Faith

FAITH April, 2011
The Language Of God – Collins (A Christian Evangelical Evolutionist)
*The Will to Believe* - William James
The Varieties of Religious Experience - William James

Collins.
Where to begin with this one? I suspect that our last class of the year will be heated. The Language of God was enjoyable reading and Collins does have some interesting arguments, although many of them would not hold water against an articulate and aggressive atheist. At least, generally speaking, atheists come across as having better arguments and more reason than theists. Part of that might be due to the “rational” society we’ve lived in our whole lives and the fact that the “agnostic hypothesis” is more alive than the “theist philosophy” in many of us. Conversely, any atheist’s arguments can be attacked by a Biologos believer like Collins since his start point is at complete odds with his opponent’s: Atheists do not believe in God while theists do. (As James states in “The Will to Believe”: “When the Cliffords tell us how sinful it is to be Christians on such ‘insufficient evidence’, insufficiency is really the last thing they have in mind. For them the evidence is absolutely sufficient, only it makes the other way. They believe so completely in an anti-christian order of the universe that there is no living option: Christianity is a dead hypothesis from the start.” Clearly, there can be no clear-cut winner in such an argument. One must listen to his soul (or his inkling, I should say, for the atheists out there).

Generally, I find it somewhat presumptuous when people claim to know why god created the universe and what our purpose in the cosmos is. Some of the reasons Collins’ gives for his stance are not very sound, at least on my first reading of his book. One of his claims is that Moral Law (the distinction between right and wrong) *somehow* means we are suffused with some divine force. He does say that some (like myself) may object that “the Moral Law is simply a consequence of evolutionary pressures” (p. 24), and that this objection “arises from the new field of sociobiology, and attempts to provide explanations for altruistic behaviour on the basis of its positive value in Darwinian selection.” (p. 25). I like how he stressed that sociobiology is a “new” field almost as if to discredit it. (He did not mention that Darwinian selection has been going on for billions of years and that he is a supporter of Natural Selection...something he talks about later on in the book). Behaviourally speaking, if certain ant species know that it is “right” to build tunnels in a certain way, or that bees know instinctively to build honeycombs, (millions of years of evolution drilling the “rightness” of this action into their DNA through Natural Selection), is it so far of a stretch to propose that certain emotions - like being able to feel the pangs of guilt when knowing that one has done something unfair, or the feeling of love itself - are evolutionarily generated? I don’t quite understand his example that the feeling of guilt one might get from telling a little white lie on a tax return is evolutionarily inexplicable because it doesn’t hurt another identifiable human being. Sure, but it does hurt the larger community of (unidentifiable) human beings, not to mention the fact that knowing that everyone else is properly filling out their tax forms makes one an outsider, so to speak. Brought down to a evolutionary behavioural level, this feeling makes sense: An animal who does something that threatens the wealth and health of other members will be punished. Such behaviour is witnessed in primates. Also, as stated in On the Origin of Species, Darwin himself provides plenty of evidence in support of Natural Selection acting on entire populations, not individuals. (On the Origin of Species, Chapter VII).

I also disagree with his views of “agape” or “selfless love”. Such acts can be ego-driven and can produce feelings of smugness and superiority in individuals and potentially result in behaviour that will benefit them in the long run. It might give one enough mojo to actually procreate…

OK, I know I’m stretching it here, but my point is that Collins is wrong to discount the impact that millions of years of evolution has had on our brains and how we think, function and feel emotions. Moreover, some people might even say that Collins’ use of Mother Teresa as an example of someone who acted out of selfless giving shows his narrow-mindedness: Mother Teresa did live in poverty, she did open missions all over the world, there’s no doubt. What neither she or the Vatican did was use the millions upon millions of dollars sent in donations to upgrade her hospices to provide its patients (many suffering from extraordinary pain) anything more than an Aspirin for stomach cancer, for example. So Mother Teresa might have given selflessly, it is true. She, (and the religious institution that took advantage of her image), could have and should have given so much more (how much more, no one knows as there is no accounting of her missions’ finances).

It is a fascinating topic, but not one that I’m researched on. However, I think that Collins did not do research into the many elegant theories out there as to why and how humans came to adopt notions of right and wrong. Author Marc Hauser wrote a book Moral Minds, subtitled “How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong”. I’m sure it’s longer than the few pages Collins dedicates to his contention that Moral Law is something generated from the “divine”.

Here is but one interesting example that supports the notion that neurochemistry can account for some of the most ecstatic sensations and emotions (like love) that we experience:

"The desire to commit to someone is strongly linked to oxytocin. Oxytocin is released by the pituitary gland and acts on the ovaries and testes to regulate reproduction. This hormone is important for forming close social bonds. The levels of this chemical rise when couples watch romantic movies, hug, or hold hands. Prairie voles, when injected with oxytocin, pair much faster than normally. Blocking oxytocin prevents them from bonding in a normal way. This is similar in humans, because couples bond to certain characteristics in each other. This is why you are attracted to the same type of man or woman repeatedly. In general, levels of oxytocin are lower in men, except after an orgasm, where they are raised more than 500 percent. This may explain why men feel very sleepy after an orgasm. This is the same hormone released in babies during breast-feeding, which makes them sleepy as well.

"Oxytocin is also related to the feelings of closeness and being 'in love' when you have regular sex for several reasons. First, the skin is sensitized by oxytocin, encouraging affection and touching behavior. Then, oxytocin levels rise during subsequent touching and eventually even with the anticipation of being touched. Oxytocin increases during sexual activity, peaks at orgasm, and stays elevated for a period of time after intercourse. ... In addition, there is an amnesic effect created by oxytocin during sex and orgasm that blocks negative memories people have about each other for a period of time. The same amnesic effect occurs from the release of oxytocin during childbirth, while a mother is nursing to help her forget the labor pain, and during long, stressful nights spent with a newborn so that she can bond to her baby with positive feelings and love.

"Higher oxytocin levels are also associated with an increased feeling of trust. In a landmark study by Michael Kosfeld and colleagues from Switzerland published in the journal Nature, intranasal oxytocin was found to increase trust. Men who inhale a nasal spray spiked with oxytocin give more money to partners in a risky investment game than do men who sniff a spray containing a placebo. This substance fosters the trust needed for friendship, love, families, economic transactions, and political networks. According to the study's authors, 'Oxytocin specifically affects an individual's willingness to accept social risks arising through interpersonal interactions.' ...

"What happens in the brain when you lose someone you love? Why do we hurt, long, even obsess about the other person? When we love someone, they come to live in the emotional or limbic centers of our brains. He or she actually occupies nerve-cell pathways and physically lives in the neurons and synapses of the brain. When we lose someone, either through death, divorce, moves, or
breakups, our brain starts to get confused and disoriented. Since the person lives in the neuronal connections, we expect to see her, hear her, feel her, and touch her. When we cannot hold her or talk to her as we usually do, the brain centers where she lives becomes inflamed looking for her. Overactivity in the limbic brain has been associated with depression and low serotonin levels, which is why we have trouble sleeping, feel obsessed, lose our appetites, want to isolate ourselves, and lose the joy we have about life. A deficit in endorphins, which modulate pain and pleasure pathways in the brain, also occurs, which may be responsible for the physical pain we feel during a breakup."


Some may say that this neurochemical explication for the feeling of love displays the amazing and graceful work of evolution as it explains such a diverse range of feelings (and remember, we are only talking about one chemical, here: oxytocin). Others may say oxytocin is merely the physical result of the feeling of love from one’s “divine heart”. Well what came first - the chicken or the egg?

