rational? If I were to put a steak on the ground and tell the dog not to eat it, would it make sense for me to have the dog put to sleep because it didn't understand what I was saying? The answer is no. Either I would have to be irrational or malevolent. In either case, there would be something wrong with me and not the dog. This is the reason why I say that even were there to be a god, I would still oppose him. I cannot revere that which is either malevolent or irrational. And this is also a fundamental reason why I reject the notion of religion as inherently moral or as the source of our modern morality or even our sense of fairness. Fairness is of course intricately intertwined with our notions of morality.
Which finally brings me back to fairness. What we perceive to be "fair" ultimately depends on our concept of reality and our notions of causality. It is natural to expect that if we do good things then we will have good results. The dog expects a reward for doing a trick. The child expects praise for accomplishment. Adults expect a raise for doing good work. The student expects good grades if they study properly for the test. But this is only in relation to the action that we have performed. The results of our labor directly equal the reward of that labor. What, then if we divorce the two from each other? Should the student expect good grades for helping an old lady across the street? Should a man expect a raise because he is a good father? Should a woman expect to have a successful career because she gives to charity? The problem is obvious. The problem is causation. If a person's concept of "fair" divorces the relation between ends and means, if they are perceived as isolated and unrelated events, then saying that "doing good things bring good results" means that we may expect that if we are a good person than we shouldn't get caught in earthquakes, that good people shouldn't get cancer, or that good people should all have happy joyous lives devoid of tragedy or loss. However this would be distinctly unrealistic. Unfortunately, I think this is the root of why the "conventional wisdom" is that life is unfair. The reason is that quite a lot of people hold exactly this metaphysical view. Cause and Effect are dissociated. People don't see the ramifications of their beliefs, and very often they don't see the ramifications of their actions. They think that ideals can never be attained, that perfection is impossible, that compromise with one's morals is the only way to survive. They think that if the world was fair, that people should get benefits from some unspecified benefactor for the very reason that they consider themselves to be a good person. But if this judgement is made divorced of any kind of objective measure, then who is to say that one person is good or another person is bad? In short, it means that all such judgments must be subjective and naturally from any given subjective perspective where a person simply "thinks" that they are better than the next, that person always thinks that they deserve more.
From an objectivist standpoint, however, life is fair. Eminently and unavoidably so. Of course people will still get caught in natural disasters or swept up in events beyond their control, but this has nothing to do with an objective concept of fairness. Fairness can only be conceived in a situation where "good things" and "good actions" have some causal connection. If there is no causal connection then no expectation of results is rational. For any given occurence, situation, or happenstance to be "fair" it has to have a causal relationship to something within a person's volitional control. If there is no causal relationship, then it cannot be fair or unfair, it simply is. Likewise, if there is a causal, volitional relationship and the results do not equal the actions, then we can say that the situation is unfair. But this would ultimately have to be based on our own evaluations of our work, or efforts and the results we are getting for them. Here too it is essential to be rational, otherwise such estimations become meaningless. And ultimately we must decide the terms of our interactions with other people based on our integrated concepts of fairness and value.
And once again the difference in our views of the fundamentals of the universe has led to our difference in a concept so removed as that of fairness. When you refer to the "innate" sense of fairness, or to "instinct" you are assuming that human beings are somehow pre-programmed with a moral compass of some kind. From a cosmological perspective based on God, this is completely acceptable. If we were created by God in god's image, then it isn't too far of a stretch to assume that he granted us some "sense" of right and wrong. But if we don't accept god as a given, then this begs a very serious question. I do not hold that we are programmed with morality through instinct or innate knowledge in any way. On the contrary, I think that human beings have to learn how to be moral creatures. I don't think that we are innately programmed with much of anything beyond our basic conceptual hardware. If we were programmed with morality from birth as an innate function of our existence, then the only way to explain people like Stalin or Hitler would be to chalk it up to a birth defect. And by so supposing, would it then be possible to genetically engineer out of existence immorality?I don't think so, and I would bet you would balk at that idea as well. This is for a number of reasons. First of all, where there is no capacity for choice, the concept of morality once again loses meaning. Good or evil only has meaning where there is choice. If everything is pre-determined or outside of one's control then there can be no conceivable good or evil in one's actions. It just simply is. But if you have the choice between two options, then one must usually be better than the other. In order to get from this simple decision to a whole code of morality requires quite a few steps of logical connection. However the necessary premises are only two.
1) That our perceptual hardware presents to us an image of reality as it truly is for all intensive purposes. A is A. The law of identity.
2) That we value our lives.
From this all else follows. If we value life, then death is something to be avoided. If we value life, then things which sustain and enrich that life are good. Conversely, things which diminsih or threaten that life are evil.
Why is peace important? Because if we all value our own lives, then we don't want to die. But also, if we value our own lives we may find a situation where we are forced to fight to defend that very same life.
Why is family important? It is important in that we value those people in the family. Their existence enriches ours. We value them as people. If we didn't would they then still be important? And what would it say about us if they are are decent people deserving of our respect? But conversely, what about a family which is abusive, perhaps even incestuous? Should we value the family then? Or is it more important to once again look at the individual and how that family interacts with the individual life? If we hold the life of the individual as the ultimate value, then the rest of these questions resolve with crystal clarity. A family is not a value in and of itself. Its value is dependent on the quality of people who form that family and their relationship with the individual. If they are viscious repressive and cruel, then I would say to the individual, "Flee! and never look back!" If they are, instead, supportive nurturing and in essence good, then I would say "Value that bond, and cherish those people". But the distinction is not one of need or absolute value. The family should be valued because the people who make it up represent something worth valuing to a person. But this is a value which is earned and substantiated over a long period of time. It can be just as easily lost. The mother cares for her child not because the child needs care. The mother cares for her child because she values the child. If she did not value her child and truly only cared for it because of its need, what kind of mother would she be? What kind of person? And could we truly call that good?
You see, I don't have to stop and say "just because it is". I can say "it is because I value my life. It is my ultimate value. And all the other values in that life are derivative of that ultimate value." I value people to the extent that they enrich my experience of this life. And such people I call good. To the extent that people diminish or threaten that life, they are evil. And all the others with which I have not interaction whatsoever are simply neutral, they are not either good or evil until their chosen paths of action coincide with mine for good or ill or that their choices and influence affect my life, and at such time I make the moral distinction.
This is another reason why I regard God's demands as horrible. It is because that moral decisions do not have to be an arbitrary guessing game where we try to get into God's head and think of what Jesus would do. It can make sense, and purely based on the observable facts of our existence. The supernatural is extraneous. I know what is right and wrong. And that knowledge is not based on somebody else's assertion. It is based on my knowledge of the world. If that knowledge is in error, then I must modify my knowledge, reassess the moral ramifications, whenever that knowledge must be corrected.
And finally, I feel I should address the concept of Jesus as a moral figure. I'm sorry if I may happen to offend you here, because I realize that this is getting very close to your spiritual center. Unfortunately there's no way that I can avoid the issue as it does lay right at the hub of the problem.
Jesus claimed that all people are equal in heaven. Yet, the Christian notion of equality is one that is debateable. "Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to eneter heaven" seems to be equality of a decidedly communist bent. The richer you are, the more evil. Rich and poor are not equal spiritually. And even then, what does it mean to be spiritually equal? Does it mean we are all the same? Are we all equally good? Equally bad? If so, then once again what does morality mean in a world where all are essentially of equal goodness? Perhaps it refers to the concept that we should "do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves." But is this really an adequate moral principle? What it implies is that we should treat other people in a way such as the open expectation of which is that they will treat us well. The moral principle here is that we should be good to people in the hopes that they will be good to us. That we should surrender our desires to the expectation of some kind of fair return. What then is the evil in working directly for that fair return by refusing to sell one's values short, by refusing to compromise on the open-ended expectation that people will treat you fairly. What is wrong with demanding fair treatment from the outset? What is wrong with holding one's rights as inalienable and demanding that people respect them in their dealings with you?
Why is "turning the other cheek" considered a moral principle? Doesn't this leave us at the mercy of any bully who would come to extort the fruits of our labors? Doesn't this leave us open to any kind of abuse simply for the sake of pacifism as an absolute value? Ghandi is often revered as the most devout practitioner of this tenet. Would it surprise you then to hear that Gandhi advocated that the Jews should have comitted mass suicide so as to deter the Germans from their murderous campaign and that war should have been avoided at all costs? What price in human blood and misery would such a course of action actually have entailed? What was Gandhi valuing in that instance, if not human life? The answer is rather dark. The answer is that these philosophies do not hold life as the ultimate value. They recommend that we abdicate the responsibility for our lives to an external power, they advocate that we value obedience over existence. They advocate our status in death as superior to our status in life. They advocate a successive chain of sacrifices to other men, to God, to anyone but oneself. Even to help others with an eye to helping yourself is considered bad in a way. The purest act is to do something where you have absolutely no vested interest in doing so whatsoever. That is the act of purest nobility from a christian standpoint. And to crown it all, they have selected a symbol of death and torture as the symbol of spiritual enlightenment, the cross. This is why the christian ideal is unattainable in life. This is why perfection from a christian standpoint is impossible. The reason is that we are only able to live in this life to the extent by which we contradict the ultimate extension of that code of ethics, which is death. We are immoral to the extent to which we live and live well, And we are moral to the extent to which we sacrifice ourselves to the benefit of others. Needless to say, under such a code of morality, we can only ever find ourselves in some kind of grayish middle region where we can never live up to our ideals and live well at the same time. To be perfectly moral is to be in a state of perfect sacrifice and that means death. Why are martyrs revered above the people who worked to do good things, without dying? Why is death in the service of good considered a higher value, regardless of the good done? Who actually saved more lives? Louis Pasteur? Jonas Salk? Or Mother Teresa? Who actually did more good?
And yet Christianity does not enshrine the pioneers of the germ theory of illness as the spiritual benefactors of mankind. Who is enshrined in their place? Those who sacrificed everything in their lives, even to the point of death, in the pursuit of the Christian "moral ideal". No, I do not regard Jesus as a moral figure. I regard him as a prophet of death. And I'm sorry if my words seem offensive. Please know that it is not my intent to offend you. This is truly what I think and feel. It is only through the perversion of concepts of morality, good, evil, sacrifice, charity, selfishness, and so on that our world has come to the state it is today. If you're still with me here and I haven't thoroughly turned you off by now, I would like to recommend just two sources that you may find of interest if you want to understand my way of thinking better.
One is "The Virtue of Selfishness
" by Ayn Rand. In it she discusses the fundamental principles of objectivism. Especially the essay "The Objectivist Ethics".
The second is a series of YouTube videos that presents the main philosophical soliloquy from Atlas Shrugged. The videos are skillfully done, and may be easier to digest then in writing.
I've included a link here: "This is John Galt speaking..."
Hope to hear from you. I'm interested in what you would have to say.
