With the resignation of chief justice Souter, Obama has yet another chance to skew the machinery of government so as to sustain his socialist agenda long after he has been replaced. Check out the link below for an article detailing why Obama's pragmatism really means amorality in a legal context.
When It Comes to Judges, 'Pragmatic' Means Unprincipled: How the president reasons that disregarding the rule of law can be a virtue.
Translator
Showing posts with label sceptic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sceptic. Show all posts
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Capitalism Didn't Fail...Just saying so doesn't make it true
So many leftist pundits are spouting off about the death of capitalism and how Greenspan was a libertarian so that proves that free-market policies don't work. Well, bullshit.
Greenspan was not a libertarian, he wasn't even an objectivist except perhaps in his youth when he contributed to Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and advocated a return to the gold standard. But, of course he sold those views out right quick when they threatened to dampen his career goals. No, Greenspan was a soulless mercenary, who knew enough to know what was the right thing to do, and then did the wrong thing anyway. There can be few more damning indictments of a person's moral character than to knowingly choose to do the wrong thing.
As for the so-called failure of the free market system, well our market was not free of government intervention before, so it baffles the mind to think how people can actually convince themselves that we were actually under a free market system before this whole crisis developed. Of course it didn't help that Republicans were preaching free market principles while expanding government like there was no tomorrow, but all that proves was that the majority of Republicans were and still are hypocrites. At least if they have the sense to rally behind Ron Paul this time, perhaps we may see some change for the better. But with all the new legislation that Obama and his gang are going to be able to cram through the legislature, it's a bit like closing the barn doors after the horse has already fled.
Anyway, there's a very good article by objectivist Dakin Sloss over at the Stanford Progressive. It's a very succint and easy to understand explanation of how the government was involved in the economic collapse. I highly recommend it, so please check it out:
http://progressive.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/article.php?article_id=343
Best premises,
American Anti-theist
Greenspan was not a libertarian, he wasn't even an objectivist except perhaps in his youth when he contributed to Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and advocated a return to the gold standard. But, of course he sold those views out right quick when they threatened to dampen his career goals. No, Greenspan was a soulless mercenary, who knew enough to know what was the right thing to do, and then did the wrong thing anyway. There can be few more damning indictments of a person's moral character than to knowingly choose to do the wrong thing.
As for the so-called failure of the free market system, well our market was not free of government intervention before, so it baffles the mind to think how people can actually convince themselves that we were actually under a free market system before this whole crisis developed. Of course it didn't help that Republicans were preaching free market principles while expanding government like there was no tomorrow, but all that proves was that the majority of Republicans were and still are hypocrites. At least if they have the sense to rally behind Ron Paul this time, perhaps we may see some change for the better. But with all the new legislation that Obama and his gang are going to be able to cram through the legislature, it's a bit like closing the barn doors after the horse has already fled.
Anyway, there's a very good article by objectivist Dakin Sloss over at the Stanford Progressive. It's a very succint and easy to understand explanation of how the government was involved in the economic collapse. I highly recommend it, so please check it out:
http://progressive.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/article.php?article_id=343
Best premises,
American Anti-theist
Monday, May 4, 2009
A Proposal for a Rational Code of Morality
I was just sorting through some old papers and ran across this thought experiment I wrote up almost 10 years ago. At the time I didn't understand objectivism anywhere near as I do now and was still rather tolerant of religious beliefs. At the same time, I was already very libertarian in my political beliefs. I'm posting this, not because I see it as the final word on morality or anything. On the contrary, I'm sure there are more than enough flaws...especially in my all too brief assessment of epistemology. However, I think it still raises some interesting points, and a novel way of thinking about moral decisions. Anyways, if you're interested, you can check it out here:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddt4f3w9_4hmscz7hk
As always, please let me know what you think of it. Good or bad. And then we can discuss it.
Best premises,
American Anti-theist
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddt4f3w9_4hmscz7hk
As always, please let me know what you think of it. Good or bad. And then we can discuss it.
