Yesterday I talked about a foundation of logic for society, which might make my reliance on emotion today seem somewhat ironic. Life demands balance, though, and to dogmatically adhere to either logic or emotion would be a mistake. For instance, I recently read an article about a nineteen year old male who killed his four year old sister and only received forty years. I felt indignation at that, especially after the article described how the child implicitly trusted her murderer right until the last moments. I then had to ask myself, however, if such indignation at the sentence was warranted. I am, after all, a strict opponent of the death penalty, and have argued that it is not the place of the government to validate desires for vengeance. Given that, I had to evaluate whether or not similar urges were driving me. I concluded that no, my indignation was valid and my desire to see the young man receive a life sentence was based as much in logic as in emotion. Not only did he take a life, but the life of someone who trusted him unconditionally, who followed him to the proverbial chair and let him throw the switch. I see no reason why such a person should avoid a life sentence, there is no possibility of complete rehabilitation and separation from the rest of society is a fitting punishment.
Here we see the synthesis of logic and emotion, one complementing the other. More importantly, it is an argument based on logic, using the methodology of the scientific method. I do not proceed on the validity of my opinion, I subject my hypothesis to testing and then arrive at a conclusion. This is how society should proceed, on the basis of logic and reliance on the scientific method, while not ignoring personal feelings and emotion.
This story serves another purpose, though. I am currently reading A People's History of the United States, and in the first chapter author Howard Zinn describes Colombus' first foray into the Americas. The natives, he said, swam out to meet Columbus, and when he reached ground gave whatever he asked for freely. Similarly, when Cortés first encountered the Aztecs they had the same hospitality, 'they even thought of him as a god, and for it Cortés sacked Tenochtitlan, a city far more advanced than any that could be found in Europe at the time. Columbus enslaved the people who did not hesitate to shower with him with gifts, and settlers on the mainland slaughtered the natives over minor disputes and burned their crops. All of this amounts to a total cultural genocide of the native peoples of this continent.
To the Europeans, these were inferior civilizations, yet as Zinn points out, the evidence says otherwise. The Iroquois had organized a league of individual tribes, forming a central government that allowed for tribal autonomy long before the ideas that inspired the founders of the United States ever entered western minds. These people achieved gender equality centuries ago, and yet today misogynistic law developed by a European conqueror still governs New Orleans. Tenochtitlan itself was a marvel of engineering in its own right, not to mention compared to the cities of Europe at the time. Perhaps most striking, though, are the economies many of the tribes used. It was nearly a perfect example of Marx's "utopia," with people producing what they could and taking what they needed (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need). At the same time, these explorers were seeking gold and silver to perpetuate a grossly flawed economic theory that would eventually collapse. Still, these cultures were deemed inferior.
The reason that such determinations were made was because the one area where Europeans were more advanced, principally because the Americans didn't have the same natural resources used in developing weapons, was in warfare. They were more adept at killing the natives, and therefore they deemed themselves superior. It was not a new idea, however, years before that the religious had used the same measures to deem which gods were superior. This does bring up an important point, though, that the state of western culture is not simply natural. Karl Marx, in fact, posited the theory that society's conditioning factor is economy. This deserves some examination in this discussion.
In the spirit of Mill, I shall examine the arguments of my opponents. Capitalist theory is full of this social-Darwinist outlook. Our current discussion on taxation asks how much each group deserves, and the conservatives argue that the rich are entitled to what they have, but why? Their answer is because they earned it, but is that necessarily true? Most conservatives I talk to would not say that everyone who owns wealth necessarily earned that wealth, yet the people who they say have not earned it are the exceptions, subjectively categorized of course. The answer is never clarified, though, how do you determine what someone deserves? Not do you think this person deserves what they have or not, what principles do you use to make such a determination. The truth is that they have no standard, which leads us to the conclusion that you tell if someone deserves what they have by merit of having it.
This is strangely similar to the logic employed by the early settlers of the American continent, they deserved the land more than the natives because they could take it. We can thus see how this is endemic to capitalist thought, and the juxtaposition of natives living in egalitarian communist societies quickly debunks any claims that the capitalist outlook is the natural outlook. This then brings us to the cultural genocide, the enslavement, the destruction of livelihoods. Europeans were not content to simply drive the natives away from the coast, they had to push them continuously into the interior until they were finally reduced to living on reservations decades later. Why could the European capitalists not simply be content to remain in their settlements and live alongside the communist natives? Marx writes, "The dominion of material property bulks so large that it wants to destroy everything which is not capable of being possessed by all as private property." Not only is capitalism not the natural position, it seeks to destroy anything that would expose this truth.