A Discussion of American Culture
As before, I have edited out personal references and names. I'll keep the same color coding. T is blue and American Antitheist is green.T: I actually just finished reading a philosopher discussing "what is philosophy," and he was saying how many believe philosophy to begin with doubt. He believes, instead, that it begins, and in fact encompasses, wonder. To see the world and be caught off-guard is truly the first step of coming to understand some of it. Of course, though, in the end, the word "philosophy" itself means "love of wisdom," and not "wisdom," and so we must find our way towards something that cannot be achieved, if we take the etymology of philosophy to hold any sway at all (which I do). To hold loyalty to the truth, and not one's opinion of the truth, is the true act of the philosopher. Or at least that's how I see it. Regardless, thanks, and know that I see you in the same light. I once described your views to a Catholic friend of mine, and he asked, "You two are friends?" I laughed, and responded, "Yes, of course! We never run out of things to talk about."
I agree with what you said about my diatribe on an ad's use of the word "goddess." Of course, language changes, and the natural phenomenon of such is something that should not be regretted. Mostly. The north eastern American culture (the only one with which I am in contact at the moment) is not exactly, in my opinion, a healthy culture. It seems that for the most part reverence is given to oneself. I understand your views on the individual (or at least I think I do, correct me if I'm wrong), but "oneself" and "the individual" are two very different things. One who reveres "the individual" can look past themselves to others; a person who reveres "oneself" cannot. One of the most unfortunate effects of the growing dissatisfaction with religion in this part of the country is that very few people know how to revere anything.
I'll definitely look into Ayn Rand, regardless of her atheism or her feelings towards altruism. I've read Anthem and loved it, though Atlas Shrugged, with it's size, makes me feel like Atlas himself, haha. Has she written philosophy other than her fiction? I wouldn't mind reading what she has to say without her trying to say it in a story (though, the story is one of the best ways to get one's opinion across).
Though I agree with you on morality, I disagree that religions focus away from the "why" towards the "what." There is a rather large difference between the way in which some religious leaders act and the way that person's religion is meant to be. I will admit that there are many Christians who wish for people to "follow the rules" cause God said so. It's unfortunate in my mind that Christianity encompasses these people and ideas, but, well, humanity encompasses short sighted folks every generation, and we can't argue with a system that, in the end, does not encourage such an opinion for stupidity. I think you will probably respond to this with: "But does Christianity not support the general idea that, because a higher power demands things to be this way, then they ought to be this way?" In one way, yeah, it does, but more along the ways of "because I'm a human being I shouldn't go around acting like a dog." Religion represents in many ways the human predilection of thinking "this can't be all there is!" and directing that feeling, that hope, towards a view of humanity that is larger than the single person. Humans are animals, and we need to be fed, taken care of, etc. Yet if one only focuses on meeting one's physical needs, a person can grow rather focused on "oneself" (again, different than "individual"). Religions developed from the feeling humans have that physical needs are not all there is about life, not all there is about being a true human being. We are not beings locked in the mere environments that surround us. Most religions I've heard of understand this, and they try to remind those who listen of that fact.
I've gotten off track, haha, sorry. Back to the why as opposed to the what. I again can only speak of Christianity, but I believe religions explain more about the why than rational morality does. One can say that "to do good to your fellow man" is an important piece of morality because it solidifies society and prevents squabbling over resources (or whatever the problem might be). But one might ask, "Why is that important?" The answer would then be, "Because we don't want to get everyone in a state of fear of their neighbors, so that we can live in a somewhat peaceful fashion and not get killed." But, then again, why is peace important? Why is life important? Why is protecting one's family important. In the end, a person (any person) has to stop and say "because it is." What religion does is answers the "why" of that statement. Why is it important? What makes it important? Where does importance come from? Or rather, religions allow a person to begin to understand the answer to these questions. In the end, God is quite the mystery, and I can't think of many religions where God, The Great Cause, etc. is anything but a quest (not even in a religion that believes that Being came down and became one with our corporeal reality).
I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean in your paragraph on "fairness," but I'll see if I can say a few things about it. Any story taken out of context is rather worthless, really, whether it is used for finding happiness in one's life or a bit of laughter. Taking a story from a religious text and forgetting what comes before and after, or, really, what the very words meant to those who wrote them, is rather foolish (one of the reasons people got so upset about translating the Bible). The difficulty comes in, though, with what you're saying about where any story really comes from, or, rather, any general feeling that something is innate. Is the sense that things ought to be fair innate? I could say yes and you could say no and we could sit here with unhappy red faces, and that's unfortunately what a lot of people do, haha. I suppose, for me, my reasons come from plausibility. I ask myself what is more plausible: humanity understands innately that they will be dealt with fairly in a spiritual sense and, due to their having both a body and a soul, confuse the spiritual fairness with a physical fairness that does not exist, or do people learn it as "a function of values encoded in our society," to use your words. Well, where do those values come from? I suppose you might answer "from cultural evolution." Yet they had to have begun somewhere. I suppose they might come from a desire to retain life, to stay alive: basically from a sense of survival. Survival is an instinct, but I was already wondering in my last email about how instinct isn't an ought, it's a suggestion. I've probably dug myself a rather nice hole of supposition here, so I'll leave off this paragraph for now.
Your friend's comment on the big three monotheistic religions confuses me, though again I can only speak from a Christian perspective. I don't think Christianity is xenophobic or that it promotes violence against non-believers. In the end, yes, the Old Testament is rather xenophobic, but the message Jesus (the center of the New Testament and of Christianity as a whole) is one that breaks down barriers that had been set up by society. One of his big messages was that religious leaders are not the sole possessors of religious knowledge and that the "kingdom" that Judaism was waiting for was not a kingdom won by battle or that was to be lorded over by a high king above everyone else, but that Jesus, a poor man, was to bring everyone (and that means everyone in the world who follows the path of the spirit) into a spiritual kingdom where all are equal. This thought, developed during the middle ages (as well as before and after) split people's minds from the view that worldly power can conquer all as well as from the ethnocentric viewpoint that most cultures held. Unfortunately that process is still going on, but that is not due to any work of Christians, but the works of men who use religions to hold sway over people.
What a way to end a letter there! I can only say that I don't think his "demands" are that horrible. And I dunno about siding with Satan in Paradise Lost: though his descriptions of heaven weren't as interesting as those of hell, I certainly would rather be quite far from the petty squabbling and hierarchy of the place. And anyway, "serving" and "rule" are just outdated terminology that should be done away with. There's not much serving going on with living in tune, completely, with reality.
American Antitheist: I appreciate the anecdote about your friend's bewilderment at our friendship. I think it's because we only really differ at the very base of our assumptions, the main difference probably being reducible to your belief in religion and the religious moral structure and my non-belief in religion and my belief in an objective moral system derivable from a common reality. But even then, I'm not sure how much we differ there. Like you said, "To hold loyalty to truth, and not one's opinion of the truth, is the true act of the philosopher." This implies that we both hold that there is a common reality, an existence which exists regardless of our perception of it and about which we can investigate and determine its properties and nature. To us, therefore the major difference comes from the God premise. A universe that includes an all-powerful God has to be fundamentally different from a universe where there is none. So, the difference in this premise unavoidably alters our subsequent judgments of what is or is not possible in this testable universe. Primarily, that difference being that our standards of evidence must be somehow different.
For me to believe in something I require proof of existence. Now that proof can take various forms. Of course the most certainty comes from directly observable and repeatable experience. But obviously one can't be bothered to recreate every single experiment that has ever been done to have a secure basis for knowledge. That is why there are certain checks and balances in the world of scientific discourse which make it very hard for an idea to be adopted and make it very easy for an idea to be discarded. Theories, as such, come and go. But the basis behind that is simple. It only takes one counter-example to disprove a theory. But conversely, if a theory can provide no predictive value, or there is a lack of supporting evidence then it is equally dubious. In order for an idea to be accepted by the scientific community it must run the gauntlet of the double-blind peer review process. It must face criticism and attack from all directions. It must be able to stand on the merits of its rational discourse. And if it cannot, then it is discarded or modified as necessary until it can face such criticism. Everyone's career is at stake. From purely selfish motives, the inestimable benefit of scientific progress is distributed to all humanity to use as they wish. And having been vetted through that process, the reliability of science in our current era is greater than knowledge from any other source. This is the basis of belief from rational argument based on the scientific method.
However, I think, that to believe in God, one must put faith at a higher level than reason. That the existence is presupposed to the evidence, as there is none. Believing without evidence is a presumption that one is somehow directly privy to that which is unknown and perhaps unknowable. It means, in short, that at some stage one has to know first and then search for evidence to bolster that belief. Whereas the scientific method is to suspend belief until after one has found sufficient evidence, or to form beliefs that explain the evidence at hand. I think this is why scientific "beliefs" are prone to change more readily than religious ones. This is because the basis of belief is different. If the basis of science is fact, then beliefs must change to accommodate that which we have learned. If the basis of religion is faith, then we must hold our beliefs, despite the evidence. In short, science encourages the humility of self-correction, whereas at some level religion encourages a kind of metaphysical obstinacy.
I'm sorry for going on a tangent of sorts, but I still think it has some relevance to our current discussion, which is why I indulged myself a little to address it. I agree that morality is a code of values for humans. It has to take into account that we are not dogs. It has to recognize the nature of a human being, in all respects. It has to take into consideration, emotions, psychology, genetics, family bonds, loyalty, betrayal, desire, ambition, genius, and incompetence and so on. The problem is, does religion adequately do so? I agree that focusing purely on one's physical needs is insufficient. That, again, would be ignoring human nature, the qualities that make human beings unique, or at least unique as we understand them to be.
I disagree slightly with your distinction between "individual" and "oneself" or perhaps I'm just not clear on what that distinction is. The way I see it, the ability to look past themselves is not necessarily a good thing. One needs to include oneself in all decisions. That does not mean to turn a blind eye to the people around you. That would instead be an evasion of reality, an intentional obfuscation of the necessary facts upon which a rational moral code must be based. Objective reality is quite simply everything that is around you, everything you act upon or that tries to act upon you. To ignore oneself for the sake of others, or to ignore others for the sake of oneself are simply both sides of the same coin, they entail some level of intentional evasion of reality. A truly integrated appreciation of human social existence must take into account that neither side is something to be sacrificed for the other. The individual self is not something which should be sacrificed to others. Likewise, others are not something which should be sacrifice to oneself. The only moral basis for the interaction for people is therefore a mutually agreed exchange of values. One in which there is no coercion or threat of violence of any kind. One in which people are free to decide who they will deal with and on what terms. This is the morality of objectivism. It comes from the recognition that this IS all there is. That there is no rational basis for believing otherwise. That to believe that "this can't be all there is" is to actively suppress everything that your senses tell you, everything that the standard rules of logic and nature tell us about existence. A rational system of morality cannot spring from a source which is decidedly arbitrary in its origins.