However, some might argue that not believing in god is to live without conscience and we simply do whatever we want, and besides, who needs to live as a child with an oppressive father watching his every move? They say that live in the most atheistic of all human eras and consequently the most bloody in terms of conflict... is there a correlation here? Again, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Perhaps my “Theist” hypothesis is “dead”, but Collins lost all credibility when he stated: (p.38) “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: weel, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world. Could it be that this longing for the sacred may not be wish-fulfillment but rather a pointer toward something beyond us? Why do we have a God-shaped vacuum in our hearts and minds unless it was meant to be filled?” Does one even have to bother commenting on this? The whole premise of the argument, to me, sounds terrifically infantile. Some people (like me) might call this a desire for "the transcendent", for “beauty”... I personally get a sense of the ineffable from playing my violin. I get a far more peaceful and "satisfying" feelings from this than going to church. And as far as the “God-shaped vacuum” that needs filling, this could be the result of our brains working at a far higher order than most animals. We can create art, so perhaps we desire it. We want to be transfigured through it, we want to live and taste it. To say that this must be a “God-shaped vacuum” is silly, quite frankly. For some this vacuum might be satisfied by relationships, a good meal, skiing, hiking, ...depending on who you are, you tap into it on different levels. Could it be that people who deem this desire as one for "God" just have no other idea how to articulate it or have not found something in life that gives them that feeling? I dunno. So what came first, the chicken or the egg?
A fascinating experiment would be to raise a population of people in a society absolutely disinfected from “God” in all shapes and forms. Would a specific and inherent desire for God be wished for by those raised in such a community? Would they articulate a vacuum within them that can only be filled by something described as “God”? Everything we know about religion is what is told us; we are socialized with it. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing inherent or congenital about it.

I’m just recording my initial reactions here. I don’t propose that my rebuttals are adequate as I’ve not really developed them much. I’m also sure that Collins did not want to get too philosophical in his own arguments and could probably say more to what I’m saying now.

However, I’ll continue to jot down my reactions to some of his statements, like: "...Big Bang cries for a divine explanation..." (p. 67) What!? Why? Because it's inexplicable? Because our primitive brains are not well-developed enough to understand it or even fathom it? Might not Collins have said the same thing for the mystery of heredity, only to be found in the genome? The Big Bang could be something else completely; something that science has not yet - and may never - elucidate. It may be something we cannot yet grasp but it may very well still be part of our natural world (not the divine world). IF “the universe is not only queerer than we suppose but queerer than we CAN suppose” (J.BS. Haldane), then it’s likely that nature on its own came up with a way of creation and causing the Big Bang. Nature’s explanation might make perfect sense on its own without us copping-out and attributing it to the divine for the sole reason that it is currently beyond our comprehension. Our reptilian brains are not quite "there" yet. Perhaps eventually, through evolution, these mysteries will be understood. Our brains need to evolve further. And on another cosmic note, regarding the "Drake equation" (p. 70), there are so many stars and planets in this colossal universe that it cannot be that far-fetched to believe that we are here solely by chance.

A friend of mine mentioned the other day that he is envious of people who are religious – many of life’s difficult questions are answered, they are nicely packaged and formatted so that we can understand. Not only that, but religious folk can go about their days with less worries, believing that someone is watching over them and that there will be a happy ending.

Collins writes something important on p. 81: “The God hypothesis solves some deeply troubling questions about why the universe seems to be so exquisitely tuned for us to be here.” This is true. I’ll take it a step further and say that this God hypothesis solves a lot (as in ALL) problems. I agree. “God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow” (Hegel)
Maybe one day our brains will evolve enough so that we may understand more, but for now, we simply do not, we cannot. Just as a worm or a monkey (probably) cannot contemplate the existence of god, that state of inability might be ours in terms of our full understanding of the universe and how and why it was created. Just as a fish might not have the brain capacity for sentience, WE don't have the capacity to understand why we are here and how the Big Bang occurred. A lot can happen in 15 billion years. It just might be (even though Collins disagrees) that we are simply very very lucky to be here. It is most probable that far, far stranger things have happened in our universe than that. However, those promoting certain beliefs are too self-centrered to be open to the possibility, and perhaps like to feel that they have a connection to divine knowledge. On the notion of “chance”, Collins gives a pretty good argument in favour of it when he argues for the creation of life and for humans and apes having a common ancestor (p.138-9).
So many complex human ideas and beliefs - especially those of religion - serve the same purpose of explaining what we cannot explain. They speak to the core of our need to know - be that through Christians and their afterlife, the Buddhists and their cyclical beliefs, the Hindus and their equally cyclic Mandalas, the Armaggedonists, the Fundamentalists... these very different belief systems seem very different when viewed from afar but when once collapsed onto each other and brought to a point, they fundamentally address the same elementary concept. And on p.149, Collins goes on again with "Moral law and universal longing for god". These ideas can be easily explained OR at least, it does not necessarily point towards the existence of god. But my biggest issue with Collins is from his statement: “When it comes to the meaning of life, fence sitting is an inappropriate posture for both scientists and believers.” (p.158). (May I ask WHY!?) He doesn’t seem to answer this question, he just states it as a fact. I disagree completely. I can sit on the fence all I like and be perfectly content in life knowing that there may not be a god and that there also may be one. Why should my believing in something make any difference to god? Why should he reward me if I do and punish me if I don’t? (Is that idea so different from Santa Claus rewarding the children who believe in Him?) Well, if this is the case and my undeveloped brain cannot conceive the reason why – and that there is a “divine reason for it - maybe it is for the best. I can live in ignorance.

(p.168): “…But agnosticism also runs the risk of being a cop-out.” Interesting that Collins should criticize the notion of “copping out”. Doesn’t believing in God amount to the same thing? You cannot explain something, therefore, let “GOD” explain it; be it what you call a miracle, something you feel (love, Moral Law…)
“…To be well defended, agnosticism should be arrived at only after a full consideration of all the evidence for and against the existence of God.” But Collins doesn’t really give much but conjecture on this point! “It is a rare agnostic who has made the effort to do so. (Some who have, and a rather distinguished list it is, have unexpectedly converted themselves… agnosticism conveys a certain tinniness. Would we admire someone who insisted the age of the universe was unknowable, and hadn’t taken time to look at the evidence?” Well then, let us talk about EVIDENCE, then, Mr Collins (and what do you mean by “tinniness”?)

On the topic of Jesus, Collins states (p.221) “He also claimed to be able to forgive sins, which seemed both exciting and utterly shocking”! These words jumped out at me. Collins’ words and reaction seem equally ridiculous. The ability to forgive sins - “utterly shocks” him? Well, it is no more silly than the idea of a priest forgiving one’s sins as he has some divine connection with God. That someone can be so accomplished and so utterly gullible I find shocking in the extreme. The role of confession, as I see it, is purely psychological. Just by verbalizing what one is feeling, one can have the weight on one’s shoulders lightened. If under any other “umbrella” someone stated a similar belief, they might be referred to a psychiatrist for an assessment.

And still on the notion of a historical Jesus: p.223 “But the more I read of biblical and non-biblical accounts of events in first-century Palestine, the more amazed I was at the historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ.” Hmm. No references. I wonder what Collins thinks of Thomas Harpurs book, The Pagan Christ, which argues that Jesus is an archetype of man and likely never existed. (It’s an excellent book and lists loads of evidence suggesting that Jesus did not exist. I remain a fence-sitter on this, despite what Collins might think of one taking this position). Here’s a documentary on CBC Doczone (“The Pagan Christ”): http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/paganchrist.html
I also wonder what Collins would think of the following list of traits shared by many archetypal and divine figures (“Heroes”), described numerous times in mythologies that predate the age of Jesus Christ. (Oedipus gets full marks21/21, while Jesus shares 15 of these 21 criteria (…71%; not too bad)). (Reference: Lord Raglan’s book: The Hero, A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama (1936).

1. The hero’s mother is a royal virgin
2. His father is a king, and
3. Often a near relative of his mother, but
4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
5. He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
6. At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or his maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
7. He is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster-parents in a far away country.
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
11. After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
13. Becomes king.
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully, and
15. Prescribes laws, but
16. Later he loses favour with the gods and/or his subjects, and
17. Is driven from the throne and city, after which
18. He meets with a mysterious death,
19. Often at the top of a hill.
20. His children, if any, do not succeed him.
21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless
22. He has one or more holy sepulchures.

Christianity borrowed themes from the Romans, and before that the Greeks, and before that the Babylonians... there is nothing new in Christianity, really. …and Pope John-Paul II was brought in from Poland to invigorate Catholicism among the Eastern European countries. It is really hard to buy into any religion when so often those holding the reins are so corrupt and self-serving. There’s a lot of plagiarizing going on here!