Now let us switch to the emotional side of things. As i was reading about the natives showering the Europeans with gifts and adulation, I could not help but think of that older brother staring at his sister with a knife in hand, while she looked back up at him with complete trust. These natives knew nothing of capital, of greed. They gave and took freely, and the Europeans certainly took without question. Then they went even farther, they took what was not offered and killed anyone who protested. Just like the brother who killed his sister, they took advantage of a trust that was offered without thought. Here we have the right to indignation, to outrage even. That is not always the best agent of change, though, as the entities at whom the outrage is directed often have harsh responses. A majority of Americans are European-descended Caucasians, and many take offense that their ancestors would be slandered in this manner. Now we come to a crossroads of emotion, a question of whose is more valid, and I will soon endeavor to answer such a question by employing thorough logic.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Process of Change: Part Four
Much has occurred since my last post, and I have much to discuss. I was just reviewing my last post, and I continued to be amazed at the rhetorical talent and philosophical insight of John Stuart Mill, that he does not hold a more revered place in American academia is a disservice to us all. Mill even said as much when he wrote, "[Genius] in its true sense, though no one says that it is not a thing to be admired, nearly all, at heart, believe they can do very well without it." I am not sure if I have mentioned this yet or not, but I have a very conservative history teacher this semester who has drawn my distinct ire. The issue is not that she takes a conservative slant, the issue is that she posits conservatively biased opinion as fact, which I find patently hypocritical considering how much time she spends lecturing about slants in sources. For instance, when I jumped to the defense of Planned Parenthood recently she came out of left field with a statistic I had never heard before, that 90% of their funding is for abortions, and it rightly seemed a victory for her to the rest of the class. Imagine, then, my frustration when I came home and saw on the internet that not only do abortions make up for only 3% of Planner Parenthood's budget, but that John Kyl (who I am sure was her source, perhaps indirectly through Fux News) had issued a statement that his previous statement about Planned Parenthood was not intended to be factual.
For the moment, I will ignore the disgust I have at a U.S. Senator for making statements like that on the Senate floor knowing full well they are not factual. The point of this story is to demonstrate my teacher's methods of argumentation, of course she looked like the victor using fabricated facts. This is just the beginning, though. Straw man arguments, poisoning the well, and begging the question are par for the course with her. I honestly have half a mind to hire a judge to supervise her classes and admonish her when she begins to lead the witness (class). What this has to do with Mill is simple, as I said in my previous post I enjoy political dichotomy, so why was I so angry at my teacher? Mill easily provided the answer in arguing, in the Ciceronian tradition, that the best representative of any given opinion is the one who understands the best logic of their opponent. What I dislike the most about my teacher are not her opinions, but that she presents arguments that are far from the best, in addition to deriving legitimacy for these arguments not on the basis of the arguments themselves but on the authority of her position. Much can be gained by contesting a sophisticated argument, yet nothing is gained by listening to an argument built on fallacy.
Thus we return to the process of change. Mill is such a great figure because of his skill as a logician and rhetorician. It was not simply his adeptness at debate, however, that made him great, but rather his understanding of the principles of debate. It is in this spirit that the first Soviet Commissar for War, Nikolai Krylenko, instituted a national initiative to bring the game of chess to the masses, and subsequently established Soviet dominance in international competition that lasted until the fall of the USSR. An eternal lament of modern American society is our fallen status in international academic rankings, and yet what solutions do we have? Vouchers to send children to private school, mostly religious. These are schools like the one I attended, schools that contest evolution and arrange syllabi based not on what will best transfer to other institutions of learning, but on their own subjective opinions and biases. China has soared recently in education, and what are they teaching? Western philosophers, men like Mill, Hegel, Marx, Descartes, and Hume. It is not the end conclusions of these men that are providing the greatest benefit, but rather their methodology. Anyone even remotely familiar with my philosophical outlook knows I have a very low opinion of Descartes' conclusions, one derived from the charlatan Aquinas. However, Descartes is an essential figure in philosophy in his aspiration of setting out a logical basis for knowledge. It is, therefore, prudent to study and teach Descartes, regardless of how his conclusions are perceived.