If God is not arbitrary, if there is indeed such a being, then naturally we would have to base our moral decisions on its existence. But then the question becomes which god is the one to which we should adhere? How do we make the distinction? Are they all right? How could that be? For me it's hard enough to find a religion that is internally consistent much less one that is consistent with all other religions as well. In fact, they are as diverse as human cultures are, and as varied as language and ideology. So then, how do we know which is the truly moral path? If our decisions for morality must be based on and come from religion must we then assume that those who follow other religions are inherently evil because they follow a moral system that differs from ours? Or must we retire completely from moral judgements and say that they are all equally moral despite their differences? But if we do that, then don't we surrender the concept of morality entirely? After all if all moral systems no matter how different can be regarded as moral, doesn't the concept of morality become meaningless? Clearly, neither of us believes this. So, what then are we basing our moral judgements? What then are we deciding that this religion is moral, or that action is wrong? I am not in the least bit religious and yet I would bet that we would find similar things to be immoral.
Child molestation, murder, theft, rape, fraud, extortion....these are things which are objectively wrong. And the reason they are wrong to us, is because we recognize at some level that they are anathema to life and to the generation of life. They are facets of destruction, they kill life, ebb its luster, and threaten to darken the horizons of the future if unchecked. They attack life. They rob people of the choice to live in freedom. They rob people of the choice to decide how best they should live their own lives. They represent an imposition of an external power upon the life of the individual. No matter what one's personal religious beliefs, acts of this nature are clearly wrong. But why? Not because god says so. They are wrong because they work against everything that is held to be of value to someone who values life. They are wrong because they work against everything that it means to be a human being, to be a man among men, a woman among women. This is the why of morality, and one that I don't think is adequately explained by religion.
I'm sure that you know that there are parts of the bible which at times either condemn or extoll rape. There are parts that promote or admonish against slavery. There are areas which even condone incest and the sacrifice of children, whereas other areas would punish such things. Where then is the explanation as to why it was moral for Lot to conceive children by his daughters, or Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son? And yet Lot's wife is condemned merely for the sin of curiosity? Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden of Eden for the same sin, and yet the Bible states that before they ate the apple they did not know good from evil. So, how then could they have known that it was wrong to eat the apple in the first place? This is one of the things I refer to when I speak of the irrational demands of God upon his creation. If God is a rational, benevolent being, why would he place demands on mankind that we cannot meet by the very nature of our creation? To say it more simply, if we were created with a certain faculty for discerning reality and then we are judged based on principles which are outside the scope of that faculty, how then is this standard of judgement fair or even rational? If I were to put a steak on the ground and tell the dog not to eat it, would it make sense for me to have the dog put to sleep because it didn't understand what I was saying? The answer is no. Either I would have to be irrational or malevolent. In either case, there would be something wrong with me and not the dog. This is the reason why I say that even were there to be a god, I would still oppose him. I cannot revere that which is either malevolent or irrational. And this is also a fundamental reason why I reject the notion of religion as inherently moral or as the source of our modern morality or even our sense of fairness. Fairness is of course intricately intertwined with our notions of morality.
Which finally brings me back to fairness. What we perceive to be "fair" ultimately depends on our concept of reality and our notions of causality. It is natural to expect that if we do good things then we will have good results. The dog expects a reward for doing a trick. The child expects praise for accomplishment. Adults expect a raise for doing good work. The student expects good grades if they study properly for the test. But this is only in relation to the action that we have performed. The results of our labor directly equal the reward of that labor. What, then if we divorce the two from each other? Should the student expect good grades for helping an old lady across the street? Should a man expect a raise because he is a good father? Should a woman expect to have a successful career because she gives to charity? The problem is obvious. The problem is causation. If a person's concept of "fair" divorces the relation between ends and means, if they are perceived as isolated and unrelated events, then saying that "doing good things bring good results" means that we may expect that if we are a good person than we shouldn't get caught in earthquakes, that good people shouldn't get cancer, or that good people should all have happy joyous lives devoid of tragedy or loss. However this would be distinctly unrealistic. Unfortunately, I think this is the root of why the "conventional wisdom" is that life is unfair. The reason is that quite a lot of people hold exactly this metaphysical view. Cause and Effect are dissociated. People don't see the ramifications of their beliefs, and very often they don't see the ramifications of their actions. They think that ideals can never be attained, that perfection is impossible, that compromise with one's morals is the only way to survive. They think that if the world was fair, that people should get benefits from some unspecified benefactor for the very reason that they consider themselves to be a good person. But if this judgement is made divorced of any kind of objective measure, then who is to say that one person is good or another person is bad? In short, it means that all such judgments must be subjective and naturally from any given subjective perspective where a person simply "thinks" that they are better than the next, that person always thinks that they deserve more.
From an objectivist standpoint, however, life is fair. Eminently and unavoidably so. Of course people will still get caught in natural disasters or swept up in events beyond their control, but this has nothing to do with an objective concept of fairness. Fairness can only be conceived in a situation where "good things" and "good actions" have some causal connection. If there is no causal connection then no expectation of results is rational. For any given occurence, situation, or happenstance to be "fair" it has to have a causal relationship to something within a person's volitional control. If there is no causal relationship, then it cannot be fair or unfair, it simply is. Likewise, if there is a causal, volitional relationship and the results do not equal the actions, then we can say that the situation is unfair. But this would ultimately have to be based on our own evaluations of our work, or efforts and the results we are getting for them. Here too it is essential to be rational, otherwise such estimations become meaningless. And ultimately we must decide the terms of our interactions with other people based on our integrated concepts of fairness and value.
And once again the difference in our views of the fundamentals of the universe has led to our difference in a concept so removed as that of fairness. When you refer to the "innate" sense of fairness, or to "instinct" you are assuming that human beings are somehow pre-programmed with a moral compass of some kind. From a cosmological perspective based on God, this is completely acceptable. If we were created by God in god's image, then it isn't too far of a stretch to assume that he granted us some "sense" of right and wrong. But if we don't accept god as a given, then this begs a very serious question. I do not hold that we are programmed with morality through instinct or innate knowledge in any way. On the contrary, I think that human beings have to learn how to be moral creatures. I don't think that we are innately programmed with much of anything beyond our basic conceptual hardware. If we were programmed with morality from birth as an innate function of our existence, then the only way to explain people like Stalin or Hitler would be to chalk it up to a birth defect. And by so supposing, would it then be possible to genetically engineer out of existence immorality?I don't think so, and I would bet you would balk at that idea as well. This is for a number of reasons. First of all, where there is no capacity for choice, the concept of morality once again loses meaning. Good or evil only has meaning where there is choice. If everything is pre-determined or outside of one's control then there can be no conceivable good or evil in one's actions. It just simply is. But if you have the choice between two options, then one must usually be better than the other. In order to get from this simple decision to a whole code of morality requires quite a few steps of logical connection. However the necessary premises are only two.
1) That our perceptual hardware presents to us an image of reality as it truly is for all intensive purposes. A is A. The law of identity.
2) That we value our lives.
From this all else follows. If we value life, then death is something to be avoided. If we value life, then things which sustain and enrich that life are good. Conversely, things which diminsih or threaten that life are evil.
Why is peace important? Because if we all value our own lives, then we don't want to die. But also, if we value our own lives we may find a situation where we are forced to fight to defend that very same life.
Why is family important? It is important in that we value those people in the family. Their existence enriches ours. We value them as people. If we didn't would they then still be important? And what would it say about us if they are are decent people deserving of our respect? But conversely, what about a family which is abusive, perhaps even incestuous? Should we value the family then? Or is it more important to once again look at the individual and how that family interacts with the individual life? If we hold the life of the individual as the ultimate value, then the rest of these questions resolve with crystal clarity. A family is not a value in and of itself. Its value is dependent on the quality of people who form that family and their relationship with the individual. If they are viscious repressive and cruel, then I would say to the individual, "Flee! and never look back!" If they are, instead, supportive nurturing and in essence good, then I would say "Value that bond, and cherish those people". But the distinction is not one of need or absolute value. The family should be valued because the people who make it up represent something worth valuing to a person. But this is a value which is earned and substantiated over a long period of time. It can be just as easily lost. The mother cares for her child not because the child needs care. The mother cares for her child because she values the child. If she did not value her child and truly only cared for it because of its need, what kind of mother would she be? What kind of person? And could we truly call that good?
You see, I don't have to stop and say "just because it is". I can say "it is because I value my life. It is my ultimate value. And all the other values in that life are derivative of that ultimate value." I value people to the extent that they enrich my experience of this life. And such people I call good. To the extent that people diminish or threaten that life, they are evil. And all the others with which I have not interaction whatsoever are simply neutral, they are not either good or evil until their chosen paths of action coincide with mine for good or ill or that their choices and influence affect my life, and at such time I make the moral distinction.
This is another reason why I regard God's demands as horrible. It is because that moral decisions do not have to be an arbitrary guessing game where we try to get into God's head and think of what Jesus would do. It can make sense, and purely based on the observable facts of our existence. The supernatural is extraneous. I know what is right and wrong. And that knowledge is not based on somebody else's assertion. It is based on my knowledge of the world. If that knowledge is in error, then I must modify my knowledge, reassess the moral ramifications, whenever that knowledge must be corrected.
And finally, I feel I should address the concept of Jesus as a moral figure. I'm sorry if I may happen to offend you here, because I realize that this is getting very close to your spiritual center. Unfortunately there's no way that I can avoid the issue as it does lay right at the hub of the problem.
Jesus claimed that all people are equal in heaven. Yet, the Christian notion of equality is one that is debateable. "Easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to eneter heaven" seems to be equality of a decidedly communist bent. The richer you are, the more evil. Rich and poor are not equal spiritually. And even then, what does it mean to be spiritually equal? Does it mean we are all the same? Are we all equally good? Equally bad? If so, then once again what does morality mean in a world where all are essentially of equal goodness? Perhaps it refers to the concept that we should "do unto others as we would have done unto ourselves." But is this really an adequate moral principle? What it implies is that we should treat other people in a way such as the open expectation of which is that they will treat us well. The moral principle here is that we should be good to people in the hopes that they will be good to us. That we should surrender our desires to the expectation of some kind of fair return. What then is the evil in working directly for that fair return by refusing to sell one's values short, by refusing to compromise on the open-ended expectation that people will treat you fairly. What is wrong with demanding fair treatment from the outset? What is wrong with holding one's rights as inalienable and demanding that people respect them in their dealings with you?