In the end, I absolutely agree with Collins and James: one should listen to one’s heart. Be authentic; Follow your heart! I am not one to believe that you would be committing a crime against yourself if you were to believe something for which there is no absolute scientific evidence (as Clifford might - (read below)). Everyone should believe whatever they want but the argument that religion itself is purely a step in our human evolution is appealing.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world -- its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it. Conquer the world by intelligence and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. The whole conception of God is a conception derived from the ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. When you hear people in church debasing themselves and saying that they are miserable sinners, and all the rest of it, it seems contemptible and not worthy of self-respecting human beings. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages. A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.
(Bertrand Russell)


The Will to Believe - William James
- “Moral skepticism can no more be refuted or proved by logic than intellectual skepticism can.”

Francis Collins is a case study of what James was referring to in his lectures. I have quoted some important and striking passages from James’ work and have commented as well:

I
“…if I were Dr. Nansen and proposed to you to join my North Pole expedition, your option would be momentous; for this would probably be your only similar opportunity, and your choice now would either exclude you from the North Pole sort of immortality altogether or put at least the chance of it into your hands.”
I can’t help but feel uncomfortable at the analogy here… can one really compare a trip to “heaven” with one to the North Pole? And is “believing” in heaven tantamount to accepting to go on a trip? What if one is incapable of belief? What if one tries, but everything within his being is telling him no! no! I just cannot believe! Is he barred from the gates of heaven?

II
“A game is going on between you and the nature of things which at the day of judgment will bring out either heads or tails. Weigh what your gains and your losses would be if you should stake all you have on heads, or God’s existence: if you win in such a case, you gain in eternal beatitude; if you lose, you lose nothing at all. … Why should you not? At bottom, what have you to lose?”
Well, this presumes, first of all, that the God James is speaking of is so vindictive that he punishes those who do not believe in him… even though he loves them completely, go figure. It also suggests that if you go through the motions – even if you don’t really believe – you can gain “eternal beatitude”.

“…And that delicious enfant terrible Clifford writes: “Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer… If a belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence [even if the belief be true] the pleasure is a stolen one… It is sinful because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind.”

III
“This very law which the logicians would impose on us … is based on nothing but their own natural wish to exclude all elements for which they, in their professional quality of logicians, can find no use.”

IV
The thesis I defend is, briefly stated, this: Our passional nature not only lawfully may, but must, decide an option between propositions, whenever it is a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds; for to say, under such circumstances, “Do not decide, but leave the question open,” is itself a passional decision and is attended with the same risk of losing the truth.

V
When the Cliffords tell us how sinful it is to be Christians on such “insufficient evidence”, insufficiency is really the last thing they have in mind. For them the evidence is absolutely sufficient, only it makes the other way. They believe so completely in an anti-christian order of the universe that there is no living option: Christianity is a dead hypothesis from the start.

VI
Shall we espouse and endorse [our absolutist instinct]? Of shall we treat it as a weakness of our nature from which we must free ourselves, if we can? I sincerely believe that the latter course is the only one we can follow as reflective men. Objective evidence and certitude are doubtless very fine ideals to play with, but where on this moonlit and dream-visited planet are they found?


VIII
Science has organized this nervousness into a regular technique, her so-called method of verification…It is only truth as technically verified that interests her. The truth of truths might come in merely affirmative form, and she would decline to touch it.
Human passions, however, are stronger than technical rules [perhaps, but they have a tendency of being unreliable] “Le coeur a ses raisons,” as Pascal says, “que la raison ne connait pas” and however indifferent to all but the bare rules of the game the abstract intellect may be, the concrete players who furnish him the materials to judge of are usually, each one of them, in love with some pet “live hypothesis” of his own.

IX
The question of having moral beliefs at all or not having them is decided by our will. Are our moral preferences true or false, or are they only odd biological phenomena, making things good or bad for us, but in themselves indifferent? [In the end, they make us feel GOOD…this is EVOLUTION in the psychological/social sense! Religious beliefs are just another step of the human evolution… there may be a day when we grow beyond the need for it and look back at our “crazy ways”…]

Do you like me or not, for example. Whether you do or not depends, in countless instances, on whether I meet you half-way, am willing to assume that you must like me, and show you trust and expectation. The previous faith on my part in your liking’s existence is in such cases what makes your liking come. But if I stand aloof, and refuse to budge an inch until I have objective evidence, until you shall have done something apt, as the absolutists say, ten to one your liking never comes. [It’s called “taking a chance” and being a social animal we have to take this chance and have experiential evidence - based on events that actually happened - that chances of “sociable” reciprocation are good. And if there is no reciprocation of friendliness, it is a “trivial” loss in the end. It is not a “momentous” loss, as James himself might put it.]

[Regarding the example of a trainload of passengers attacking a few train-robbers/highwaymen]: “There are, then, cases where a fact cannot come at all unless preliminary faith exists in its coming. And where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the ‘lowest kind of immorality’ into which a thinking being can fall. Yet such is the logic by which our scientific absolutists pretend to regulate our lives!” [This is a tangible example, though, that of a train robbery. How can it be compared to the belief in the existence of god?]

X
In truths dependent on our personal action, then, faith based on desire is certainly a lawful and possibly an indispensable thing. [To compare the two (above, last part of section IX to faith-based desire) is quite a stretch.]

We are supposed to gain by our belief and to lose by our nonbelief a certain vital good. [I wish he would define this better… Yes, I suppose we could gain an illusory existence where we can go about our daily lives believing that there is a meaning to the seemingly amoral universe… but deep down, how can one not feel like a dupe, given the overwhelming support for there not being a higher being? Our heart, for example, may only have this desire to know the “great maker” only because it longs for answers that only such a being might provide…]

Better risk loss of truth than chance of error - that is your faith-vetoer’s exact position. [Not necessarily - it could just be that in view of the lack of evidence, I will stand on my own two feet and make the most reasonable decision; I will NOT be brainwashed by anyone that this unverifiable truth is an option…OK, my argument is getting hackneyed and it has been repeated several times here. My argument is from the “dead hypothesis” standpoint and I’m sure James would therefore disregard anything I say. I look forward to learning more about his standpoint, though, as his arguments for the existence of god are more intellectual and appealing than Collins’.]

“I, for one, can see no proof; and I simply refuse obedience to the scientist’s command to imitate his kind of option, in a case where my own stake is important enough to give me the right to choose my own form of risk.” [Enough is known about psychology to understand how humans can deceive themselves and how institutions - religion being the first to come to mind - behave as brainwashing societies]
[James compares the situation of the individual taking a risk of befriending someone, not knowing whether the friendly feelings will be reciprocated with that of jumping on the wagon of a religious belief system because the end result makes one feel good. The crucial difference is that we are social animals and evidence that most other people are abounds. The problem with the religious belief system here is that it is essentially no different from “Santa Claus” in that it provides comfort to those who believe; it answers all of one’s existential questions and concerns that make death a gray cloud over one’s head.]

I don’t find religion to be a completely dead hypothesis but have yet to hear a decent argument for it… Being an agnostic, I’m still on the fence.

The word “Sophist” came to my mind while reading James. At no other passage was this idea more apparent than when he states, in section VII: “There are two ways of looking at our duty in the matter of opinion,--ways entirely different, and yet ways about whose difference the theory of knowledge seems hitherto to have shown very little concern. We must know the truth; and we must avoid error,--these are our first and great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws. Although it may indeed happen that when we believe the truth A, we escape as an incidental consequence from believing the falsehood B, it hardly ever happens that by merely disbelieving B we necessarily believe A. We may in escaping B fall into believing other falsehoods, C or D, just as bad as B; or we may escape B by not believing anything at all, not even A.” (from section VII)
Uh… Chicken or the egg?

Flux

March 30, 2011

FLUX

Darwin, Arnold and Wordsworth.

On The Origin of Species Charles Darwin. Written 1844; Published 1859.