And yet we continue to teach religion and dogma in schools. As Mill argues, the fault of teaching dogma is not so much that the end conclusions are wrong but that it stifles intellectual growth. Schools that continue to teach doctrines that contradict accepted science, ones derived from dogma and religious texts, stifle the intellectual growth of their students. No wonder our scores in math and science are dropping, we are teaching children to question or disregard any conclusion they dislike. This is patently unscientific, it provides a weak foundation for education; it is, as the Bible says, like building a house on a foundation of sand.
The goal, therefore, should be in the spirit of Krylenko's programs, to establish logic as a basis of education, politics, and society. This does not necessitate an acceptance of Soviet doctrine, nor does it amount to forcing the religious into atheism. Religion can still exist, just not as an agent of indoctrination, teaching students that the occurrence of the flood is as historically valid as that of World War Two. This will be to the benefit of all creeds, in that as Mill said, the best arguments will be made and the opponents of a given argument will have to dispute the best-formed opinions of their opponents. This is the beginning of a holistic school of secularism.
This word has taken on a negative slant as of late, the Pope just recently said it was contributing to the downfall of society. However, as I argued previously, the goal of secularism is not to erode religion. The goal of secularism is to establish a common foundation. Descartes' approach to debate was exactly this, refuse affirmation of anything that could possibly be false and create a foundation which could not be disputed. From there, concurrent levels of the argument could be made, each gaining the support of the last as in a pyramid. This is the goal of secularism, to establish a foundation which only takes as true that which cannot be false. On this society is built and, though subsequent structures built on the foundation may themselves be not as sound, they are still built on the unshakable. This is holistic secularism, the unshakable foundation. In it, government is devoid of religious influence. Furthermore, the pedagogy is built on logic. This is not to say that logic is always supreme, but it is what is universally affirmed. In addition, though a foundation of logic does not necessarily negate emotion, the tendency of the foundation of emotion is to negate logic. Thus as we move forward, the process of change and society itself must be founded on logic so as to be inclusive as possible to all creeds, so as to provide the maximum benefit to the advocates of any given creed, and so as to build the most reliable foundation on which to proceed.
For the moment, I will ignore the disgust I have at a U.S. Senator for making statements like that on the Senate floor knowing full well they are not factual. The point of this story is to demonstrate my teacher's methods of argumentation, of course she looked like the victor using fabricated facts. This is just the beginning, though. Straw man arguments, poisoning the well, and begging the question are par for the course with her. I honestly have half a mind to hire a judge to supervise her classes and admonish her when she begins to lead the witness (class). What this has to do with Mill is simple, as I said in my previous post I enjoy political dichotomy, so why was I so angry at my teacher? Mill easily provided the answer in arguing, in the Ciceronian tradition, that the best representative of any given opinion is the one who understands the best logic of their opponent. What I dislike the most about my teacher are not her opinions, but that she presents arguments that are far from the best, in addition to deriving legitimacy for these arguments not on the basis of the arguments themselves but on the authority of her position. Much can be gained by contesting a sophisticated argument, yet nothing is gained by listening to an argument built on fallacy.
Thus we return to the process of change. Mill is such a great figure because of his skill as a logician and rhetorician. It was not simply his adeptness at debate, however, that made him great, but rather his understanding of the principles of debate. It is in this spirit that the first Soviet Commissar for War, Nikolai Krylenko, instituted a national initiative to bring the game of chess to the masses, and subsequently established Soviet dominance in international competition that lasted until the fall of the USSR. An eternal lament of modern American society is our fallen status in international academic rankings, and yet what solutions do we have? Vouchers to send children to private school, mostly religious. These are schools like the one I attended, schools that contest evolution and arrange syllabi based not on what will best transfer to other institutions of learning, but on their own subjective opinions and biases. China has soared recently in education, and what are they teaching? Western philosophers, men like Mill, Hegel, Marx, Descartes, and Hume. It is not the end conclusions of these men that are providing the greatest benefit, but rather their methodology. Anyone even remotely familiar with my philosophical outlook knows I have a very low opinion of Descartes' conclusions, one derived from the charlatan Aquinas. However, Descartes is an essential figure in philosophy in his aspiration of setting out a logical basis for knowledge. It is, therefore, prudent to study and teach Descartes, regardless of how his conclusions are perceived.