Best premises,
American Anti-theist
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
McCain: Hypocrisy in Action
And if there was any doubt about McCain's trustworthiness or moral integrity, well, this should settle it. Please watch the Before and After videos that follow:
BEFORE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNImNX8Xuw
AFTER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8KZpsp04XM
BEFORE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNImNX8Xuw
AFTER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8KZpsp04XM
Friday, June 27, 2008
Daniel Dennett: Hypocrite and Fool
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Defend Freedom of Speech. Reprint the Mohammed Cartoons.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24976215/
If you would like to submit to the arbitrary edicts of fanatical militants, then by all means cower in fear of their retaliation and do nothing. However, if you value freedom of speech, the time-honored right of all free human beings on the face of this earth, then do what you can. If you have a blog, print the cartoons there. If you run a newspaper, reprint them there. They can't bomb everybody. Our soldiers are brave enough to put their bodies between the extremists and us. We can at least be brave enough to preserve the freedoms that they believe they're fighting for. The alternative is to let them die in vain. How about it? Do we still value freedom?
I do.
(Also posted here)
Food Prices Driven Up By Myopic Hysteria
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24942035/
The article of debate today is the one above. Food prices are rising. World leaders are panicking. People are scared. So what do we do? Do we take a sincere look at what is actually the problem? No, of course not. We're much too committed to our Christian/Jewish/Islamic/Buddhist ethic of give to the needy. Has it actually occurred to anyone out there that we have been giving billions, yes billions , of dollars to the world's desperate nations for decades now. Has it struck anyone as even slightly odd that those countries are, if anything, more deranged, pestilential, and afflicted than ever? Who exactly is to blame for the world's poverty in a time of supposedly intellectual wealth?
Well, I would like to offer a possible explanation.
Government intervention in the business of food kills. And if that's too complicated.... governments kill.
Period.
How can I say that? Easy.
Government subsidies to farmers artificially skew the market so that they grow what the government wants them to grow. Or in the case of the US, it pays them NOT to grow certain things, so they effectively get government money for NOT doing something. And it's not just America. Japan has a host of weird rules concerning the production of rice. A lot of it has to do with post-war paranoia about being self-sufficient. Of course, many countries just abscond with the goods and they don't ever get to their starving masses, because frankly the reason their masses are starving in the first place is the governments which are begging for help are really begging for their figurehead dictator's new Porsche but don't give a damn about the people starving to support their collectivist ideal. Hell, most of those countries don't even have an ideal, they've just got a dictator and a big gang of gun-toting fanatics to keep them in power. At least until the next big gang with guns comes along to "reform" the country.
The truth is that the rapidly shifting needs of world consumers depends on the ability of business to meet their needs. Normally, we would think that where there is a massive demand, business would rush to meet that need out of the basic necessity of meeting their demand and thus maximizing profits. Unfortunately, government subsidies in countries around the world, foreign trade embargoes, and various forms of legislation relating to agricultural lobbies skew the market in favor of predetermined variables. The unfortunate part is that those variables are all set by governments too far removed from the processes of supply and demand and they absolutely cannot respond fast enough to the shifting demands of the real world. Business can, does and must do so just to survive. But, government constrains business so that it can only limp after the lead of nationalist masters.
After decades of shelling out support to "needy" countries and scrambling after socialist ideal after socialist ideal, isn't it time we learned our lesson? The USSR collapsed out of the economic impossibility of its proclaimed goals. They were INCOMPATIBLE with survival. So what do we do when we follow those ideals and things continue to get worse and worse? Do we stop and rethink our position? Do we strive to find alternatives? No. What we do is try to keep doing more of what we've been doing all along, just on a bigger and more self-destructive scale.
When will we wake up? When will we realize that we've all been playing the fool? When will we realize that playing the fool is as good as asking for our own death? Were Rosencrantz and Guilderstern any the nobler for being unaware of their fate?
The article of debate today is the one above. Food prices are rising. World leaders are panicking. People are scared. So what do we do? Do we take a sincere look at what is actually the problem? No, of course not. We're much too committed to our Christian/Jewish/Islamic/Buddhist ethic of give to the needy. Has it actually occurred to anyone out there that we have been giving billions, yes billions , of dollars to the world's desperate nations for decades now. Has it struck anyone as even slightly odd that those countries are, if anything, more deranged, pestilential, and afflicted than ever? Who exactly is to blame for the world's poverty in a time of supposedly intellectual wealth?