Darwin is best known for his theory of Descent with Modification, or Natural Selection. Here is a quick summary of this theory, elucidated at length in The Origins of Species:

(1) In an environment of limited resources, all organisms produce more offspring than can survive to adulthood; (Malthus)

(2) although offspring resemble their parents, there are minor variations among them;

(3) those variations better adapted to their environment are the more likely to survive and reproduce in their turn;

(4) thus such favourable variations are likely to be preserved in subsequent generations.

On The Origin of Species was and remains a seminal work. Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection is well-understood today but in 1859 it was so revolutionary that a detailed explanation was necessary. Many grade 12 Biology students can sum up Darwin’s theory in less than a page, but Darwin had to back up his hypothesis with facts and figures from his lifetime of examining nature. (For those who have not read the book and don’t appreciate Darwin’s specificity and depth of knowledge, he published two volumes on the topic of barnacles totalling about 1,000 pages!) I enjoyed reading this book for Darwin’s knowledge and insight, and the endless remarkable examples that bolster his theory.

Not the most scholastic student in his younger years, Darwin found his true passion and vocation in Natural History. Early on, Darwin was convinced by William Paley’s Creationist arguments (Paley was the author of Natural Theology). He formed the “Watchmaker” analogy (arguing for an intelligent designer… although anthropologists Richerson and Boyd argue that one human could not make a watch on their own and therefore a watch does not have a designer…interesting rebuttal!)

Thanks to the work of geologist Charles Lyell, Darwin viewed the world as millions of years old, not mere thousands of years old, as was believed prior to his work. Although not even close to the true figure of ~4.5 billion years old, these millions of years gave Darwin the time he needed to make his theory make sense. It is truly amazing to think just how recent our knowledge of our world is - particularly in the field of geology. It was not until the early 1900s that Wegener’s hypothesis of plate tectonics was proposed and the theory was not generally accepted until the 60s in view of the wealth of evidence supporting it.

In Darwin’s day, knowledge of the natural world was growing exponentially and the study of Natural History was gaining popularity the world over. It’s not really unexpected, then, that “it was time” for the notion of “Descent with Modification” to be proposed. Naturalists and scientists were seeing more of the world, documenting their sights, and piecing together information, seeing the world wholistically. Patrick Matthew seems to have been the first to publish the idea of Natural Selection, although Darwin published and promoted it when another bloke named Wallace wrote to him about it. So, very much like the formation of the “eye” in the long history of animal evolution, the theory itself was generated independently, in different countries (Scotland, England and Australia).

Evidence for this elegant theory is continually being unearthed. I recall one anecdote that Darwin predicted the existence of a flying insect with a proboscis inches long because that’s what was required for the fertilization of a species of flower that had its stamens and pistils (gynoecia) deep within a narrow tube of petals. Such an insect was found and catalogued after Darwin’s death.

Another interesting one is that of Africans who survived the horrific boat ride from Africa to the New World during the slave trade. Although this is not “nature” selecting per se, the action is similar to that of “Natural” Selection. Africans with naturally higher blood pressure were able to survive dehydration, as such a condition would maintain at least the minimum blood pressure required even though fluids (blood volume) was low; (they were selected by their environment). It has been proposed that consequently many African Americans suffer from high blood pressure and related conditions.

Darwin was troubled by “race” and had difficulty explaining it in terms of his theory. What one person mentioned in seminar was that the children of parents from different races are generally considered more attractive. This can also be attributed to Natural Selection because by mixing different gene pools, a population is less likely to develop hereditary (genetic) defects. (Contrast this with isolated communities where interbreeding is common. There have been instances of soaring rates of blindness, deafness, Huntington’s disease, haemophilia etc… in such communities due to the unmasking of recessive genes).

The theory can be likened to that of “trial and error” and can be imposed onto certain sociological phenomena to explain social evolution. Think of communities – in their evolution and coming into being – it could be that those that survived were selected through a process similar to natural selection. (For example, disorganized societies that lacked something akin to a militia did not survive, just as those that did not recognize how farming is affected by the seasons starved and were removed from the “pool of communities”…)

Unfortunately, it has been stated that people who should be having kids (those with “intelligent genes” are not having them, while the converse is true. Moreover, whenever I hear of someone having to be rescued because he was stupid enough to go backcountry skiing despite the abundance of visual and aural signs and warnings, I can’t help but wonder if we are working against the millions of years of evolution that strove towards the eradication of the “stupidity gene”.

As the above example states, there are physical as well as mental applications of this theory. Another example given in class was from World War II, when sailors from torpedoed ships were stranded on the high seas. It was found that older sailors survived while younger ones died (possibly because they younger ones had lost hope and could not foresee rescue. Mention of this was very reminiscent of Viktor Frankl and his struggle to maintain meaning in the face of a bleak outcome. One must be physically as well as internally strong.

However, one must be careful when applying this theory to anything sociological… To think that people would extrapolate from this theory to every dimension of humanity (in order to justify sexism or slavery, for example) is actually not that astounding. People can be stupid and self-interested, in search of justifying for their behaviour. Although Darwin was referring to animals and their physical characteristics, his observations were bastardized by others who had an agenda to press forward:

“When he turned to humans, Darwin’s view of the differences between men and women was entirely of his time. Thus, he states, the result of sexual selection is that man is ‘more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman and has a more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger . . . the formation of her skull is said to be intermediate between the child and the man’. Nineteenth-century biologists’ understanding of the differentiation between the sexes was crucial in providing a biological basis for the superiority of the male and the subordination of women. Darwin’s androcentricity was not missed by feminist intellectuals at the time.”

“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” (307).

Famine, death, disaster… and survival of the “higher animals” are all implicated as part of the natural program in Darwin’s final paragraph. A bleak worldview, but beautiful too.

I think it is striking that the world - as static as it may seem to be - is in constant flux. No animal today is any more “perfect” than any other that existed in the past. We are adaptable and constantly evolving, changing with the environment.

However, humanity’s “reason” sometimes gets in the way and one of humanity’s most pressing issues as a species is ominously presented within this statement: “What experience and history teaches us is that people and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it” (Hegel)

Order

March 16
ORDER:

Not surprisingly there are many similarities between Confucius and Mencius (Confucius was, after all, Mencius’ mentor). Like Mencius, Confucius emphasizes respect, virtue, good friendships, sincerity, benevolent government... and that the only constant is change itself. Another persistent theme is that of the wholeness and interrelatedness of things. Now, after the reappearance of this topic of “wholeness” throughout our readings, it’s surprising to me that this idea should come as a surprise to anyone. Is this the legacy of Descartes? Of rational thinking? Who or what can be blamed for the divisions that separate what is fundamentally connected? The notion of interconnectedness was stressed in the introduction to Analects, and whenever I had trouble grasping the meaning of Confucius’ maxims, I attributed it to the fact that I must not be thinking wholistically enough.

Western philosophy seems to have put far too much emphasis on polarities and opposites. Yes, there are oppositions in this world but they do not exist or act in a vacuum. By painting the world as such, the “picture” is simplified which can be advantageous in some respects but can also be detrimental if it negates the bigger picture; one must not think too dogmatically in “blacks and whites”. Alternatively, it can be said that Eastern philosophies get muddled in that they are too wholistic. Ironically, I’m describing (and generalizing) Eastern and Western philosophies as two extremes along a spectrum but we should remember that they do have the same goal in mind. That goal being “Truth” or a higher understanding or appreciation of something, as well as how one should live. Despite their different approaches and outlooks, they arise from the same kernel, the same human desire for clarification, understanding. Chinese philosophies - (this is true) - fall more into the “Eastern” category of philosophy and it’s understandable that what has become known as “Confucianism” can be recognizable in thinkers even before Confucius’ time. The Confucian philosophy has changed very much over the past two and a half millennia.