Why is "turning the other cheek" considered a moral principle? Doesn't this leave us at the mercy of any bully who would come to extort the fruits of our labors? Doesn't this leave us open to any kind of abuse simply for the sake of pacifism as an absolute value? Ghandi is often revered as the most devout practitioner of this tenet. Would it surprise you then to hear that Gandhi advocated that the Jews should have comitted mass suicide so as to deter the Germans from their murderous campaign and that war should have been avoided at all costs? What price in human blood and misery would such a course of action actually have entailed? What was Gandhi valuing in that instance, if not human life? The answer is rather dark. The answer is that these philosophies do not hold life as the ultimate value. They recommend that we abdicate the responsibility for our lives to an external power, they advocate that we value obedience over existence. They advocate our status in death as superior to our status in life. They advocate a successive chain of sacrifices to other men, to God, to anyone but oneself. Even to help others with an eye to helping yourself is considered bad in a way. The purest act is to do something where you have absolutely no vested interest in doing so whatsoever. That is the act of purest nobility from a christian standpoint. And to crown it all, they have selected a symbol of death and torture as the symbol of spiritual enlightenment, the cross. This is why the christian ideal is unattainable in life. This is why perfection from a christian standpoint is impossible. The reason is that we are only able to live in this life to the extent by which we contradict the ultimate extension of that code of ethics, which is death. We are immoral to the extent to which we live and live well, And we are moral to the extent to which we sacrifice ourselves to the benefit of others. Needless to say, under such a code of morality, we can only ever find ourselves in some kind of grayish middle region where we can never live up to our ideals and live well at the same time. To be perfectly moral is to be in a state of perfect sacrifice and that means death. Why are martyrs revered above the people who worked to do good things, without dying? Why is death in the service of good considered a higher value, regardless of the good done? Who actually saved more lives? Louis Pasteur? Jonas Salk? Or Mother Teresa? Who actually did more good?
And yet Christianity does not enshrine the pioneers of the germ theory of illness as the spiritual benefactors of mankind. Who is enshrined in their place? Those who sacrificed everything in their lives, even to the point of death, in the pursuit of the Christian "moral ideal". No, I do not regard Jesus as a moral figure. I regard him as a prophet of death. And I'm sorry if my words seem offensive. Please know that it is not my intent to offend you. This is truly what I think and feel. It is only through the perversion of concepts of morality, good, evil, sacrifice, charity, selfishness, and so on that our world has come to the state it is today. If you're still with me here and I haven't thoroughly turned you off by now, I would like to recommend just two sources that you may find of interest if you want to understand my way of thinking better.
One is "The Virtue of Selfishness
" by Ayn Rand. In it she discusses the fundamental principles of objectivism. Especially the essay "The Objectivist Ethics".The second is a series of YouTube videos that presents the main philosophical soliloquy from Atlas Shrugged. The videos are skillfully done, and may be easier to digest then in writing.
I've included a link here: "This is John Galt speaking..."
Hope to hear from you. I'm interested in what you would have to say.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Weakness of Conservatives...The Hypocrisy of Liberals..
This old footage of Ayn Rand is as relevant today as it was when it was shot in 1961. Here she is addressing the conservatives of the GOP but she might as well be addressing the rival political parties today. Instead of the threat of Soviet Russia, we can think of the threat of religious extremism. And of course there is still communist China, whose relaxed financial rules have created a smokescreen for their continued fascist treatment of its citizens.
China's aggressive suppression of freedom of speech, it's negligent disregard for human life evidenced in its nonchalant attitude to food safety and chemical waste, and it's belligerent self-righteousness when challenged on its premise of citizens as sacrificial fodder to the social animal--these are all situations born of the socialist system, both its mind-numbing effect on its citizens and the cumbersome way in which it adjusts to meet crisis.
How much blood will pave the way to a continued and vibrant communism? How much more blood will we provide as we rush to surrender to an enemy so pitiful and small that it could not survive but by the sanction we grant it? How much blood will they pour on the pyre of the greater good as they rush to convert capitalism in to the socialist quagmire that their ideals fix in the stars as the highest moral system?
Whether that enemy be the religious multitudes swaying to prophetic breeze of idolatry and hate. Or, whether that enemy be the fascist legions of 1st world mercenaries unleashed by the moral abdication of capitalism's defense.
Watch this video and ask yourself, how much blood has been spilled in defense of socialism? How many lives sacrificed? How many dreams crushed? Ask yourself how much of that blood has flowed in the scant 47 years since this video was created. And ask yourself how much more must be sacrificed before we finally fix what must be fixed? Before we embrace capitalism as both effective and a moral ideal.
I'm sure it would be fascinating were Obama and McCain able to respond to this lucid challenge from another age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTf6NK0wsiA
China's aggressive suppression of freedom of speech, it's negligent disregard for human life evidenced in its nonchalant attitude to food safety and chemical waste, and it's belligerent self-righteousness when challenged on its premise of citizens as sacrificial fodder to the social animal--these are all situations born of the socialist system, both its mind-numbing effect on its citizens and the cumbersome way in which it adjusts to meet crisis.
How much blood will pave the way to a continued and vibrant communism? How much more blood will we provide as we rush to surrender to an enemy so pitiful and small that it could not survive but by the sanction we grant it? How much blood will they pour on the pyre of the greater good as they rush to convert capitalism in to the socialist quagmire that their ideals fix in the stars as the highest moral system?
Whether that enemy be the religious multitudes swaying to prophetic breeze of idolatry and hate. Or, whether that enemy be the fascist legions of 1st world mercenaries unleashed by the moral abdication of capitalism's defense.
Watch this video and ask yourself, how much blood has been spilled in defense of socialism? How many lives sacrificed? How many dreams crushed? Ask yourself how much of that blood has flowed in the scant 47 years since this video was created. And ask yourself how much more must be sacrificed before we finally fix what must be fixed? Before we embrace capitalism as both effective and a moral ideal.
I'm sure it would be fascinating were Obama and McCain able to respond to this lucid challenge from another age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTf6NK0wsiA
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Origin of Life
Evolution does not claim to explain how life originated, it explains how life changes once it has come to exist. The study of the origin of life is covered by a little known phrase--"Abiogenesis". Here's an excellent YouTube video which describes exactly how life could come to exist without any supernatural hocus pocus.
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg
Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Is the Koran compatible with science? Is it consistent?
Lately I've noticed an increase in claims, specifically on YouTube, but amongst Islamic advocates in general that the Koran is not only internally consistent, but that it also foreshadows modern scientific discoveries. Zealots will use carefully cultivated quotations to support these wild claims. Well, I tend to think that the psychology going on here is not unlike that which surrounds proponents of Nostradamus, astrology, palm reading, or any other of a litany of quacky half-baked pseudo-scientific spiritualist dogmas. To prove that these neo-scientific religious bigots are in fact spouting nothing but hot air, I decided to do some cursory research on contradictions in the Koran.
Here's what I came up with:
1) This site lists at least 10 issues which show that the Koran is either not internally consistent and that Mohammed had no more knowledge of astronomy than a gibbering cave-man.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/SKM/contradictions.htm
2) This site raises an interesting point. The Koran states that Allah can answer any question. It also states that he can do anything. So, can Allah ask a question that Allah cannot answer?
http://the-qurans-fatal-flaw.myblogvoice.com/?contradictions-inconsistencies-and-fallacies-in-the-koran-quran-120336
3) And here's a link to a list of a further 87 inconsistencies put together by one dedicated poster:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?s=d981da0ad3d6d5a72b63ef7628a00c80&t=71501
4) Here, perhaps most damning of all, is a group of Muslims who concede that the Koran has inconsistencies and promotes violence, but that it must somehow be "reformed" to remove such features. My suggestion..."Become an atheist."
http://www.reformislam.org/
and here is their list of Suras that they recommend should be deleted from the Koran because they "promote divisiveness and religious hatred, bigotry and discrimination."
http://www.reformislam.org/verses.php
I wonder how much of the Koran would be left...And this raises another interesting point. If the Koran, is not the unalterable, indefatigable, perfect, and complete word of God, why then bother with it at all?
And before you say, well the Koran is consistent, unalterable and 100% true, please consider these words from a religion of peace:
O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).
If you would like to verify the veracity of the quotes attributed to the Koran, I recommend reading it. Nothing clears up controversy like looking at the facts. For your convenience I've also included a link to an online searchable Koran here.
Here's what I came up with:
1) This site lists at least 10 issues which show that the Koran is either not internally consistent and that Mohammed had no more knowledge of astronomy than a gibbering cave-man.
http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/SKM/contradictions.htm
2) This site raises an interesting point. The Koran states that Allah can answer any question. It also states that he can do anything. So, can Allah ask a question that Allah cannot answer?
http://the-qurans-fatal-flaw.myblogvoice.com/?contradictions-inconsistencies-and-fallacies-in-the-koran-quran-120336
3) And here's a link to a list of a further 87 inconsistencies put together by one dedicated poster:
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?s=d981da0ad3d6d5a72b63ef7628a00c80&t=71501
4) Here, perhaps most damning of all, is a group of Muslims who concede that the Koran has inconsistencies and promotes violence, but that it must somehow be "reformed" to remove such features. My suggestion..."Become an atheist."
http://www.reformislam.org/
and here is their list of Suras that they recommend should be deleted from the Koran because they "promote divisiveness and religious hatred, bigotry and discrimination."
http://www.reformislam.org/verses.php
I wonder how much of the Koran would be left...And this raises another interesting point. If the Koran, is not the unalterable, indefatigable, perfect, and complete word of God, why then bother with it at all?
And before you say, well the Koran is consistent, unalterable and 100% true, please consider these words from a religion of peace:
O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).
If you would like to verify the veracity of the quotes attributed to the Koran, I recommend reading it. Nothing clears up controversy like looking at the facts. For your convenience I've also included a link to an online searchable Koran here.
Monday, June 16, 2008
A Religion of Peace?
And here I get to complain again...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25106145/
So....how long are people going to be "tolerant" of religion? What we have here are schools which are training children to destroy the country in which they are growing up. So what should we do about this, objectively?
Well, first of all, I don't believe that government should be involved in education in any way whatsoever. And that means that I think all public schools should be privatized, but that's off topic. The government can't shut down schools just because they teach unpopular ideas. But if religious schools teach "criminal" ideas, then the government has every right to shut them down. The only legitimate use of government action is in the prohibition of the initiation of physical force in human interaction. By teaching children to break the laws of their country and teaching them that this is a moral "ideal", these fanatics are in effect inciting a generation of children to violent lawlessness. They are undermining the authority and rule of law which are the proper domain of government. But, even worse, they are committing an egregious act of psychological abuse on the minds of children. The purpose of schools is to provide students with information and skills that they can use to exist within their culture. All they are doing is setting them up to be murderers. Who could honestly say that telling a child to go kill is anything but abuse?
Anyways, I'm glad they shut this one down. But I wonder how many right-wing Christian faith camps abuse children in just the same way...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25106145/
So....how long are people going to be "tolerant" of religion? What we have here are schools which are training children to destroy the country in which they are growing up. So what should we do about this, objectively?
Well, first of all, I don't believe that government should be involved in education in any way whatsoever. And that means that I think all public schools should be privatized, but that's off topic. The government can't shut down schools just because they teach unpopular ideas. But if religious schools teach "criminal" ideas, then the government has every right to shut them down. The only legitimate use of government action is in the prohibition of the initiation of physical force in human interaction. By teaching children to break the laws of their country and teaching them that this is a moral "ideal", these fanatics are in effect inciting a generation of children to violent lawlessness. They are undermining the authority and rule of law which are the proper domain of government. But, even worse, they are committing an egregious act of psychological abuse on the minds of children. The purpose of schools is to provide students with information and skills that they can use to exist within their culture. All they are doing is setting them up to be murderers. Who could honestly say that telling a child to go kill is anything but abuse?