Well, I would like to offer a possible explanation.
Government intervention in the business of food kills. And if that's too complicated.... governments kill.
Period.
How can I say that? Easy.
Government subsidies to farmers artificially skew the market so that they grow what the government wants them to grow. Or in the case of the US, it pays them NOT to grow certain things, so they effectively get government money for NOT doing something. And it's not just America. Japan has a host of weird rules concerning the production of rice. A lot of it has to do with post-war paranoia about being self-sufficient. Of course, many countries just abscond with the goods and they don't ever get to their starving masses, because frankly the reason their masses are starving in the first place is the governments which are begging for help are really begging for their figurehead dictator's new Porsche but don't give a damn about the people starving to support their collectivist ideal. Hell, most of those countries don't even have an ideal, they've just got a dictator and a big gang of gun-toting fanatics to keep them in power. At least until the next big gang with guns comes along to "reform" the country.
The truth is that the rapidly shifting needs of world consumers depends on the ability of business to meet their needs. Normally, we would think that where there is a massive demand, business would rush to meet that need out of the basic necessity of meeting their demand and thus maximizing profits. Unfortunately, government subsidies in countries around the world, foreign trade embargoes, and various forms of legislation relating to agricultural lobbies skew the market in favor of predetermined variables. The unfortunate part is that those variables are all set by governments too far removed from the processes of supply and demand and they absolutely cannot respond fast enough to the shifting demands of the real world. Business can, does and must do so just to survive. But, government constrains business so that it can only limp after the lead of nationalist masters.
After decades of shelling out support to "needy" countries and scrambling after socialist ideal after socialist ideal, isn't it time we learned our lesson? The USSR collapsed out of the economic impossibility of its proclaimed goals. They were INCOMPATIBLE with survival. So what do we do when we follow those ideals and things continue to get worse and worse? Do we stop and rethink our position? Do we strive to find alternatives? No. What we do is try to keep doing more of what we've been doing all along, just on a bigger and more self-destructive scale.
When will we wake up? When will we realize that we've all been playing the fool? When will we realize that playing the fool is as good as asking for our own death? Were Rosencrantz and Guilderstern any the nobler for being unaware of their fate?
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Myth of Religious Moderation
For today's blog I would like to direct you to the following two news stories:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24919800/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/139433
Now, the first seems to be forewarning of growing rivalries and tensions within Islam. The second seems to be saying that there are seeds of moderation growing within Islam, that may lead it to become a more truly peaceful religion than it is today.
So, what's the point? Which view do we take seriously? Is Islam inherently dangerous and growing more internally divided as rival fundamental viewpoints wage very active and real war against each other? Or is Islam inherently peaceful, with modern Islam hijacked by a rabble of renegades harnessing the gullible with their political rhetoric?
The answer, I think is to go to the facts. And go to the source. Just as you can look at the bible to see what views Christian moderates are promoting to fundamentalists as the word of God, so too can you go to the Koran to see what views the moderates are promoting to fundamentalists as the word of God.
Well, fact #1 and the elephant in the room is that the only difference between moderates and fundamentalists is how much of their holy book they take to be the unequivocal holy word of almighty God. Moderates cut out the nasty bits. Fundamentalists take it all whole. You could almost say that the moderates are hypocrites in that they purport to follow a religion based on a text which is supposedly mandated by God, yet they have the audacity to say that they know better than their own God which parts are really really God's will and which parts are not. Because of this latent hypocrisy, fundamentalism will always have the potential to rear its ugly head. This is not because they are hijacking an otherwise peaceful religion. Fundamentalist, by definition means one who is adhering to the fundamentals of the religion. As such, the most sincere devotees of a religion must always be fundamentalist. Moderates are, for the most part, moral cowards. They are those who know well enough that the morality encoded in the literal word of their holy book makes absolutely no sense in the modern world, and yet are so terrified of their version of an ethereal boogie-man in the sky that they lack the courage to renounce their faith and set about defending and encoding a modern moral truth.