The Chinese philosophy doesn’t separate the individual from his surroundings, including, of course, the people he interacts with. We extend our unique personhood by the ways we interact with others, as children, parents, lovers, friends and so forth, within the constraints denoted by what is meant by "parent", lover", friend" and "neighbour". And, "Excellent persons do not dwell alone; they are sure to have neighbours." This reminded me of Mencius’ writings and the use of his word benevolence (at least this is how it was translated into English: Benevolence). Mencius’ definition is more complex. Perhaps it was my Western thinking that wanted his idea nicely packaged in a single word, but his definition of what we’ve termed “benevolence” would have been more accurately described with: "Characteristics of someone who is looked up to and revered"... perhaps an “excellent person”? There are far too many things that make a sage a sage (and an excellent person an excellent person); benevolence does not capture them all; it is but one admirable attribute. …There is more complexity and convolution in thinking wholistically, but, finally, this is how the world was created and how it exists: as a whole.

From a psychological point of view, one should have the view that relationships with others are what makes the individual. To a large extent we define ourselves by how others perceive and judge us as individuals; we are the result of the many experiences we’ve had with others.

On Propriety and rituals:
When Mencius makes any mention of members of the other sex, they are mere objects, concubines. What is more, it is written (about Mencius’ mother, Appendix 2) that a woman’s guiding principle is the “three submissions”: In youth she submits to her parents; after marriage, to her husband; after the death of her husband, to her son. This is in accordance to the rites.”

Rituals are often misunderstood… Rituals are not necessarily tyrannical forms of behaviour when viewed broadly and wholistically. It seems to me that Confucius felt manners and actions based on rituals were important because if not followed as the “kings and excellent people of the old times” did, by letting rituals of the “good old days” slide, this would be indicative of a slide down a slope leading to public disorder and social disarray.

Following set rituals must have given the sense of civility and order to human relationships at a time when war ravaged China. The “Mandate of Tian ming” is a cosmic order that one should fall into step with so that all might go “smoothly”. Should bumpy roads be encountered, this was taken as falling out of harmony with tian ming. This is not dissimilar to the Bhagavad Gita, Mencius and Marcus Aurelius’ beliefs.

Self si versus Public yong.
Living with reverence toward the Public is living with consideration of it. Making it recognized that the people you interact with are important to you is crucial for self respect as well as respect for the other. In practicing such rituals, there is a “give and take” in which both benefit and are honoured (although I wonder about what the women in Confucius’ day thought of the “Three Submissions”).
Losing sight of and not respecting the Public was feared to be a slippery slope to a land of greed and individualism.

Confucius was more concerned with HOMEOSTASIS than with change/growth.
This describes well what I have said.

States of Nature

States of Nature

March 12, 2011

Itard: Wild Boy of Aveyron (1801; 1806)

A. Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

Itard’s work amounts to a theoretical treatise on education - what are we humans naturally, instinctively endowed with?; what is cultural? Even before working with the wild boy who he would name Victor, Itard’s philosophy of education was very constructive. Heading into his venture of educating Victor, he believed that “if a child knows the name of the natural sign of the objects he uses … “yes” and “no” and can use them correctly, then all is not lost” (p.88) and that “hereditary forms of mental retardation are extremely rare” (p.87). No doubt the influence of Philippe Pinel, a psychiatrist who in the late 1700s brought more humane living conditions to inmates of asylums, played a role in the Wild Child’s more or less humane treatment.

Itard wrote, five years after starting his work with Victor, that the development of the physical and the intellectual are simultaneous and their influence reciprocal (p. 152, from Report on Progress: 1806). Evidence for this statement is made plain in the fact that an adolescent’s ability to learn and become socialized is in direct proportion to his history of socialization. It is thought that the Victor had been with his family until the age of about four because he was able to learn, to a certain extent. This speaks to the importance of having a companion early in life (p.91-92). “Man is only made to be by his external circumstances”. (It is even thought, although this is only conjecture, that the Victor was left for dead by his family because he wasn’t developing normally - did he have autism? However, we’ll never know and it may as easily have been that he got lost in the great upheaval and migrations that took place over the years following the French Revolution.

“…he wandered about during the severity of a most rigorous winter, clad only in a tattered shirt. At night he retired into solitary places, approaching, as the day advanced, the neighbouring villages; and in this manner he passed a vagrant kind of life, till the time in which, of his own accord, he sought refuge in a dwelling-house in the Canton of St Sernin.” (p.95). This description convinced me that Mary Shelley had read this treatise before completing Frankenstein (the report being published only a few years before she wrote the book). The following description, man in his most natural possible state: “…a disgusting, slovenly boy, affected with spasmodic, and frequently with convulsive motions, continually balancing himself like some of the animals in the menagerie…” (p.96). I believe that if we were to grow up with animals, we would behave like animals. Itard’s account of Victor’s education magnifies the fact that so much of what we have become is the result of cultural forces that have a very tenuous connection to nature at all. Think of Victor’s reaction to some of the “finer” things in life: “…[he has] a complete aversion towards the object of our pleasures and our factitious wants” (p.99), (namely alcohol and snuff), and he remains profoundly and inextricably tied to his natural surroundings. In Itard’s descriptions of Victor, there are several examples of the melancholic and ecstatic effect that Nature has on the “Savage” (p.104, but one example). And another from Report on Progress: 1806: “He drinks his water standing at the window, eyes turned towards the countryside as if in this moment of sheer delight this child of nature seeks to unite the only two things which remain from his lost freedom, a drink of clear water and the sight of the sun on the countryside”. (p.155)

Like Rousseau, Itard is searching for the real, the authentic, the roots of human nature. By reduction Rousseau is trying to figure out what is natural. Similarly, Itard tries to answer: What are we fundamentally? What is our original/initial ‘equipment’?

It was stressed in class that one should be wary of using statements that include the phrase “Human nature” as they are loaded and can be applied to whatever belief system one may support. Given that, I’d like to revisit some of Rousseau’s writing one day and determine exactly what he thought of humanity in his day and how he believed that humanity would look like if it did stay close to a state of nature. (I cannot believe that he would want humanity to look like Victor, the Wild Boy. What a waste that would be! And to live without snuff!?)

So if Victor is the “bottom line”, “bare-bones” human, how did we leave this very basic state of nature? Several suggestions follow: We, in our primeval state, gave over our sovereignty to a lord or leader who kept us under control so as to keep us from killing one another willy-nilly thus enabling us to progress and to live communally. Rousseau’s idea focuses more on the division of labour, exploitation and property from what I recall. But I am still curious about what Rousseau’s idea of utopia was.

Would such a utopia include and “accept” our wild animal instincts even though they might work against community living? Many of our basic instincts are aggressive in nature. To address some of the questions that came up in seminar: Should Victor have been given a chance to express the “forest culture that he was familiar with” and was he somehow short-changed by Itard in this respect? The thought of the professor in The Lives of Animals came to my mind: She suggests that bats and cats have their own culture. They are batty or catty… “We might not value cats the same way we do humans, but they do have their own thing going on”. Should the same consideration have been given Victor? I think it is clear enough that the very notion is ridiculous. Had this boy been found and had Itard not try to civilize him (or “educate him” or “make him more human”…however you want to describe it), Victor would be worse off and there would be criticisms of Itard to this day. Moreover, this study is not comparable to how Europeans tried to “civilize” the Natives of North America because the Natives had language skills and were socialized in a way that Victor certainly was not.

O Brave New World…

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning system that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.” (Marshall McLuhan (1960s))

Aldous Huxley’s life is fascinating. He covered so much in his years and his curiosity is inspirational. In seminar, I was astounded at how much he had covered in his lifetime. His influence spans continents; his famous and influential friends were many and varied. He was wholistic, if I had to pick one word to sum up his life and philosophy. A proponent of the Gestalt movement (whose principle is "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts") and a member of Esalen (an institute that brings together the philosophies of the East and West and supports the Human Potential Movement), Huxley lived his message: “Give it your all!” What I found most agreeable was that he maintained that one needs to dive into relationships with others in order to delve into and to know one’s self.

Most of us have read Brave New World and understand what the themes are. Just prior to rereading the book this month, I learned that in his essay, Brave New World Revisited, (written in 1958) Huxley states that he’s surprised at the pace that humanity is accelerating towards his vision. I can’t help but wonder what he’d think of humanity today! We all walk around with phones… many are “smart, android phones”; some, iPhones. How do we know there’s no recording device within them where everything we say is catalogued somewhere… perhaps not for today, but maybe for tomorrow. Same thing with Facebook. There is something very dystopian about our time.