Anyways, I'm glad they shut this one down. But I wonder how many right-wing Christian faith camps abuse children in just the same way...
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Supreme Court Puts Foot Down on Abrogation of Due Process
http://www.newsweek.com/id/14150
Usually I complain about things here, but this news story struck me as reassuring. The Supreme Court finally acted against Bush's insane power-grabbing. It struck to restore some of the balance of powers which have seemed to be so oddly out of balance since 9-11. And they struck to secure human rights as a universal and universally applicable to all. Of course it's only the beginning. There's a lot of mess to be cleaned up from Guantanamo. And unfortunately in some cases I'm sure that justice will be a casualty of reasserting the rule of law in America. But without fundamental agreement on the universality of rights, none of us really have them. This assertion by the Supreme Court declares that it will not tolerate the erosion of our concepts of justice, humanity, and basic freedoms. The dissenters can bray and howl as much as they like for the dark genesis of their messianic paranoia has been neutered. And their idealized mentor, Herr Bush, is not long for the White House. Hopefully he can still be impeached. If ever there were men guilty of treason, they are those of the current administration. The majority voters in this decision are the true patriots and true champions of liberty. At the very least, they have shown that some vestige of the concept of justice remains alive in the institutions of our nation.
Cheers!
Usually I complain about things here, but this news story struck me as reassuring. The Supreme Court finally acted against Bush's insane power-grabbing. It struck to restore some of the balance of powers which have seemed to be so oddly out of balance since 9-11. And they struck to secure human rights as a universal and universally applicable to all. Of course it's only the beginning. There's a lot of mess to be cleaned up from Guantanamo. And unfortunately in some cases I'm sure that justice will be a casualty of reasserting the rule of law in America. But without fundamental agreement on the universality of rights, none of us really have them. This assertion by the Supreme Court declares that it will not tolerate the erosion of our concepts of justice, humanity, and basic freedoms. The dissenters can bray and howl as much as they like for the dark genesis of their messianic paranoia has been neutered. And their idealized mentor, Herr Bush, is not long for the White House. Hopefully he can still be impeached. If ever there were men guilty of treason, they are those of the current administration. The majority voters in this decision are the true patriots and true champions of liberty. At the very least, they have shown that some vestige of the concept of justice remains alive in the institutions of our nation.
Cheers!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Truth About Physics and Uncertain Epistemology
A fascinating resource for researching the actual issues surrounding Quantum Physics and some of its misappropriations by philosophy:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/quantum-physics.html
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/quantum-physics.html
A Discussion of American Culture
The following is the reproduction of an e-mail discussion I had with a friend recently. I thought that the subject matter would be both appropriate to this site and interesting in that the two participants hold almost diametrically opposed viewpoints on morality, religion, and politics. I've edited the e-mails so as to remove any personal references, but I've left the greater part intact so that both viewpoints can be presented as accurately and fairly as possible. How fairer than to place them in the original wording? I hope you find the discussion as interesting as I, and I would welcome any comments you may have on the topics involved. American Anti-theist will be green and T will be blue.
First of all, here's the e-mail that got the discussion started:
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good,politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up,it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
And now the discussion:
T: Thanks for the Bill Gates thingie-majig, though, as I'm sure you might have assumed, I disagree with the man on principle. Some of the things he said were good, and things that people, especially in our cry-me-a-river-and-you-get-a-cookie society, need to hear (such as "it's not your parent's fault" and "be nice to nerds"). I felt, though, that those eleven things really exemplified the failings of our society. The American culture, at least as it is rather apparent on the east coast, is very dog-eat-dog, do it yourself or else you'll lose, and shut up and take it. In Japan everyone was pretty hyper-society and many Japanese think of others, and not just their family, when making decisions. You'll probably have more input here, since you're living closer to the culture than any of us did, though it seemed that, in general, Japanese thought more about the society around them than Americans do. It was an interesting thing to see for me, because it was a system that wasn't American individualism and it worked. Not perfectly, but, then again, how can a human system be perfect.
Anyway, I wanted to see what your argument is on one of the arguments I had for the first things Gates said on the list (or, at least, the first thing listed): Life isn't fair. First of all, saying 'life" is generally saying "American culture." I personally think he's also saying "the way things are going to be for everyone," but that's a different story. The thing about this argument that I never understood is how does anyone know about fairness if there isn't anything that set that fairness. I'm sure you've heard the argument, as it's a rather standard one for the religious-minded, that if there wasn't a God to set down what things are fair, or good, for that matter, then we wouldn't have this overwhelming sense that things really should be fair. As much as people are told that life isn't fair, no matter how many times that line is spoken, people don't stop feeling like things ought to be.
So, I thought I'd ask your opinion and jump off from there, if you wouldn't mind starting another discussion.
American Antitheist: Aside from the "Life isn't fair" one, I would have to say that they're just statements of reality. There doesn't seem to be a moral imperative in the other rules. They're basically facts of life that we have to learn eventually. No matter what society we would live in, we would have to adjust to the reality of the human situation. Let's take them one by one. I'll leave "Life isn't fair" till the end, cause it's the weird one, and you have some good points on that.
#2 "The world expects you to accomplish something before you feel good about it. " That's the simple cause and effect of self-esteem. If you feel like you should be treated like the most important person in the world, yet you haven't done anything significant to justify that, then it's not self-esteem it's self-deception. I think that's where a lot of people mistake pride for arrogance. What people normally think of as arrogance is unjustified self-esteem. Pride is justified self-esteem.
#3 "You will not make $60,000 a year out of high school. You won't be a VP w/ a car phone til you earn both." Another statement of fact. Of course, if you don't want $60,000 and a car phone, then I don't see anything wrong with that. But if you do, you have to earn it that's all.
#4 "If you think your teacher is tough wait until you get a boss." Well, it depends on the teacher, but there are less second chances in the workplace then there are in the classroom. Another fact.
#5 "Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity." Been there done that. While it's not the best thing on an academic resume, it helped me survive and get me to a point where I could actually start to think about going to college. I've never relied on the dole, had to make my way from scratch. And I feel the accomplishment of that effort every time I cash a paycheck, every time I look around at the life I've constructed. I know that it's mine, because I earned it and nobody will ever be able to take that feeling away. It's something worth fighting for.
#6 "Parents being boring.." Well, I don't think that necessarily has to be true, but parents should be more level-headed than a child. I think it's really just common sense. And when we're younger we do tend to chafe at the bit to slip the leash so to speak and be able to challenge our parents thereby proving that we're adults. Of course how much is a question of degree and a question of how different parent and child are ideologically.But all this is saying is not to be too quick to judge our parents before we think through the choices they perhaps have had to make in their lives.
#7 "If you mess up, face it and learn from your mistakes." Just a fact of reality. We are all ultimately responsible for our own lives, for the content of our minds, and for the actions we perform. At the end of the day, we only have ourselves to look at in the mirror to be the final judge of who we are and what we have done. There is no one to listen to excuses within the walls of our own mind. Our only option is to try and not make the same mistake twice and try to become better people every day.
#8 "Life has winners and losers" Another fact. But the standards for success of course ultimately rest with yourself. Do you consider yourself a success? Or a failure? Some people fail at their life goals. But I often think that this is because either they're not willing to put in the effort to actually accomplish their dreams, or they set their goals way beyond the realm of what they can expect realistically given their skills and qualities. I think most people have constant opportunities to be a success. Sometimes it means changing your goals, reassessing your motives, and setting new objectives. When I realized that I was not going to be a famous guitarist, or even have a successful music career, my confidence was shattered, yes. But I reassessed my skills, my dreams, and my nature. I set new, more realistic goals, and I now consider myself on the road to a successful and rewarding career. Life has winners and losers, yes, but only in a specific frame of time. As time moves along, those people may find themselves switching places. But it doesn't happen naturally. It of course requires constant effort on the part of losers to become winners and for winners to stay winners.
#9 "No summer breaks, and find yourself on your own time." Just another fact. It's not the business of your employer to nurture your spirit. That's each and every individual person's responsibility. Or your pastor's. Or your family's and loved one's responsibility. Time doesn't stop. We just have to accept it.
#10 "TV is not real life. We have to leave the coffee shop and work sometime" Just a fact of reality. I suppose people who marry rich don't have to. And if by chance they met their benefactor in the coffee shop, then they really might never have to leave, but that would be an exception I think. For the most part, we all have to do something to pull our own weight. Except perhaps in socialist systems where people can actually get away with getting paid for doing nothing.
#11 "Be nice to nerds" I think we agree on that one.
Anyways I don't see what's wrong with any of these sentiments. I fail to see how they "exemplified the failings of our society."
Now, as for the dog-eat-dog mentality in the states, I tend to agree that it's not what I would call an ideal state of humanity. But I don't think that rational selfishness = dog eat dog. I think desperation and panic leads to dog-eat-dog. The desperation is seeded in the conditioning of people to accept only two alternatives to existence. They are told that they are either 1. a sacrificial animal to be consumed by the stronger, or 2. they are a cannibal whose destiny is to consume their fellow humans in order to survive. This is completely false, and the dichotomy is one of misdirection. The third option is that we can of course, work together freely through self-organizing cooperative groups in order to pursue various common goals. In short, working together to mutual advantage. This, not dog-eat-dog, is the very essence and heart of capitalism. People who have choice, are not forced into a violent and desperate struggle over limited resources. People who have choice realize that all values are developed, all resources created by humans. And that only by allowing humans to generate the resources that keep people alive and distribute them to those who desire them will people be free to minimize their suffering and to reap the benefits of that collective and voluntary distribution of labor.
You may have been impressed with Japan's government, which is thoroughly dedicated to socialist protocols, but you also witnessed first-hand the real life consequences of socialist methodology on the education system, the complete lack of local flexibility, the waste of children's creative potential and the mindless drilling of subjects that have been decided to be important for the students rather than allowing them the freedom of personal development and choice. Yes, Japanese social groups are very cohesive. But what happens when people slip through the cracks? "The nail that sticks out gets hammered in." That's an attitude which would be morally incompatible with a society built on respect of individual life. Only in a society where social cohesion is valued above human life, where people are considered expendable, could such a tenet adhere as a social norm. Perhaps, they don't have as much dog-eat-dog, but it make me seriously question which culture is actually more brutal at its heart. Perhaps in free capitalism there are no guarantees, but that also means that there are no guaranteed sacrifices either. People remain free to find the path which is most suitable to them, regardless if it is in the mainstream or not. And as they must reap the consequences of their failures so they may enjoy the full reward of their successes in whatever way and in pursuit of whatever goals they see fit. Especially if that means helping people charitably and ensuring that the community around you is one that will continue to be one that is civil and respectful of human life. But if that is not what one wishes to do with their resources, then none should have the right to force them.