This is the kicker and it's what will cobble the efforts of anybody who seeks to negotiate their religion into supposedly "passive" forms. As long as the religion honors a text which encodes violence and immorality as ideals, then the religion will always bear the seeds of violence and immorality. So, let's check the sources and see if the Koran, and for that matter the Bible encode violence and immorality.
(Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)
Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)
The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will die at birth or perish in the womb or never even be conceived. Even if your children do survive to grow up, I will take them from you. It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone. I have watched Israel become as beautiful and pleasant as Tyre. But now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered." O LORD, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk. The LORD says, "All their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels. The people of Israel are stricken. Their roots are dried up; they will bear no more fruit. And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children." (Hosea 9:11-16 NLT)
Now that we've dealt with the flower of Christianity, let's take a look at what the pleasant poetry of the Koran has in store for us.
And as for those who are guilty of an indecency from among your women, call to witnesses against them four (witnesses) from among you; then if they bear witness confine them to the houses until death takes them away or Allah opens some way for them.
Well, at least house arrest sure beats stoning. Let's see what else is in there...
Oh, wait a second, what's this?
And when Musa said to his people: O my people! you have surely been unjust to yourselves by taking the calf (for a god), therefore turn to your Creator (penitently), so kill your people, that is best for you with your Creator: so He turned to you (mercifully), for surely He is the Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.
Oh, and this isn't so friendly:
They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
And this:
You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given.you a clear authority.
And do not kill any one whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause, and whoever is slain unjustly, We have indeed given to his heir authority, so let him not exceed the just limits in slaying; surely he is aided.
I wonder what qualifies as a "just cause"? Fighting for the glory of Allah?
Say: Have you considered if the chastisement of Allah should overtake you suddenly or openly, will any be destroyed but the unjust people?
I guess that answers that question, doesn't it?
And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.
Mmmm....peaceful......
Then We said: Go you both to the people who rejected Our communications; so We destroyed them with utter destruction.
And some even more destroying with utter destruction goodness:
And to every one We gave examples and every one did We destroy with utter destruction.
Like we need to make it dead, really really dead. Dancing on the dead, dead, hyper-deading dead dead. But, who really has time to sift through all this crap. If you would like, there is a searchable online Koran which is where I got all these lovely quotes. All you need to do is search for things like destroy, kill, etc. In all fairness, there was no mention of rape that I could find, so perhaps the Muslims do have a moral leg up on Christianity after all. But as for being a peaceful religion? No, I don't think so.
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,
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).
(And in case you were wondering where I got all the juicy Bible quotes, they're from EvilBible.com. )
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24919800/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/139433
Now, the first seems to be forewarning of growing rivalries and tensions within Islam. The second seems to be saying that there are seeds of moderation growing within Islam, that may lead it to become a more truly peaceful religion than it is today.
So, what's the point? Which view do we take seriously? Is Islam inherently dangerous and growing more internally divided as rival fundamental viewpoints wage very active and real war against each other? Or is Islam inherently peaceful, with modern Islam hijacked by a rabble of renegades harnessing the gullible with their political rhetoric?
The answer, I think is to go to the facts. And go to the source. Just as you can look at the bible to see what views Christian moderates are promoting to fundamentalists as the word of God, so too can you go to the Koran to see what views the moderates are promoting to fundamentalists as the word of God.
Well, fact #1 and the elephant in the room is that the only difference between moderates and fundamentalists is how much of their holy book they take to be the unequivocal holy word of almighty God. Moderates cut out the nasty bits. Fundamentalists take it all whole. You could almost say that the moderates are hypocrites in that they purport to follow a religion based on a text which is supposedly mandated by God, yet they have the audacity to say that they know better than their own God which parts are really really God's will and which parts are not. Because of this latent hypocrisy, fundamentalism will always have the potential to rear its ugly head. This is not because they are hijacking an otherwise peaceful religion. Fundamentalist, by definition means one who is adhering to the fundamentals of the religion. As such, the most sincere devotees of a religion must always be fundamentalist. Moderates are, for the most part, moral cowards. They are those who know well enough that the morality encoded in the literal word of their holy book makes absolutely no sense in the modern world, and yet are so terrified of their version of an ethereal boogie-man in the sky that they lack the courage to renounce their faith and set about defending and encoding a modern moral truth.