Mustafa Mond makes a CHOICE to give up science and to go into “control and management of happiness”. Maybe this is his own route to happiness. Maybe this is the difference, he is happy because he has a level of awareness about his decisions. I was interested in learning that his name likely came from “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk” a Turkish president who was very supportive of universal education for all (including adults and women!) While he was in power the armed forces implemented an extensive program of literacy that Atatürk heralded "The Army of Enlightenment". He personally instructed children and adults in schoolrooms, parks, and other places. Literacy which had been less than 9 percent in 1923 rose to more than 33 percent by 1938. He said “The government’s most creative and significant duty is education.”

US Constitution: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…” No mention of the public. The loss of the tribal connection that we once had between others has us seeking happiness in “something shiny and new”. Consumerism is a simple goal. Not liking uncertainty, this is what draws humanity into the trap. And we increasingly need drugs to live (Soma!)

In Myth of Sisyphus: (p.53) “…the theme of permanent revolution is carried into individual experience. Living is keeping the absurd alive. Keeping it alive is above all contemplating it”. This is just what the people in Brave New World were NOT given opportunity to do! To live on the edge: (p.50) “The danger, on the contrary, lies in the subtle instant that precedes the leap. Being able to remain on that dizzying crest - that is integrity and the rest is subterfuge.” The “exhilaration” or “dizziness” Brave New Worlders get is from Soma; it masks the real experience that should be suffused with awareness.

On Eugenics

In reading background information for Brave New World I found that babies born deaf are necessarily raised differently and in order to learn faster, are schooled with other deaf children. No doubt, many of their friends and contacts are deaf. The society of the deaf insists - and rightfully so - that the deaf community is different and has just as much value in every sense of the word as the non-deaf community. Does this make it right for deaf parents to select for deaf embryos?

I don’t normally buy into slippery-slope arguments (abortion has not resulted in the breakdown of our moral fabric as far as I can tell; in fact the opposite can be argued.) and deaf embryos never possessed the ability to hear in the first place so they have not had anything taken away from them… but if this were done for the deaf, we could conceivably see prospective parents who are amputees, paraplegics or blind demanding the same thing, and why not?

On Happiness

Characters in Brave New World who claim to be “happy” are not far from happy, really, at least from how many people define the word. Many people’s time is filled with meaningless time-wasters to mask the inner discontent with how they spend their time. Perhaps we don’t want to pause and ask ourselves: why are we so busy? Is what I’m doing worthwhile? Does it have meaning? No wonder some of us can finally “breathe” when we’re at work because those 8 hours of time are already “spoken for” - we have little choice but to be there and the time spent at work is not “our” time - it is our employer’s and he is to direct it as he sees fit. Perhaps this is just one of multiple definitions of happiness. Does our obsession with maintaining a state of happiness indicate that we are refusing to become adults? We grow through suffering and hardship but this is something to be avoided at all costs.

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities." Aldous Huxley (1894-1963).

On that note, “work” is very often used as an excuse: “I can’t do this or that because of work…” For some people, work is an escape, a refuge where we don’t have to focus on ourselves. For such individuals it is easier to be at work than maintain the level of activity needed to hide from themselves, or to actually face themselves. Avoid any thought that might indicate that life lacks purpose and meaning.

Is this the genius of the “Protestant Work Ethic”? Keep working incessantly because in doing just that you are doing God’s work, and God will look favorably on you (and it keeps you from thinking, and even questioning God. If you’re not working you have too much time, and are in the Devil’s workshop).

Absurdity

ABSURDITY
March 9, 2011
Myth of Sisyphus Camus(1942)
Waiting for Godot Beckett
“There always comes a time between contemplation and passion. This is called becoming a man.” (p.81, Myth of Sisyphus)

Thinking of the world’s turmoil at the time of the Myth of Sisyphus’ writing, one can better understand the absurd philosophy of Camus. When considered in this context, the society humanity had constructed must have seemed truly absurd, especially when contrasted with the beautiful existence that could have been. It could have been like the life that Camus was very much attached to, the one he romanticized in The Stranger - that of the Mediterranean sand and Algerian sun. Life must have appeared hopeless and senseless after the barbarism of the Second World War, not to mention during the political instability and threat of annihilation brought on by the Cold War. As beings, we need hope to live. Camus’ philosophy might have been a prescription for Camus himself on how he should live through the turbulent days of his time.

The absurd philosophy pits the human desire for meaning with the fact that the universe remains silent and offers us no answers. Vigilantly keeping this in mind amounts to Camus’ revolt against the universe and its silence! Camus tells us is that we have the power to create our own attitudes and that we can live full lives so long as we stay aware in our opposition to the meaninglessness of existence. If one constantly revolts against the universe - or against his own instinct to understand the inexplicable - and maintains the freedom and passion controllable within one’s grasp, one can live a purposeful life, (even the likes Sisyphus, who repeatedly rolls a stone to the top of the hill). “The Absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence together. For the moment this is the only bond uniting them.” (p.34)

Let’s consider Meursault, from The Stranger, the novella written by Camus around the same time as Myth of Sisyphus: Meursault lives in the moment, without expectation. He does not believe in a God or in anything that is beyond the knowable, the seeable, the here and now. Even though there will always be the mysteries of the universe and of Being and Existence, we can be sure of what we know. Meursault appreciates his life despite the routine and banality of it all. “The opposite of freedom, then, is not a person restrained by the laws of physics, but a person restrained by a repressive government or by his own timidity—earthly, alterable influences. The absurd man is free in this sense because he has abandoned the idea that his life has any value or any meaning, and so does not feel committed to living toward any particular goal. As a result, he faces every new moment free from the constraints of thought and actions that we normally conform to in society.” This speaks very well to Meursault’s actions, presumed mindset and seeming apathy.

Camus says we should give up hope, and then we will be happy. (Much like giving up certain (culturally manufactured) desires would make us happier!) Like what it is that you have to do, then you will be happy (easier said than done!)

Meursault is ensconced in the reality immediately before him. Even though he doesn’t express enthusiastic appreciation for what he experiences, he is more aware than the average person today. Taking things for granted, we do not stop and smell the roses enough. We don’t spend time with or appreciate our friends or even acknowledge the beauty of a child’s smile. We rush through our mornings and our own free time, only feeling at peace once we are at work. This is an interesting juxtaposition. Is this the Protestant work ethic upon us - do we find comfort and meaning in our jobs only because we don’t have to worry about wasting our own precious time as we are “on the clock” and the next 8 hours are spoken for? Living as simply as Meursault, one might imagine his life dull and that living like him would make for days that endlessly drag on. There is lucidity in the way he lives, nonetheless. He knows what he is doing with his own time and needs not the distractions that many people use today, rushing from one triviality to another.

It is as if the rational age we live in multiplies our desire to understand the universe, as if complete understanding (and therefore meaning?) is possible. We have all sorts of knowledge and information that can explain the “little” questions, but humanity - whether we admit it or not - is still as in the dark on the “big” questions as in any time of its existence. (p.43): “The most widespread spiritual attitude of our enlightened age: the one, based on the principle that all is reason, which aims to explain the world”.

In class, I found it interesting that Camus’ philosophy was more negatively received than, say, Aurelius’ Epicurean philosophy given that both hold similar notions. Camus: (p.35) “A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” Aurelius: (Book XII, 1): (p.111), “…if you will be fair to yourself; that is if you leave all the past behind, commit to Holiness and Justice. … If then, when you arrive at last at your final exit, resigning all else, you honour your governing self alone and the divine element within you, if what you dread is not that some day you will cease to live, but rather never to begin at all to live with Nature, you will be a man worthy of the universe that gave you birth, and will cease to be a stranger in your own country, surprised by what is coming to pass every day, as at something you did not look to see, and absorbed in this thing or in that.” Neither believes one should rely on superstition or religion, believe in gods or demons… but to simply deal with the reality at hand. Deal with the world here and now and don’t fuss over what is disprovable. Let’s live what we know and not get hot and bothered over metaphysical absurdities and uncertainties. There is something in the delivery of their messages, though. As stated by Camus, (p.41) “The important thing … is not to be cured, but to live with one’s ailments”. Since life is a terminal condition, a death-sentence as it were, one must not waste time by hoping and praying for deliverance. Aurelius’ delivery is much less forceful, more elegant and less inflammatory. (Camus, again): (p.49) “The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits”.