Perfection, is a matter of definition. If the goals that you set for society are unrealistic ones doomed to failure, then yes, such a society will never be possible, and society will never be perfect. But it is only doomed to be so by definition. If your definition of perfection is something realistically attainable, then a perfect society is possible. I would argue that any definition of an ideal society which is impossible, is not worthy of being set as an ideal mainly due to the fact that it makes no sense to strive for something which is impossible to attain. I think the key involves looking at acceptable bounds of the oscillation of variables rather then at predetermined fixed values. Once again, free capitalism allows people to oscillate according to their personal beliefs with the only bounds on that variability being other people's freedom to do the same. The fact that it does not fix the values of the society to be constructed allows it to optimize itself in accordance with the cumulative effect of millions of individual dreams. Like any self-forming autonomous chaotic system, life and society should be chaotic systems allowed to breath, expand and contract naturally. The more rules and barriers and commandments affixed to society, the more and more people who are caught under the blade. I will always be an advocate of freedom as the best policy.
I'm sorry I've rambled on so long, lol, but finally I think I can talk about the "Life isn't fair" one. I agree that the sentiment there is pretty cynical. But it is a cynicism bound to reality. No matter how attainable or unattainable our ideal worlds may be, the fact is that none of us live in that ideal system. Because of the incongruence between our ideals and the present state of the world, we have to accept that things will happen which will rankle our nerves and frustrate our concept of proper behavior. Things which seem to be unjust from our relative points of view will happen in a world that does not prescribe to a person's sense of justice. No matter what world we live in, there will be acts of injustice which will stoke our indignation. For instance, if the world was completely in line with a socialist methodology, I'm sure socialists would see much less injustice, and I would see more. Whereas if we were living in a truly capitalist society, I would see less injustice but they would invariably see more. Life isn't fair in that the life in our world is not bound to our expectations of it. One person may have to work harder to get to the same place as another. One may have to be smarter to survive at the same level as another. These are unfortunate if unavoidable facts of our existence. The reward is not something guaranteed, because the rewards of effort and devotion to a goal are not things which are dispersed by a conscious agent. The reward is the use of what has been created. The reward is continued sustenance and the enjoyment of life's pursuits. But it is in our chemistry, I suppose, to think of life as having a conscious agent, a God, a corporation, the big cheese, whatever you like. Somebody who dispenses the rewards of life's effort. And I think this is where we get the idea of life not being fair. Because we think that it should be obvious to the Great Dispenser in the Sky that two people should get equal rewards for equal effort. But this isn't always how it works out. More often than not, our rewards equal the best deal we can get for our effort. And the dispenser is not a mysterious agent in the sky, or a vague concept of the Big Boss, the dispenser is the shopkeeper down the street, or the HR director of your company for whom you agree to work and with whom you reach an agreement for a certain wage.
I hope that I've adequately addressed your concerns. I didn't really expect to see any objections with the e-mail. But I'd be interested in hearing the rest of your ideas on the matter.
T: Reading through the list again, taking away the first (I haven't read all your mail yet, so we'll save that one for later here too), you're right, they are basic facts of life, and the youth in high school today (saying nothing about when we were that age) needs to hear that things aren't all happy with flowers and roses when they have to get a job. The key word in that sentence, though, was ALL. Not EVERYTHING is happy and good, but there are a lot of amazing things in the world. Gates wasn't saying that life is tough as nails and that we should suck it up, but I wondered when I read his list how much 'tough talk' perpetuates bad opinions on life. Don't get me wrong, like I said, tough talk is needed, but even headed tough talk is important. Telling a kid "you're going to have to get a job" and not explaining that finding one the kid likes is not only a good idea, but possible, is a damaging thing. Multiply that by the number of teenagers we have in our culture and you get an apathetic generation. I don't think we disagree here, though I'll throw in an example because we're both linguists here, and you might find it interesting. Have you noticed that words have been losing meaning? Not changing meaning, but actually losing it? I saw a commercial the other day for a woman's shaver called Venus that asked the viewer "What type of goddess are you?" Really? Does the word goddess no longer refer to the extensive (and vastly important) meaning it bore half a century ago? Words are used in advertising for affect, not for their actual sense, and I'm rather disturbed. And these aren't simple words like tree or green, but culturally and historically necessary words. Redeem is now something you do when you've won a contest and you want to give your ticket it for a prize. A lot of these examples that I have are religious, and you may have a different take there, but I'm sure there are some other examples there too.
Alright, sorry about that rant, back to your email: I agree on your take of dog-eat-dog, and I agree on your opinion of what capitalism should be. But the American culture is not purely capitalism. I'm not up on political philosophy, so please forgive me bumbling around the definition, but it seems that the commercialism in American has grown to such a height that it has become the culture's source of morality. Where do we get our views of right and wrong? Religion is either seen as the work of the violent or the stupid in our country (thanks Bush for helping Christians out there). Hyper-individualism focuses oneself on oneself alone, and a blatant disregard for the past (or, rather, looking upon the new as good and past as bad) casts out any lessons learned from those who have lived before us. Capitalism, in my opinion, has a few things to tweak out, but it requires a rather firm morality system to really get off the ground. American capitalism has Dancing with the Stars and Sport stars with Steroids.
Forcing opinions, I will whole-heartedly agree, is wrong, but human beings need guidance. Whether that comes in the form of an old man who went through two world wars or an organization that tries to instruct those in the way of goods found in almost all cultures, people need something. Most people, when it comes down to it, can't get to a place where, left to themselves, they'll develop well and healthily. Kids need good parents or at least a good role model. Forming (and formed) governments need this too. Interestingly enough, this is mirrored in nature as well: plants need nurture from a stronger source (i.e. the sun) just as us humans do.
You wrote: "I think the key involves looking at acceptable bounds of the oscillation of variables rather then at predetermined fixed values." and I can't agree more. When making tall buildings above fault lines, allow for that building to sway and shift; rigid structures will fall down. Those bounds being set still calls for something though: what sets them? And who teaches them to the younger generations? Left up to general people who toil their lives away doing something OTHER than teaching and thinking about teaching morals, very few of the ideas will get through. Thus the reason for religion, or at least schooling. Unfortunately both have a rather bad track record of actually coming through, but still the essence of religion and education is what I'm talking about, not the practice (which can always be worked upon).
Fairness, to me, is the interesting point in all of this. Fairness, and connected with it an image of what is good and what is not, is the key. We feel a requirement of the world to be fair, and yet it isn't. Why? Why should we expect something we all know well and good to be something horribly unfair to be completely against its nature? I think my opinion is because, really, it is fair, but that we're not looking at the big picture. Humans are biological beings regardless of what anyone says about us, and I think we confuse our sense of fairness in spiritual affairs for fairness in biological affairs. Really I think that's one of the main problems with things. Doing good things are innately good and we understand this not because of some...well, what? A want to feel safe? Why should we want to feel safe? Maybe we think we should be dealt with fairly because we want to have enough to be self-sufficient. But why do we need to be self-sufficient? To survive? Why, in the end, is survival important? It's an instinct and we listen to it, but instinct is a suggestion, not a demand. We don't have to listen to it, but everyone, save for those who are seriously ill, listens to the will to live. To get back on track, I think we want things to be fair in the biological world because things are innately fair in the spiritual. You know the Christian story, as well as most other religions I can think of for that matter, and in 99% of them humans are treated fairly. If you leave the path, you left the path, and it's the abyss for you. If you screw up being a human, you're a bug. And even if all these are simply stories, still, where does this sense of fairness come from?
Well, gotta get my head warmed up for future debates, but it's always good hearing an opinion other than mine. I've been reading a bit of CS Lewis lately (I'm sure you're a rather big fan of him), and every page I stop and think "What would [you] say to this one?" This email, though, I've mainly agreed with you.
American Antitheist: I have to agree that telling a kid to just "get a job" as in any job could be misinterpreted. Of course a kid should aim for a job that they like, and I agree they should be encouraged to work towards that goal. I think that the point was more that they can't expect to walk into a job they like at first. Most of the time, we have to work our way up to the job we actually want. And that means starting in the fast food restaurant sometimes. Hell, I'll never go back to fast food again if I can help it. But if I found that there was nothing open to me in a field I desired, then I would be back in a second. The reason being that I will do whatever it takes to support my life and the life of those I love. And the reality of the necessities of life often outweigh our desires. As much as I think that I deserve a position of privilege, if such an opportunity doesn't exist, then I must use what opportunities are available to do the best I can.
I agree that some words are losing meaning. Although it's hard to say whether that is a good or bad thing. In general, the evolution of meaning in language would seem to be a natural process, not unlike biological evolution. Words and meanings acquire significance or lose it based on the values of the period and the social and intellectual pressures of language use. The trivialization of words like "goddess" is an example of how the once intensely significant concept of polytheistic religions with female deities or monotheistic matriarchal religions have faded from relevance in the mainstream culture. The words linger in our vocabulary, but the significance is something which has eroded. I would argue that the erosion is due to a lack of relevance in modern society. Almost noone believes in goddesses anymore. And, although I would need to do a corpus study to verify this, I would think that the modern usage of the term is more in line with a label characterizing an ideal state of womanhood, more than a theological distinction. If that is indeed the case, then the ad's usage is perhaps more in line with the actual modern intent of the word than as a reference to spiritual phenomenon.
Redeem would be another candidate for an interesting corpus study. How do we actually use the word nowadays? Is it really more common in references to prizes, or the process of atonement for moral transgressions? I don't honestly know. But it is an interesting question nonetheless.
I also agree with your observation that capitalism needs a moral basis to get it off the ground, so to speak. Actually, Ayn Rand argued that the reason the American system has steadily been collapsing into socialism has been because although the founding fathers created a revolutionary new governmental system with an inherent political philosophy, there was no explicit moral system which was consistent with the philosophy implicit in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and consequently with Capitalism in general. The ethics of her philosophy of objectivism form a pretty strong argument for the shape of a capitalist ethics. If you haven't had a chance to read her arguments, I highly recommend them. Even if you don't agree, I would be interested to see where you object. Of course, I'll warn you, she's an atheist like me and she unilaterally rejects altruism as a moral ideal.
On the issue of people needing moral guidance, I will also agree. People need a framework, a rationally coherent model of not only what is right and wrong, but why something is right or why something is wrong. We need something more than a threat of punishment to choose the moral course. We need rational arguments to provide an explanation of why something is wrong, objectively. Objectivism would hold that "every is implies an ought." And I'm inclined to agree.
The problem with religion and education both, is that neither has tried to help people understand the why of morality, only the what. Both hold fast to the notion that indoctrination = moral behavior. Whereas this is simply just not true. If the only reason someone has to be moral is that it is a mandate from God or society, then there will inevitably be situations where that person feels that it is acceptable to act in an immoral way to achieve some short term objective. If somebody knows why something is wrong, then they will rebel against the very notion of breaching the moral precept in question and furthermore they will actively work to anticipate such situations so that they can avoid placing themselves in moral jeopardy. That is why rational ethics will always be stronger than ones which work primarily from a punishment motive.