And yet we continue to teach religion and dogma in schools. As Mill argues, the fault of teaching dogma is not so much that the end conclusions are wrong but that it stifles intellectual growth. Schools that continue to teach doctrines that contradict accepted science, ones derived from dogma and religious texts, stifle the intellectual growth of their students. No wonder our scores in math and science are dropping, we are teaching children to question or disregard any conclusion they dislike. This is patently unscientific, it provides a weak foundation for education; it is, as the Bible says, like building a house on a foundation of sand.
The goal, therefore, should be in the spirit of Krylenko's programs, to establish logic as a basis of education, politics, and society. This does not necessitate an acceptance of Soviet doctrine, nor does it amount to forcing the religious into atheism. Religion can still exist, just not as an agent of indoctrination, teaching students that the occurrence of the flood is as historically valid as that of World War Two. This will be to the benefit of all creeds, in that as Mill said, the best arguments will be made and the opponents of a given argument will have to dispute the best-formed opinions of their opponents. This is the beginning of a holistic school of secularism.
This word has taken on a negative slant as of late, the Pope just recently said it was contributing to the downfall of society. However, as I argued previously, the goal of secularism is not to erode religion. The goal of secularism is to establish a common foundation. Descartes' approach to debate was exactly this, refuse affirmation of anything that could possibly be false and create a foundation which could not be disputed. From there, concurrent levels of the argument could be made, each gaining the support of the last as in a pyramid. This is the goal of secularism, to establish a foundation which only takes as true that which cannot be false. On this society is built and, though subsequent structures built on the foundation may themselves be not as sound, they are still built on the unshakable. This is holistic secularism, the unshakable foundation. In it, government is devoid of religious influence. Furthermore, the pedagogy is built on logic. This is not to say that logic is always supreme, but it is what is universally affirmed. In addition, though a foundation of logic does not necessarily negate emotion, the tendency of the foundation of emotion is to negate logic. Thus as we move forward, the process of change and society itself must be founded on logic so as to be inclusive as possible to all creeds, so as to provide the maximum benefit to the advocates of any given creed, and so as to build the most reliable foundation on which to proceed.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Process of Change: Part Three
Recently I've been going through some of my older posts and I came upon what I consider to be the first of the modern me, if you will, entitled Sarah Palin Makes Me Sick. Recently Palin made a huge deal over criticism that she was engaging in excessively violent rhetoric that could be having some effect on radical conservatives who resort to violence. In addressing these accusations, Paling accused the left wing of trying to suppress her views, and said that impassioned political debate made this country great. I agree with her in principle on the last part, but I believe you can separate impassioned from vitriolic and dangerous. Furthermore, I have an even deeper problem with the first part, specifically that criticizing her methods are the same thing as trying to suppress her views. As I have said and continue to say, I am a firm believer in the dialectical process, a process that requires conflicting opinions in order to move forward. However, as I have also said, the path taken to achieve a goal matters just as much as the goal itself. If Sarah Palin holds an opinion that runs contrary to mine I do not fault her for it, but I can still take issue with the means she uses to voice her opinions. This is not to be confused with a desire to suppress her opinion, merely a desire to bring civility to a still impassioned political dialogue.
In fact, I find more undertones of suppression in her response than in the calls for her to scale back her rhetoric. I believe that most of those calls came from people who held the same reasoning as I, and in response Palin tried to complete quash such accusations. Now perhaps these accusations against Palin are not entirely founded, perhaps there is room to redefine acceptable political rhetoric. The beauty of the dialectical process is that the synthesis is never identical to either the thesis or antithesis, it is the result of both. Through a dialectical process we can weed out the parts of either position that are faulty, but it requires a participation in this process.
What Sarah Palin was doing was avoiding participation in this process. Recently John Boehner, when asked about compromising with the minority Democrats in the house, responded by saying he doesn't know the meaning of the word. I don't doubt him, but someone should really mention to him that it might be a worthwhile word to learn, even if it is three grueling syllables long. Anyways, this attitude that Boehner was exhibiting is the same that Palin was. Participating in a dialectical process concerning political rhetoric will mean that her position will not be completely maintained in the synthesis, there is an undertone of compromise for both sides in the dialectical process. To her this is unacceptable, there can be no compromise, her opinion must prevail completely over every other.