Godot.
Reading Myth of Sisyphus before Waiting for Godot made for a more enlightening reading. The essence of both works can create anxiety in those who have religious beliefs or those who - consciously or unconsciously - have a gnawing discomfort in their hearts because they somehow feel lost. Often, these people perform pointless duties that fill their lives while they wait for a pointless future that delivers the same as yesterday. Today, these futile ventures might be video games, Facebook, fashion… People do fill decades of life with the silliness, not to say that my life has any more meaning than theirs, as this is all very subjective. But today it is deemed socially normal to bury our heads in the sand in one way or another and for that reason we do it without feeling strange about it. The result, though, is that it distances us from ourselves and from others. There is power in numbers: Seeing how people communicate through social networking sites (to the extent that some do nowadays) would have seemed absolutely sick just a few decades ago, never mind a few years ago! Recall Huxley’s statement: “One’s fantasy is rich and abundant one’s existence is poor, arid and disenchanted. The mind is full but the world one inhabits is empty.”

People waiting for some “saviour” from the external rather than finding something internal, something within. This is one of the diseases of our modern age and it can be glimpsed in various guises in Waiting for Godot, not the least in the sick and dependent relationship between Pozzo and Lucky, who can’t bear living with one another but expect *something* from each other. The play is also a commentary on human memory - we are as ill-bred and oblivious today as we’ve ever been. Our fundamental nature has not changed; we repeat our mistakes over and over… “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.”

The play is a shell chock-full of archetypes, and we as members of the audience are to fill it in as we see fit. There is a lot of room for analysis and interpretation but it might be difficult to find comfort in such a play. However, some might be comforted (in the same way as Nietzsche suggests was the case in Ancient Greek theatre) because we see ourselves in this play and we don’t feel so alone!

The message I drew from the play, imagining Pozzo and Lucky next to each other, day after day, is that we have each other. Relationships between people is what is important. In the end, this is one thing that really matters (at least to me) and brings fulfillment, happiness, and all those good things.

Love

LOVE
Plato: Phaedrus
Thomas Mann: Death In Venice

So this week we looked at the topic of “love” but in a cerebral, philosophical sense, not in a “reality TV sense”. Death in Venice is a short but wonderfully dense book about Gustav von Aschenbach, a writer who becomes obsessed with a young boy while vacationing in Venice. Although this might sound rather sick and twisted, it isn’t if you look at it within the context of some of the books we’ve read this semester. It is an account of what happens to this artist’s inner self as a result of seeing (to his eyes, anyway) the embodiment of a pure, divine Form. What must be considered is that Aschenbach is the personification of dry, Western reason. (p.7): “Preoccupied with the tasks imposed upon him by his ego and the European psyche, overburdened by the obligation to produce, averse to diversion, and no lover of the external world and its variety, he was quite content with the view of the earth’s surface that anyone can gain without stirring far from home, and never so much as tempted to venture beyond Europe.” He is the epitome of the Apollonian in contrast to the Dionysian, and although he possesses everything that Western European culture holds dear (fame, brains, wealth, and a Y chromosome) there is something not quite “right” with him: He is fidgety, socially inept, constantly ill-at-ease and off-kilter. I suggest that this is the physical manifestation of the imbalance hinted at above.

Parallels between Aschenbach and Pentheus (from The Bacchae) are strong. Both live straight-edge lives, so much so that when they are infected with the Dionysian they are overwhelmed by its power and are thus ruined. It is as if, by living so distant from and for so long without the Dionysian, they have no resistance to its virulence, are overcome by it and are unable to recover. Pentheus experiences the Bacchic festivities of the satyrs and revelers in the flesh while Aschenbach dreams about them: (p.126) “…a deep spiritual resistance, and, having run their course, leaving his entire being, the culture of a lifetime, devastated, obliterated. It began with fear, fear and desire and a dire curiosity about what was to come. Night reigned, yet his senses were vigilant, for from afar there approached a din…long drawn-out u - (this must be an echo of p.57, where people are calling out T’s name:) “Adgio or, more often, Adgiu, with a final u they lengthened as they called… he found the euphony appropriate to the object in question and, having repeated it to himself, turned back, contented, to his letter and papers.”
(p.127) …smooth-skinned youths prodding he-goats with leafy staffs, clutching their horns, letting themselves be dragged along and whooping at each leap… Great was his repugnance, great his fear, honorable his intention to defend his domain against the stranger, the enemy of the serene and dignified intellect. But the noise … mountainside … and swelled into raging madness.

After this, one might say that Aschenbach has become fully infected and there is no turning back. He has experienced something so foreign and so true to his true nature that he cannot go back to his old humdrum existence. He will forever be searching for this feeling of life that Tadzio and Venice brought him. It was in Venice, really, that his inner self was stirred and his inner voice found. Ironically, this experience of loving and dying amounts to both Aschenbach’s awakening and his death. He, like Pentheus, taps into something that is inherent to his being (the Dionysian) but cannot handle it after a lifetime of suppression.

Phaedrus

The Phaedrus is very similar to the other Platonic dialogues I’ve read in that Socrates’ comments are usually followed by the words “Of course, Socrates!” It was difficult reading, at times, but love, after all, can be complicated:
(p.9) SOCRATES: …whereas those who happened not to be in love, but achieved what they asked through merit, would not begrudge those who associate with the objects of their attentions but would hate those who did not wish to do so, thinking that they were being looked down on by the latter but benefited by the presence of the former, so that there is much greater expectation that the other party will gain friends than enemies from the affair.
Being able to cut up whatever it is again, kind by kind, according to its natural joints, and not to try to break any part into pieces, like an inexpert butcher; as just now the two speeches took the unreasoning aspect of the mind as one form together, and in the way that single body naturally has form together, and in the way that asingle body naturally has its parts in pairs, with both members of each pair having the same name, and labeled respectively left and right, so too the speeches regarded derangement as naturally a single form in us, and the one cut off the part on the left-hand side, then cutting it again and not giving up until it had found among the parts a love that is, as we say, “left-handed”, and abused it with full justice, while the other speech led us to the parts of madness on the right-hand side, and discovering and setting forth a love that shares the same name as the other but is divine, it praised it as the cause of our greatest goods.
PHAEDRUS: Very true.

One of the main ideas explored here is that our reason and our appetites often pull us in different directions. Appetite desires instant pleasure while reason fancies restraint.

p.16 LOVE DEFINED: the irrational desire that has gained control over any judgement urging a man towards what is correct, and that is carried towards pleasure in beauty - in turn being forcefully reinforced by the desires related to it in its pursuit for the beauty of bodies.

What was very surprising to me was how, at times, the beloved was described as having to be inferior to the lover in order to keep the lover satisfied. The purpose of this seemed to be so that the lover could mold the beloved as he saw fit without giving much freedom to the beloved. A dynamic of such a power imbalance in a relationship makes one uncomfortable. Such a relationship wouldn’t work today, but in analyzing how relationships were in the past, we should be careful not to practice “presentism” and impose our own moralities while reading two-thousand-year-old works. In this light, Aschenbach is partly redeemed for falling for a pre-pubescent boy. These two books, Death in Venice and Phaedrus do complement each other very well in this sense. Indeed, there is a meditation on the Phaedrus in Death in Venice and, as has happened so often this year, I wish we had more time to explore these books in relation to each other. This may very well be part of my final project for the course.

Violence

All Quiet on the Western Front (1929), Erich Maria Remarque
Arendt - On Violence (1970)

One of my classmates articulated exactly how I felt while reading Hannah Arendt's book. He mentioned that he lacked the context necessary to appreciate On Violence. He, like me, had no background on Arendt before starting the book and felt as though he’d jumped into a conversation that had been going on for a long while without him. This is one of Arendt’s later books so I presume she’s writing to a readership that knows where she’s coming from and has some foundation to stand on.