I agree that the perception of life not being fair is due to a misconception of what fairness entails. I agree that most people have a skewed expectation of fairness which usually works out to saying "things should be good for me because I'm me and not because of anything I've done in particular." I will take exception though to the notion that Bible stories, or the religious texts of any religion have any bearing on modern ethics at all. We can, of course, select the nice bits from those texts. However, that means that we are using a morality outside of the literal depiction of religion to select those stories which conform to our independent sense of morality. If we are using a system independent of the literal teachings of religion to find moral justifications of our belief system, then we cannot be truly said to be basing our morality on religion. We are instead using our religion, selectively, to justify our morality. Where that morality then comes from is a matter of debate. I don't think that it comes innately, but I do think it is a function of values encoded in our society. Of course that is a recursive process, for who encodes values into our society if not for ourselves, and the institutions we erect. Ultimately that comes down to the ideas that were accepted in the generations before and the philosophers that the founders of those institutions adhered to.
A very pressing question that a friend recently brought up and to which I cannot find a satisfactory answer is, "Since all religious texts of the big 3 monotheistic religions are generally xenophobic, resistant to change and promote the use of violence against non-believers, why is it that the Christian religion evolved to be more permissive of dissent and to be more "selective" while Islam has instead retained it's non-selective literal interpretation?"
I used to more a fan of C.S. Lewis than I can currently find myself capable. After being exposed to Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and listening to Youtube interviews with the author, I've come to have a slightly different perspective of Lewis's work. If anything, I find myself more on the side of Milton than ever. "Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven." And as I think more and more about religion in general and moral issues specifically, I could honestly say that even were I to face some God after death, I think I would disown him for the insanity of his demands on the beings he created.
First of all, here's the e-mail that got the discussion started:
Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this! Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good,politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up,it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
If you agree, pass it on.
If you can read this - Thank a teacher!
And now the discussion:
T: Thanks for the Bill Gates thingie-majig, though, as I'm sure you might have assumed, I disagree with the man on principle. Some of the things he said were good, and things that people, especially in our cry-me-a-river-and-you-get-a-cookie society, need to hear (such as "it's not your parent's fault" and "be nice to nerds"). I felt, though, that those eleven things really exemplified the failings of our society. The American culture, at least as it is rather apparent on the east coast, is very dog-eat-dog, do it yourself or else you'll lose, and shut up and take it. In Japan everyone was pretty hyper-society and many Japanese think of others, and not just their family, when making decisions. You'll probably have more input here, since you're living closer to the culture than any of us did, though it seemed that, in general, Japanese thought more about the society around them than Americans do. It was an interesting thing to see for me, because it was a system that wasn't American individualism and it worked. Not perfectly, but, then again, how can a human system be perfect.
Anyway, I wanted to see what your argument is on one of the arguments I had for the first things Gates said on the list (or, at least, the first thing listed): Life isn't fair. First of all, saying 'life" is generally saying "American culture." I personally think he's also saying "the way things are going to be for everyone," but that's a different story. The thing about this argument that I never understood is how does anyone know about fairness if there isn't anything that set that fairness. I'm sure you've heard the argument, as it's a rather standard one for the religious-minded, that if there wasn't a God to set down what things are fair, or good, for that matter, then we wouldn't have this overwhelming sense that things really should be fair. As much as people are told that life isn't fair, no matter how many times that line is spoken, people don't stop feeling like things ought to be.
So, I thought I'd ask your opinion and jump off from there, if you wouldn't mind starting another discussion.
American Antitheist: Aside from the "Life isn't fair" one, I would have to say that they're just statements of reality. There doesn't seem to be a moral imperative in the other rules. They're basically facts of life that we have to learn eventually. No matter what society we would live in, we would have to adjust to the reality of the human situation. Let's take them one by one. I'll leave "Life isn't fair" till the end, cause it's the weird one, and you have some good points on that.
#2 "The world expects you to accomplish something before you feel good about it. " That's the simple cause and effect of self-esteem. If you feel like you should be treated like the most important person in the world, yet you haven't done anything significant to justify that, then it's not self-esteem it's self-deception. I think that's where a lot of people mistake pride for arrogance. What people normally think of as arrogance is unjustified self-esteem. Pride is justified self-esteem.
#3 "You will not make $60,000 a year out of high school. You won't be a VP w/ a car phone til you earn both." Another statement of fact. Of course, if you don't want $60,000 and a car phone, then I don't see anything wrong with that. But if you do, you have to earn it that's all.
#4 "If you think your teacher is tough wait until you get a boss." Well, it depends on the teacher, but there are less second chances in the workplace then there are in the classroom. Another fact.
#5 "Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity." Been there done that. While it's not the best thing on an academic resume, it helped me survive and get me to a point where I could actually start to think about going to college. I've never relied on the dole, had to make my way from scratch. And I feel the accomplishment of that effort every time I cash a paycheck, every time I look around at the life I've constructed. I know that it's mine, because I earned it and nobody will ever be able to take that feeling away. It's something worth fighting for.
#6 "Parents being boring.." Well, I don't think that necessarily has to be true, but parents should be more level-headed than a child. I think it's really just common sense. And when we're younger we do tend to chafe at the bit to slip the leash so to speak and be able to challenge our parents thereby proving that we're adults. Of course how much is a question of degree and a question of how different parent and child are ideologically.But all this is saying is not to be too quick to judge our parents before we think through the choices they perhaps have had to make in their lives.
#7 "If you mess up, face it and learn from your mistakes." Just a fact of reality. We are all ultimately responsible for our own lives, for the content of our minds, and for the actions we perform. At the end of the day, we only have ourselves to look at in the mirror to be the final judge of who we are and what we have done. There is no one to listen to excuses within the walls of our own mind. Our only option is to try and not make the same mistake twice and try to become better people every day.
#8 "Life has winners and losers" Another fact. But the standards for success of course ultimately rest with yourself. Do you consider yourself a success? Or a failure? Some people fail at their life goals. But I often think that this is because either they're not willing to put in the effort to actually accomplish their dreams, or they set their goals way beyond the realm of what they can expect realistically given their skills and qualities. I think most people have constant opportunities to be a success. Sometimes it means changing your goals, reassessing your motives, and setting new objectives. When I realized that I was not going to be a famous guitarist, or even have a successful music career, my confidence was shattered, yes. But I reassessed my skills, my dreams, and my nature. I set new, more realistic goals, and I now consider myself on the road to a successful and rewarding career. Life has winners and losers, yes, but only in a specific frame of time. As time moves along, those people may find themselves switching places. But it doesn't happen naturally. It of course requires constant effort on the part of losers to become winners and for winners to stay winners.
#9 "No summer breaks, and find yourself on your own time." Just another fact. It's not the business of your employer to nurture your spirit. That's each and every individual person's responsibility. Or your pastor's. Or your family's and loved one's responsibility. Time doesn't stop. We just have to accept it.
#10 "TV is not real life. We have to leave the coffee shop and work sometime" Just a fact of reality. I suppose people who marry rich don't have to. And if by chance they met their benefactor in the coffee shop, then they really might never have to leave, but that would be an exception I think. For the most part, we all have to do something to pull our own weight. Except perhaps in socialist systems where people can actually get away with getting paid for doing nothing.
#11 "Be nice to nerds" I think we agree on that one.
Anyways I don't see what's wrong with any of these sentiments. I fail to see how they "exemplified the failings of our society."
Now, as for the dog-eat-dog mentality in the states, I tend to agree that it's not what I would call an ideal state of humanity. But I don't think that rational selfishness = dog eat dog. I think desperation and panic leads to dog-eat-dog. The desperation is seeded in the conditioning of people to accept only two alternatives to existence. They are told that they are either 1. a sacrificial animal to be consumed by the stronger, or 2. they are a cannibal whose destiny is to consume their fellow humans in order to survive. This is completely false, and the dichotomy is one of misdirection. The third option is that we can of course, work together freely through self-organizing cooperative groups in order to pursue various common goals. In short, working together to mutual advantage. This, not dog-eat-dog, is the very essence and heart of capitalism. People who have choice, are not forced into a violent and desperate struggle over limited resources. People who have choice realize that all values are developed, all resources created by humans. And that only by allowing humans to generate the resources that keep people alive and distribute them to those who desire them will people be free to minimize their suffering and to reap the benefits of that collective and voluntary distribution of labor.
You may have been impressed with Japan's government, which is thoroughly dedicated to socialist protocols, but you also witnessed first-hand the real life consequences of socialist methodology on the education system, the complete lack of local flexibility, the waste of children's creative potential and the mindless drilling of subjects that have been decided to be important for the students rather than allowing them the freedom of personal development and choice. Yes, Japanese social groups are very cohesive. But what happens when people slip through the cracks? "The nail that sticks out gets hammered in." That's an attitude which would be morally incompatible with a society built on respect of individual life. Only in a society where social cohesion is valued above human life, where people are considered expendable, could such a tenet adhere as a social norm. Perhaps, they don't have as much dog-eat-dog, but it make me seriously question which culture is actually more brutal at its heart. Perhaps in free capitalism there are no guarantees, but that also means that there are no guaranteed sacrifices either. People remain free to find the path which is most suitable to them, regardless if it is in the mainstream or not. And as they must reap the consequences of their failures so they may enjoy the full reward of their successes in whatever way and in pursuit of whatever goals they see fit. Especially if that means helping people charitably and ensuring that the community around you is one that will continue to be one that is civil and respectful of human life. But if that is not what one wishes to do with their resources, then none should have the right to force them.
Perfection, is a matter of definition. If the goals that you set for society are unrealistic ones doomed to failure, then yes, such a society will never be possible, and society will never be perfect. But it is only doomed to be so by definition. If your definition of perfection is something realistically attainable, then a perfect society is possible. I would argue that any definition of an ideal society which is impossible, is not worthy of being set as an ideal mainly due to the fact that it makes no sense to strive for something which is impossible to attain. I think the key involves looking at acceptable bounds of the oscillation of variables rather then at predetermined fixed values. Once again, free capitalism allows people to oscillate according to their personal beliefs with the only bounds on that variability being other people's freedom to do the same. The fact that it does not fix the values of the society to be constructed allows it to optimize itself in accordance with the cumulative effect of millions of individual dreams. Like any self-forming autonomous chaotic system, life and society should be chaotic systems allowed to breath, expand and contract naturally. The more rules and barriers and commandments affixed to society, the more and more people who are caught under the blade. I will always be an advocate of freedom as the best policy.