I could go on with examples of this mentality within the Republican Party. One more is that of Republican governor Scott Walker. He continues to say that his insistence on removing the right of unions to bargain for collective rights is that he needs to trim the budget, yet unions and Democrats have been very vocal in their willingness to agree to his proposed cuts. Cuts are not enough for Walker if they come with compromise, his agenda must prevail wholesale. Simply put, this dynamic is not conducive to a functional democratic process. The dialectical process is a law of progress, it is how change has always and will always work. Even in their refusal to participate in it, Republicans like Palin do so nonetheless. It is literally impossible to not participate in it, however, by trying their best to not participate in it these people do ensure a more tumultuous dynamic to change.
I have recently been reading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, and I find it a brilliant work. In it, Mill discusses the voicing and suppression of opinion, and he argues that even if an opinion were known to be completely erroneous it is still wrong to suppress it. In doing so, he says, we lose an opportunity at arguing against the opinion in question and rediscovering exactly why that opinion is wrong. We can probably move forward on the assumption that Palin and others feel that their opinions are unquestionably right, what they lack is the understanding that their conclusions do not preclude them from engaging in the dialectical process nonetheless. By refusing to compromise at all they are losing what might be gained from incorporating other opinions into theirs, or at the very least what might be gained from debunking those opinions which run counter to theirs. They are becoming, in a word, dogmatic, something I will discuss in detail very shortly.
In fact, I find more undertones of suppression in her response than in the calls for her to scale back her rhetoric. I believe that most of those calls came from people who held the same reasoning as I, and in response Palin tried to complete quash such accusations. Now perhaps these accusations against Palin are not entirely founded, perhaps there is room to redefine acceptable political rhetoric. The beauty of the dialectical process is that the synthesis is never identical to either the thesis or antithesis, it is the result of both. Through a dialectical process we can weed out the parts of either position that are faulty, but it requires a participation in this process.
What Sarah Palin was doing was avoiding participation in this process. Recently John Boehner, when asked about compromising with the minority Democrats in the house, responded by saying he doesn't know the meaning of the word. I don't doubt him, but someone should really mention to him that it might be a worthwhile word to learn, even if it is three grueling syllables long. Anyways, this attitude that Boehner was exhibiting is the same that Palin was. Participating in a dialectical process concerning political rhetoric will mean that her position will not be completely maintained in the synthesis, there is an undertone of compromise for both sides in the dialectical process. To her this is unacceptable, there can be no compromise, her opinion must prevail completely over every other.
I could go on with examples of this mentality within the Republican Party. One more is that of Republican governor Scott Walker. He continues to say that his insistence on removing the right of unions to bargain for collective rights is that he needs to trim the budget, yet unions and Democrats have been very vocal in their willingness to agree to his proposed cuts. Cuts are not enough for Walker if they come with compromise, his agenda must prevail wholesale. Simply put, this dynamic is not conducive to a functional democratic process. The dialectical process is a law of progress, it is how change has always and will always work. Even in their refusal to participate in it, Republicans like Palin do so nonetheless. It is literally impossible to not participate in it, however, by trying their best to not participate in it these people do ensure a more tumultuous dynamic to change.
I have recently been reading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, and I find it a brilliant work. In it, Mill discusses the voicing and suppression of opinion, and he argues that even if an opinion were known to be completely erroneous it is still wrong to suppress it. In doing so, he says, we lose an opportunity at arguing against the opinion in question and rediscovering exactly why that opinion is wrong. We can probably move forward on the assumption that Palin and others feel that their opinions are unquestionably right, what they lack is the understanding that their conclusions do not preclude them from engaging in the dialectical process nonetheless. By refusing to compromise at all they are losing what might be gained from incorporating other opinions into theirs, or at the very least what might be gained from debunking those opinions which run counter to theirs. They are becoming, in a word, dogmatic, something I will discuss in detail very shortly.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Process of Change: Part Two
Sometimes I seem like a combative person, and that bothers a lot of people sometimes. When they argue with me they can't get anywhere, even when agreement is reached I am compelled to go on arguing. I do not see this as a particularly bad thing, though. This is how progress is made, how consensus is reached, as Hegel said thesis and antithesis coming together to generate synthesis. I have realized recently that sometimes arguing with the people who annoy me the most can be one of the most rewarding things to do. However, there are other times when it just seems pointless, when I get angry and the act of further discussion would only serve to increase my anger. I had a moment like that today, I was arguing with a libertarian and something about his argument really got to me. When I thought about it, I realized why.