This book was scheduled to be read at a timely time given the uprisings happening in Northern Africa and the Middle East… this contributed to an already passionate discussion in class.

Nowadays - even compared to when On Violence was written (1969), new technologies aiding the reporting of events worldwide have brought war-ravaged areas to our living rooms in real-time: At the start of the Vietnam war, it took two days for reports to make it to newscasts. By the end of that war, a mere few hours… and in 2001, we watched the twin towers fall, live.

A topic that came up again, in class, was that of aggression and whether it is an instinct or a learned behaviour? My feeling is that if violence weren’t instinctual, then there must have been a time, pre-history, when there was no fighting between humans. Can anyone believe there was such a time??

But the book left me with more questions: Arendt never really addresses where violence comes from if not from an instinct inherent in humans. If violence is an extension of the person, like a dagger is an extension of one’s arm, how can the person and violence be separated? What is more, Arendt was a supporter of the death penalty in certain situations so this is quite a contradiction. I’d be interested in reading what she has to say about this form of punishment.

Interesting, mind-boggling facts: WWI Military deaths: 9.7 M; WWI Civilian deaths: 6.8 M.
WWII Military deaths: 22.5-25.5 M; WWII Civilian deaths: 32-50 M.

The following definitions and quotations would have been useful before probing into the book itself. They are nuggets from which she expands her ideas, sometimes in a very cerebral way.

“The end of human action, as distinct from the end products of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted. The means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals.”
The notion of “luck” on the battlefield is one that has me look with wonder on human history over the 40 years after WWII (Cold War). I can’t help but be amazed that humanity survived that era without a nuclear holocaust - how many times did we come close to that?

A message repeated over by Arendt is that violence and power not only must be differentiated, but that they are polar opposites. “The only way to maintain control in the absence of power is through the continual use of violence. Protracted violence results in diminished power, making more violence necessary.”

“Loss of power leads some to try to replace it with violence. But violence is the opposite of power and cannot stand in its stead.” However, does she provide us with answers or tips as to how we should proceed? Not really, at least not as far as I could read (the reading is dense, I must say… perhaps I missed a thing or two). On p.5, she quotes a passage that is as true today as it ever has been: p.5 “Covenants, without the sword, are but words” (-Hobbes).

p.3 The technical development of the implements of violence has now reached the point where no political goal could conceivably correspond to their destructive potential or justify their actual use in armed conflict … “if either end wins it is the end of both.”

I like the following quote, as it hints toward something pathological in human thought: that of the mere expression of an hypothesis as “truth”; as if the outcome of that hypothesis is the end of a course of action, therefore leaving little or no room for maneuvering. (p.6/7) “The logical flaw in these hypothetical constructions of future events is always the same: what first appears as a hypothesis - with or without its implied alternatives, according to the level of sophistication - turns immediately, usually after a few paragraphs, into a “fact”, which then gives birth to a whole string of similar non-facts, with the result that the purely speculative character of the whole enterprise is forgotten… pseudoscience.”

p.10 …power cannot be measured in terms of wealth - an abundance of wealth may erode power, riches are particularly dangerous to the power and well-being of republics - an insight that does not lose validity because it has been forgotten.

p.17 What are “problems” to us “are built into the flesh and blood of the young.” (speaking of our attitudes… they are formed when we are still young and impressionable.)

p.18 For the future, as Spender puts it, is “like a time-bomb buried, but ticking away, in the present.” To the often-heard question Who are they, this new generation? one is tempted to answer, Those who hear the ticking. And to the other question, Who are they who utterly deny them? the answer may well be, Those who do not know, or refuse to face, things as they really are.

The denial of our death is seen (or not seen, rather!) all around us. Many are known to live their lives without recognizing their inevitable end, and even if they do, they do not change their behaviours accordingly. Could the following be some kind of desire to immortalize the self? p.27 Human development is a form of chronological unfairness, since late-comers are able to profit by the labours of their predecessors without paying the same price, or, in the words of Kant, “It will always remain bewildering … that the earlier generations seem to carry on their burdensome business only for the sake of the latter … and that only the last should have the good fortune to dwell in the [completed] building.”

p.41 “To suppose that majority rule functions only in democracy is a fantastic illusion,” as Jouvenel points out: “The king, who is but one solitary individual, stands far more in need of the general support of Society than any other form of government.”

p.42 “…power always stands in need of numbers, whereas violence up to a point can manage without them because it relies on implements.”
The extreme form of power is All against One, the extreme form of violence is One against All.

p.44-46 – definitions of power, strength, force, authority and violence:

POWER: ability to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual.

STRENGTH: designates something in an individual entity.

The strength of even the strongest individual can always be overpowered by the many, who often will combine for no other purpose than to ruin strength precisely because of its peculiar independence.
It is in the nature of a group and its power to turn against independence, the property of individual strength.

FORCE: should indicate the energy released by physical or social movements.

AUTHORITY: To remain in authority requires respect for the person or the office. The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.

p.45 – when authority leaves, power enters.

VIOLENCE: is distinguished by its instrumental character. Phenomenologically, it is close to strength, since the implements of violence, like all other tools, are designed and used for the purpose of multiplying natural strength.

p.50 Even the totalitarian ruler, whose chief instrument of rule is torture, needs a power basis – the secret police and its net of informers. Only the development of robot soldiers… Single men without others to support them never have enough power to use violence successfully.

p.52 Violence can be justifiable, but it will never be legitimate. Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future.

p.53 Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow out of it is power.
To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high; for it is not only paid by the vanquished, it is also paid by the victor in terms of his own power.

p.55 …effectiveness of terror depends almost entirely on the degree of social atomization. Every kind of organized opposition must disappear before full force of terror can be let lose. This atomization … is maintained and intensified through the ubiquity of the informer, who can be literally omnipresent because he no longer is merely a professional agent in the pay of the police but potentially every person one comes into contact.

The climax of terror is reached when the police state begins to devour its own children, when yesterday’s executioner becomes today’s victim.

p.56 Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules completely, the other is absent.

p.61 …lack of provocation apparently leads to instinct frustration, to “repressed” aggressiveness, which according to psychologists causes a damming up of energy whose eventual explosion will be all the more dangerous. (It is as though the sensation of hunger in man would increase with the decrease of hungry people.)

p.62 …the additional gift of reason makes man a more dangerous beast. It is the use of reason that makes us dangerously “irrational”, because this reason is the property of an “aboriginally instinctual being.” … it is man the toolmaker who has invented those long-range weapons that free him from the “natural” restraints we find in the animal kingdom, and that tool-making is a highly complex mental activity.

p.63 Only where there is reason to suspect that conditions could be changed and are not does rage arise. (injustice!)

p.64 In order to respond reasonably one must first of all be “moved,” and the opposite of emotional is not “rational”, whatever that may mean, but either the inability to be moved … which is a perversion of feeling. Rage and violence turn irrational only when they are directed against substitutes…

p.67 In military as well as revolutionary action individualism is the first value to disappear. … perform an irrevocable action in order to burn his bridges to respectable society…

p.68 …faced collectively and in action, death changes its countenance; now nothing seems more likely to intensify our vitality than its proximity …

p.69 Have not men always equated death with the “eternal rest”, and does it not follow that where we have life we have struggle and unrest? Is not quiet a clear manifestation of lifelessness or decay?

p.74 [perverse biological justification of violence, because it has an urge to grow]

p.80 The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probably change is to a more violent world.

p.83 …the present glorification of violence is caused by severe frustration of the faculty of action in the modern world. It is simply true that riots in the ghettos and rebellions on the campuses make “people feel they are acting together in a way that they rarely can.”

p.84 Bigness is afflicted with vulnerability; cracks in the power structure of all but the small countries are opening and widening.

p.86 It is as though we have fallen under a fairyland spell which permits us to do the “impossible” on the condition that we lose the capacity of doing the possible, to achieve fantastically extraordinary feats on the condition of no longer being able to attend properly to our everyday needs.