This is the kicker and it's what will cobble the efforts of anybody who seeks to negotiate their religion into supposedly "passive" forms. As long as the religion honors a text which encodes violence and immorality as ideals, then the religion will always bear the seeds of violence and immorality. So, let's check the sources and see if the Koran, and for that matter the Bible encode violence and immorality.
(Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
OK, you may say, but that's in a time of war and we all know that war is hell, right? So how about rape about town?(Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB)
If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.
Well, that seems pretty damn evil to me. But even if we just take that as hardcore justice, let's clarify what God thinks about some other stuff. How about child killing? I think we can all pretty much agree that there is nothing more evil than someone who hurts children willfully.Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants. (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)
The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will die at birth or perish in the womb or never even be conceived. Even if your children do survive to grow up, I will take them from you. It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone. I have watched Israel become as beautiful and pleasant as Tyre. But now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered." O LORD, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk. The LORD says, "All their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels. The people of Israel are stricken. Their roots are dried up; they will bear no more fruit. And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children." (Hosea 9:11-16 NLT)
"Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple." So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told." (Ezekiel 9:5-7 NLT)
And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died. (Exodus 12:29-30 NLT)
If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted. (Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT)
Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children. (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)
Now that we've dealt with the flower of Christianity, let's take a look at what the pleasant poetry of the Koran has in store for us.
And as for those who are guilty of an indecency from among your women, call to witnesses against them four (witnesses) from among you; then if they bear witness confine them to the houses until death takes them away or Allah opens some way for them.
Well, at least house arrest sure beats stoning. Let's see what else is in there...
Oh, wait a second, what's this?
And when Musa said to his people: O my people! you have surely been unjust to yourselves by taking the calf (for a god), therefore turn to your Creator (penitently), so kill your people, that is best for you with your Creator: so He turned to you (mercifully), for surely He is the Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful.
Oh, and this isn't so friendly:
They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah's way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.
And this:
You will find others who desire that they should be safe from you and secure from their own people; as often as they are sent back to the mischief they get thrown into it headlong; therefore if they do not withdraw from you, and (do not) offer you peace and restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them; and against these We have given.you a clear authority.
And do not kill any one whom Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause, and whoever is slain unjustly, We have indeed given to his heir authority, so let him not exceed the just limits in slaying; surely he is aided.
I wonder what qualifies as a "just cause"? Fighting for the glory of Allah?
Say: Have you considered if the chastisement of Allah should overtake you suddenly or openly, will any be destroyed but the unjust people?
I guess that answers that question, doesn't it?
And when We wish to destroy a town, We send Our commandment to the people of it who lead easy lives, but they transgress therein; thus the word proves true against it, so We destroy it with utter destruction.
Mmmm....peaceful......
Then We said: Go you both to the people who rejected Our communications; so We destroyed them with utter destruction.
And some even more destroying with utter destruction goodness:
And to every one We gave examples and every one did We destroy with utter destruction.
Like we need to make it dead, really really dead. Dancing on the dead, dead, hyper-deading dead dead. But, who really has time to sift through all this crap. If you would like, there is a searchable online Koran which is where I got all these lovely quotes. All you need to do is search for things like destroy, kill, etc. In all fairness, there was no mention of rape that I could find, so perhaps the Muslims do have a moral leg up on Christianity after all. But as for being a peaceful religion? No, I don't think so.
The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,
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).
(And in case you were wondering where I got all the juicy Bible quotes, they're from EvilBible.com. )
A List of Some Common Logical Fallacies
Here's a convenient list of common logical fallacies with examples of how creationists and theists try to use them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Sq_AzbIJ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Sq_AzbIJ4
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Michael Shermer on the Flying Spaghetti Monster
A concise, amusing, and well-reasoned excerpt from a debate on religion presented by Dr. Michael Shermer of the Sceptic Society. Enjoy:
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