We were discussing population dynamics and I was talking about how development can destroy natural ecosystems, and how focusing on urban development instead can help in the area of over-development. Come to think of it, I'm not so sure we were arguing, I think we were agreeing. He responded, it seemed, fairly positively to this notion, which one might think would be a positive for me. Not so much so. It is coming to be quite a large part of my personal philosophy that the path taken to reach any particular goal is just as important as the goal itself. Not more important, mind you; if we take a benevolent path to a malicious goal it is worse than taking a faulty path towards a benevolent goal. However, arriving at a destination without an understanding of the journey is a fruitless endeavor. I believe this is what Dr. King was talking about in his World House speech, that our level of technological development has far outpaced our level of cultural development.
Anyways, this is what bothered me. They we were, two individuals agreeing in principle, and I felt nothing but animosity towards him. It was because of the way he looked at the issue that I felt this way. To him, the justification for urban development lay not in the tangible benefits such as conservation but in the prospect of development opportunities for large investors. Why does he care? Because development is typically regulated in cities, and as a libertarian that's against his agenda. This is not what I want to focus on, though. What I would like to do is analyze his position critically.
Many conservatives of all stripes hold Adam Smith's works up as defining truths of the world, but how true are they really? In this discussion, I was presenting a set of views focused on a goal, preserving nature. This individual looked at my argument, analyzed it, processed it in his own way, and re-posited it to be in line with his views. Now it was not an issue of ecology, it was an issue of economy. You might even say that ecology was an unintended consequence of economy here, as increasing certain individuals' investment opportunities could, and I say could purposefully, lead to an ecological benefit. This is my problem, the argument to me was about saving the environment while the issue to him was about making profits.
This is my problem with Adam Smith. No matter how many beneficial unintended consequences there are, they will always be unintended. Consequentially, the reverse of that also holds true in typical capitalist thought. Conservation does not increase profits, conservation can actually hinder profits, therefore it will neither be an intended consequence of capitalist thought. At best, conservation might happen as a freak result of the act of generating profits. However, more often than not conservation will be actively suppressed because of its tendency to hinder the pursuit of profits. Even if we disregard that last part, conservation without a drive for conservation is empty, a destination without an understanding of the journey. We arrive at the same destination, but all our journey has taught us is that we need to continue to pursue profits. now we embark once more on another journey, this time to a different destination, and because it is easier for us to actively hinder conservation efforts than take a different path we take the easy road. After all, that is what we were doing before, only the last time the road of conservation simply happened to be the less arduous path.
Because we have not learned from our journey, because the beneficial things we did were unintended, now we will turn around and take a path that causes harmful unintended consequences, such as drilling for oil in the ocean. You may say it is not "us" doing this but rather certain individuals, but it is us as a society. This path we have taken is ingrained in our collective unconscious, and now when those individuals come to Congress and ask to abolish environmental regulations we say sure, and why? Because we have simply accepted the universality of unintended consequences. The fact that unintended good occurs as the result of selfish action is not a justification for the free market, it is a condemnation of it. To do good as a result of happenstance, while better than doing no good at all, is still not as beneficial as doing good for the intended purpose of doing good.
We were discussing population dynamics and I was talking about how development can destroy natural ecosystems, and how focusing on urban development instead can help in the area of over-development. Come to think of it, I'm not so sure we were arguing, I think we were agreeing. He responded, it seemed, fairly positively to this notion, which one might think would be a positive for me. Not so much so. It is coming to be quite a large part of my personal philosophy that the path taken to reach any particular goal is just as important as the goal itself. Not more important, mind you; if we take a benevolent path to a malicious goal it is worse than taking a faulty path towards a benevolent goal. However, arriving at a destination without an understanding of the journey is a fruitless endeavor. I believe this is what Dr. King was talking about in his World House speech, that our level of technological development has far outpaced our level of cultural development.