I'm sorry I've rambled on so long, lol, but finally I think I can talk about the "Life isn't fair" one. I agree that the sentiment there is pretty cynical. But it is a cynicism bound to reality. No matter how attainable or unattainable our ideal worlds may be, the fact is that none of us live in that ideal system. Because of the incongruence between our ideals and the present state of the world, we have to accept that things will happen which will rankle our nerves and frustrate our concept of proper behavior. Things which seem to be unjust from our relative points of view will happen in a world that does not prescribe to a person's sense of justice. No matter what world we live in, there will be acts of injustice which will stoke our indignation. For instance, if the world was completely in line with a socialist methodology, I'm sure socialists would see much less injustice, and I would see more. Whereas if we were living in a truly capitalist society, I would see less injustice but they would invariably see more. Life isn't fair in that the life in our world is not bound to our expectations of it. One person may have to work harder to get to the same place as another. One may have to be smarter to survive at the same level as another. These are unfortunate if unavoidable facts of our existence. The reward is not something guaranteed, because the rewards of effort and devotion to a goal are not things which are dispersed by a conscious agent. The reward is the use of what has been created. The reward is continued sustenance and the enjoyment of life's pursuits. But it is in our chemistry, I suppose, to think of life as having a conscious agent, a God, a corporation, the big cheese, whatever you like. Somebody who dispenses the rewards of life's effort. And I think this is where we get the idea of life not being fair. Because we think that it should be obvious to the Great Dispenser in the Sky that two people should get equal rewards for equal effort. But this isn't always how it works out. More often than not, our rewards equal the best deal we can get for our effort. And the dispenser is not a mysterious agent in the sky, or a vague concept of the Big Boss, the dispenser is the shopkeeper down the street, or the HR director of your company for whom you agree to work and with whom you reach an agreement for a certain wage.
I hope that I've adequately addressed your concerns. I didn't really expect to see any objections with the e-mail. But I'd be interested in hearing the rest of your ideas on the matter.
T: Reading through the list again, taking away the first (I haven't read all your mail yet, so we'll save that one for later here too), you're right, they are basic facts of life, and the youth in high school today (saying nothing about when we were that age) needs to hear that things aren't all happy with flowers and roses when they have to get a job. The key word in that sentence, though, was ALL. Not EVERYTHING is happy and good, but there are a lot of amazing things in the world. Gates wasn't saying that life is tough as nails and that we should suck it up, but I wondered when I read his list how much 'tough talk' perpetuates bad opinions on life. Don't get me wrong, like I said, tough talk is needed, but even headed tough talk is important. Telling a kid "you're going to have to get a job" and not explaining that finding one the kid likes is not only a good idea, but possible, is a damaging thing. Multiply that by the number of teenagers we have in our culture and you get an apathetic generation. I don't think we disagree here, though I'll throw in an example because we're both linguists here, and you might find it interesting. Have you noticed that words have been losing meaning? Not changing meaning, but actually losing it? I saw a commercial the other day for a woman's shaver called Venus that asked the viewer "What type of goddess are you?" Really? Does the word goddess no longer refer to the extensive (and vastly important) meaning it bore half a century ago? Words are used in advertising for affect, not for their actual sense, and I'm rather disturbed. And these aren't simple words like tree or green, but culturally and historically necessary words. Redeem is now something you do when you've won a contest and you want to give your ticket it for a prize. A lot of these examples that I have are religious, and you may have a different take there, but I'm sure there are some other examples there too.
Alright, sorry about that rant, back to your email: I agree on your take of dog-eat-dog, and I agree on your opinion of what capitalism should be. But the American culture is not purely capitalism. I'm not up on political philosophy, so please forgive me bumbling around the definition, but it seems that the commercialism in American has grown to such a height that it has become the culture's source of morality. Where do we get our views of right and wrong? Religion is either seen as the work of the violent or the stupid in our country (thanks Bush for helping Christians out there). Hyper-individualism focuses oneself on oneself alone, and a blatant disregard for the past (or, rather, looking upon the new as good and past as bad) casts out any lessons learned from those who have lived before us. Capitalism, in my opinion, has a few things to tweak out, but it requires a rather firm morality system to really get off the ground. American capitalism has Dancing with the Stars and Sport stars with Steroids.
Forcing opinions, I will whole-heartedly agree, is wrong, but human beings need guidance. Whether that comes in the form of an old man who went through two world wars or an organization that tries to instruct those in the way of goods found in almost all cultures, people need something. Most people, when it comes down to it, can't get to a place where, left to themselves, they'll develop well and healthily. Kids need good parents or at least a good role model. Forming (and formed) governments need this too. Interestingly enough, this is mirrored in nature as well: plants need nurture from a stronger source (i.e. the sun) just as us humans do.
You wrote: "I think the key involves looking at acceptable bounds of the oscillation of variables rather then at predetermined fixed values." and I can't agree more. When making tall buildings above fault lines, allow for that building to sway and shift; rigid structures will fall down. Those bounds being set still calls for something though: what sets them? And who teaches them to the younger generations? Left up to general people who toil their lives away doing something OTHER than teaching and thinking about teaching morals, very few of the ideas will get through. Thus the reason for religion, or at least schooling. Unfortunately both have a rather bad track record of actually coming through, but still the essence of religion and education is what I'm talking about, not the practice (which can always be worked upon).
Fairness, to me, is the interesting point in all of this. Fairness, and connected with it an image of what is good and what is not, is the key. We feel a requirement of the world to be fair, and yet it isn't. Why? Why should we expect something we all know well and good to be something horribly unfair to be completely against its nature? I think my opinion is because, really, it is fair, but that we're not looking at the big picture. Humans are biological beings regardless of what anyone says about us, and I think we confuse our sense of fairness in spiritual affairs for fairness in biological affairs. Really I think that's one of the main problems with things. Doing good things are innately good and we understand this not because of some...well, what? A want to feel safe? Why should we want to feel safe? Maybe we think we should be dealt with fairly because we want to have enough to be self-sufficient. But why do we need to be self-sufficient? To survive? Why, in the end, is survival important? It's an instinct and we listen to it, but instinct is a suggestion, not a demand. We don't have to listen to it, but everyone, save for those who are seriously ill, listens to the will to live. To get back on track, I think we want things to be fair in the biological world because things are innately fair in the spiritual. You know the Christian story, as well as most other religions I can think of for that matter, and in 99% of them humans are treated fairly. If you leave the path, you left the path, and it's the abyss for you. If you screw up being a human, you're a bug. And even if all these are simply stories, still, where does this sense of fairness come from?
Well, gotta get my head warmed up for future debates, but it's always good hearing an opinion other than mine. I've been reading a bit of CS Lewis lately (I'm sure you're a rather big fan of him), and every page I stop and think "What would [you] say to this one?" This email, though, I've mainly agreed with you.
American Antitheist: I have to agree that telling a kid to just "get a job" as in any job could be misinterpreted. Of course a kid should aim for a job that they like, and I agree they should be encouraged to work towards that goal. I think that the point was more that they can't expect to walk into a job they like at first. Most of the time, we have to work our way up to the job we actually want. And that means starting in the fast food restaurant sometimes. Hell, I'll never go back to fast food again if I can help it. But if I found that there was nothing open to me in a field I desired, then I would be back in a second. The reason being that I will do whatever it takes to support my life and the life of those I love. And the reality of the necessities of life often outweigh our desires. As much as I think that I deserve a position of privilege, if such an opportunity doesn't exist, then I must use what opportunities are available to do the best I can.
I agree that some words are losing meaning. Although it's hard to say whether that is a good or bad thing. In general, the evolution of meaning in language would seem to be a natural process, not unlike biological evolution. Words and meanings acquire significance or lose it based on the values of the period and the social and intellectual pressures of language use. The trivialization of words like "goddess" is an example of how the once intensely significant concept of polytheistic religions with female deities or monotheistic matriarchal religions have faded from relevance in the mainstream culture. The words linger in our vocabulary, but the significance is something which has eroded. I would argue that the erosion is due to a lack of relevance in modern society. Almost noone believes in goddesses anymore. And, although I would need to do a corpus study to verify this, I would think that the modern usage of the term is more in line with a label characterizing an ideal state of womanhood, more than a theological distinction. If that is indeed the case, then the ad's usage is perhaps more in line with the actual modern intent of the word than as a reference to spiritual phenomenon.
Redeem would be another candidate for an interesting corpus study. How do we actually use the word nowadays? Is it really more common in references to prizes, or the process of atonement for moral transgressions? I don't honestly know. But it is an interesting question nonetheless.
I also agree with your observation that capitalism needs a moral basis to get it off the ground, so to speak. Actually, Ayn Rand argued that the reason the American system has steadily been collapsing into socialism has been because although the founding fathers created a revolutionary new governmental system with an inherent political philosophy, there was no explicit moral system which was consistent with the philosophy implicit in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and consequently with Capitalism in general. The ethics of her philosophy of objectivism form a pretty strong argument for the shape of a capitalist ethics. If you haven't had a chance to read her arguments, I highly recommend them. Even if you don't agree, I would be interested to see where you object. Of course, I'll warn you, she's an atheist like me and she unilaterally rejects altruism as a moral ideal.
On the issue of people needing moral guidance, I will also agree. People need a framework, a rationally coherent model of not only what is right and wrong, but why something is right or why something is wrong. We need something more than a threat of punishment to choose the moral course. We need rational arguments to provide an explanation of why something is wrong, objectively. Objectivism would hold that "every is implies an ought." And I'm inclined to agree.
The problem with religion and education both, is that neither has tried to help people understand the why of morality, only the what. Both hold fast to the notion that indoctrination = moral behavior. Whereas this is simply just not true. If the only reason someone has to be moral is that it is a mandate from God or society, then there will inevitably be situations where that person feels that it is acceptable to act in an immoral way to achieve some short term objective. If somebody knows why something is wrong, then they will rebel against the very notion of breaching the moral precept in question and furthermore they will actively work to anticipate such situations so that they can avoid placing themselves in moral jeopardy. That is why rational ethics will always be stronger than ones which work primarily from a punishment motive.
I agree that the perception of life not being fair is due to a misconception of what fairness entails. I agree that most people have a skewed expectation of fairness which usually works out to saying "things should be good for me because I'm me and not because of anything I've done in particular." I will take exception though to the notion that Bible stories, or the religious texts of any religion have any bearing on modern ethics at all. We can, of course, select the nice bits from those texts. However, that means that we are using a morality outside of the literal depiction of religion to select those stories which conform to our independent sense of morality. If we are using a system independent of the literal teachings of religion to find moral justifications of our belief system, then we cannot be truly said to be basing our morality on religion. We are instead using our religion, selectively, to justify our morality. Where that morality then comes from is a matter of debate. I don't think that it comes innately, but I do think it is a function of values encoded in our society. Of course that is a recursive process, for who encodes values into our society if not for ourselves, and the institutions we erect. Ultimately that comes down to the ideas that were accepted in the generations before and the philosophers that the founders of those institutions adhered to.
A very pressing question that a friend recently brought up and to which I cannot find a satisfactory answer is, "Since all religious texts of the big 3 monotheistic religions are generally xenophobic, resistant to change and promote the use of violence against non-believers, why is it that the Christian religion evolved to be more permissive of dissent and to be more "selective" while Islam has instead retained it's non-selective literal interpretation?"
I used to more a fan of C.S. Lewis than I can currently find myself capable. After being exposed to Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and listening to Youtube interviews with the author, I've come to have a slightly different perspective of Lewis's work. If anything, I find myself more on the side of Milton than ever. "Better to rule in hell, than serve in heaven." And as I think more and more about religion in general and moral issues specifically, I could honestly say that even were I to face some God after death, I think I would disown him for the insanity of his demands on the beings he created.
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