Anyways, this is what bothered me. They we were, two individuals agreeing in principle, and I felt nothing but animosity towards him. It was because of the way he looked at the issue that I felt this way. To him, the justification for urban development lay not in the tangible benefits such as conservation but in the prospect of development opportunities for large investors. Why does he care? Because development is typically regulated in cities, and as a libertarian that's against his agenda. This is not what I want to focus on, though. What I would like to do is analyze his position critically.
Many conservatives of all stripes hold Adam Smith's works up as defining truths of the world, but how true are they really? In this discussion, I was presenting a set of views focused on a goal, preserving nature. This individual looked at my argument, analyzed it, processed it in his own way, and re-posited it to be in line with his views. Now it was not an issue of ecology, it was an issue of economy. You might even say that ecology was an unintended consequence of economy here, as increasing certain individuals' investment opportunities could, and I say could purposefully, lead to an ecological benefit. This is my problem, the argument to me was about saving the environment while the issue to him was about making profits.
This is my problem with Adam Smith. No matter how many beneficial unintended consequences there are, they will always be unintended. Consequentially, the reverse of that also holds true in typical capitalist thought. Conservation does not increase profits, conservation can actually hinder profits, therefore it will neither be an intended consequence of capitalist thought. At best, conservation might happen as a freak result of the act of generating profits. However, more often than not conservation will be actively suppressed because of its tendency to hinder the pursuit of profits. Even if we disregard that last part, conservation without a drive for conservation is empty, a destination without an understanding of the journey. We arrive at the same destination, but all our journey has taught us is that we need to continue to pursue profits. now we embark once more on another journey, this time to a different destination, and because it is easier for us to actively hinder conservation efforts than take a different path we take the easy road. After all, that is what we were doing before, only the last time the road of conservation simply happened to be the less arduous path.
Because we have not learned from our journey, because the beneficial things we did were unintended, now we will turn around and take a path that causes harmful unintended consequences, such as drilling for oil in the ocean. You may say it is not "us" doing this but rather certain individuals, but it is us as a society. This path we have taken is ingrained in our collective unconscious, and now when those individuals come to Congress and ask to abolish environmental regulations we say sure, and why? Because we have simply accepted the universality of unintended consequences. The fact that unintended good occurs as the result of selfish action is not a justification for the free market, it is a condemnation of it. To do good as a result of happenstance, while better than doing no good at all, is still not as beneficial as doing good for the intended purpose of doing good.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Process of Change Part One
I recently received a book on various Western philosophers that I'm finding quite interesting. It's not very in-depth, it contains a blurb on each philosopher, but it definitely is useful for getting better acquainted with a wide range of philosophers. Some of the philosophies that are laid out are quite interesting, although some of these people are just full of shit (Saint Thomas Aquinas, I'm looking at you). One of the more interesting, though, is this idea of the collective unconscious espoused by Jung and Hegel. I actually invoked this idea in a paper concerning Karl Marx. Since Marx, in his 1848 manuscripts, seems to indicate that what he refers to as crude communism is a necessary step between capitalism and pure communism, the question thus posed was concerning whether or not Marx's theories were deterministic; whether these regrettable stages between capitalism and pure communism could be averted, or their consequences at least mitigated. My answer was that yes, in fact, they could be in a sense. Because the world has already witnessed the crude stage of communism in the form of the Soviet Union, not every society had to pass through this crude phase in order to arrive at a more functional one. Thinking a bit more deeply into the matter, I begin to wonder if this is true.
I do not doubt that it could be true, we do have the capability of tapping into this collective unconscious via study of history. Whether or not we will take advantage of such an opportunity, however, is a different question entirely. It takes little observation of history before one realizes that a people as a whole very rarely learn from their past. In Europe the secularist congratulates himself on his own triumph of overcoming petty religious disputes. The secularist remembers the violence perpetuated in his country because of religion decades and even centuries ago, and it is for this reason that he is a secularist. However, the European secularist fails to realize his own follies, fails to realize that religious infighting exists under the guise of secularism. The American citizen is overjoyed by the passing of his country into a post-racial phase (for the third or fourth time), and yet in his bliss he is ignorant of many of the details of how this civil rights movement unfolded. Soren Kierkegaard wrote in the early nineteenth century that, "Each age has its depravity. Ours is...a dissolute pantheistic contempt for individual man." I do not doubt whether that was true of his age, although it could be true simply of the environment that Kierkegaard was in. One of the primary failings of existentialism is that one examines one's own place in the universe failing to take into account how many other individuals occupy their own unique space with its own unique properties. However, if that was true of Kierkegaard's time I feel that the reverse is true of ours. We have taken individuality and turned it into a cult, drawn it out to its extreme conclusions.
Granted, it is hard to find anything wrong with individuality, even more so working within the context of a culture that glorifies it, but it is also easy to find fault with almost anything when it disregards its opposite. When individuality is glorified to a point where community is reviled then the task of finding fault with individuality becomes infinitely simpler. An African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child, but how many villages today assist in this manner? It seems that everywhere we have become more and more isolated from those in physical proximity to us, to the point where mistrust is more familiar than trust, much less a trust that extends to such individuals being a major part of a child's life. Furthermore, take Emile Durkheim's study on suicide. Durkheim, after comparing suicide rates among different religious, ethnic, gender, and economic groups, and conducting qualitative analysis, concluded that where a group stressed individuality suicide rates were higher; where it stressed community suicide rates were lower.
We have lost this respect for community due to our worship of individuality. It is becoming pathological in some segments, to the point where even institutions such as public education are under attack. Perhaps, too, there is an element of alienation that Marx described as inherent to capitalism. While relevant to the larger picture, that holds little relevance here. The point that must be addressed is that the dialectical process on which all of society progresses has regressed. How did Kierkegaard's age come to despise the individual? Through the glorification of the community, everything done for the greater good, for industry. It is good that the dialectical process led to the reverence of the individual eventually, but in the process the reverence for the community was lost as well. This brings me back to the original point, will we ever truly progress in such a manner without losing that which is admirable about what we already have? I believe it is possible, but it will not be an easy endeavor.
I do not doubt that it could be true, we do have the capability of tapping into this collective unconscious via study of history. Whether or not we will take advantage of such an opportunity, however, is a different question entirely. It takes little observation of history before one realizes that a people as a whole very rarely learn from their past. In Europe the secularist congratulates himself on his own triumph of overcoming petty religious disputes. The secularist remembers the violence perpetuated in his country because of religion decades and even centuries ago, and it is for this reason that he is a secularist. However, the European secularist fails to realize his own follies, fails to realize that religious infighting exists under the guise of secularism. The American citizen is overjoyed by the passing of his country into a post-racial phase (for the third or fourth time), and yet in his bliss he is ignorant of many of the details of how this civil rights movement unfolded. Soren Kierkegaard wrote in the early nineteenth century that, "Each age has its depravity. Ours is...a dissolute pantheistic contempt for individual man." I do not doubt whether that was true of his age, although it could be true simply of the environment that Kierkegaard was in. One of the primary failings of existentialism is that one examines one's own place in the universe failing to take into account how many other individuals occupy their own unique space with its own unique properties. However, if that was true of Kierkegaard's time I feel that the reverse is true of ours. We have taken individuality and turned it into a cult, drawn it out to its extreme conclusions.
Granted, it is hard to find anything wrong with individuality, even more so working within the context of a culture that glorifies it, but it is also easy to find fault with almost anything when it disregards its opposite. When individuality is glorified to a point where community is reviled then the task of finding fault with individuality becomes infinitely simpler. An African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child, but how many villages today assist in this manner? It seems that everywhere we have become more and more isolated from those in physical proximity to us, to the point where mistrust is more familiar than trust, much less a trust that extends to such individuals being a major part of a child's life. Furthermore, take Emile Durkheim's study on suicide. Durkheim, after comparing suicide rates among different religious, ethnic, gender, and economic groups, and conducting qualitative analysis, concluded that where a group stressed individuality suicide rates were higher; where it stressed community suicide rates were lower.
We have lost this respect for community due to our worship of individuality. It is becoming pathological in some segments, to the point where even institutions such as public education are under attack. Perhaps, too, there is an element of alienation that Marx described as inherent to capitalism. While relevant to the larger picture, that holds little relevance here. The point that must be addressed is that the dialectical process on which all of society progresses has regressed. How did Kierkegaard's age come to despise the individual? Through the glorification of the community, everything done for the greater good, for industry. It is good that the dialectical process led to the reverence of the individual eventually, but in the process the reverence for the community was lost as well. This brings me back to the original point, will we ever truly progress in such a manner without losing that which is admirable about what we already have? I believe it is possible, but it will not be an easy endeavor.
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