No True Scotsman

"Never again will the real have the chance to produce itself-such is the vital function of...a hyperreal henceforth sheltered from the imaginary, and from any distinction between the real and the imaginary, leaving room only for...the simulated generation of differences."-Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

"I stand for conservative values."  Those five words will get you far in American politics.  They are invoked by nearly every Republican candidate, conservative commentator and pundit, and a multitude of preachers, grassroots conservative organizers, and conservative activists.  The effect of these words is to make conservative-leaning individuals in the audience more receptive to an argument.  When a speaker leads with this phrase listeners immediately identify with them.  This person shares their worldview, no more, their values.  Other people, other groups don't understand traditional values.  They try their best to erode them, they wage a war on them, they are trying to criminalize traditional values with movements like the War on Christmas.  This person, however, doesn't just understand them, they share a worldview that makes them who they are, that gives them their character.  They stand for conservative values.

But what are conservative values?  I'm sure that every conservative has a different definition of what conservative values are and that, like in a Venn diagram, many parts of their definitions overlap.  I am also sure that human opinion is always diverse, and that the variation in these definitions is probably comparable to that of snowflakes.  They all share common properties, but their exact structure is innumerably diverse.

What, then, is the effect of such a term as "conservative values" becoming a part of the national zeitgeist?  As always, philosophy has the answer.  Jean Baudrillard is a post-modern philosopher who remains relatively obscure in most modern academic circles (that's boh-dree-yar for you non-francophones).  The most notable reference to him I've seen in media is, incidentally, by a conservative preacher in a little documentary entitled Waiting for Armageddon.  (You may also have caught a glimpse of his book, Simulacra and Simulation, as Neo's money/illegal software stash in The Matrix.  I'm unsure whether that was intended as a jab or a compliment).  It's no small coincidence that the preacher's complaint against Baudrillard was that he argued against the existence of fixed truth.  According to a worldview where truth is nebulous, conservative values like those of the preacher serve little practical purpose.

Actually, in Simulacra, Baudrillard says just the opposite.  The enshrinement of conservative values in the public sphere serves a vital purpose for our society, only one he views as nefarious (it should be noted that Baudrillard doesn't single out conservative views, his argument is more systematic and far-reaching).  The homogenization of myriad definitions of conservative values into one public definition is part of a process that Baurdrillard refers to as the procession of simulacra.  This process is one of representation, one which ultimately results in a masking of the one truth left in modern society, that there is no truth (which suggests the reference in The Matrix was more complementary than not).  This isn't a fact that Baudrillard praises, rather he laments it.  He often refers to the loss of truth in terms of a death with references to memorials and funeral rites (though it's more ambiguous whether or not he believes we can actually do anything about it).

This offers an interesting contrast to the aforementioned preacher.  Whereas Baurdillard recognizes a lack of truth and laments it, the preacher denies a lack of truth by attacking Baudrillard as some insidious deceiver.  He portrays Baudrillard (and to be fair, other post-modernists) as someone who is actively attempting to erode truth and, by the same token, conservative values.  I view Baudrillard, rather, as an ally of real valuation.  Though he may not have been anything near resembling a conservative, I believe his real agenda was attacking the lack of meaning in our society rather than any specific ideology (at least primarily).  In fact, his primary thesis was that ideology defeats true meaning.  In this procession of simulacra the first step is true representation.  Using our example, this would be the public understanding of conservative values matching up almost identically with the values actually espoused by conservatives.  After this is where things get complicated.

The second order of representation is the masking of a reality, in this case the true values held by conservatives.  Have you ever lamented that the public perception of individuals within your political ideology is incongruent with the real views those individuals hold?  That, perhaps, not all conservatives are climate science deniers or not all liberals are bleeding heart idealists?  This is second-order representation wherein the truth is masked and distorted by the representation, in this case the public understanding.  Baudrillard here makes an interesting assertion that "When the real is no longer what it was [after the second stage of representation] nostalgia assumes its full meaning.  There is a plethora of myths of origin and signs of reality-a plethora of truth, of secondary objectivity, and authenticity.  Escalation of the true, of real experience, resurrection of the figurative where the object and substance have disappeared."  This perfectly encapsulates the behavior of the preacher attacking Baudrillard.  In a world where truth has disappeared the preacher responds with a sort of nostalgia, a grasping at past values that are little more than apparitions in today's society.

In the third stage of representation the existence of a reality itself apart from the representation is masked.  This is, in part, what the preacher is engaging in when attacking Baudrillard.  The lack of truth, if real, represents an uncomfortable prospect, one which the preacher feels compelled to combat.  He attempts to establish his values as truth and in so doing masks the fact that the original reality (the values actually held by conservatives) is gone.  Here that reality is actually replaced by the public perception of conservative values.  They are the real and, far from representing the real that actually existed, they obscure the fact that the original reality existed apart from them.  The fourth and final stage, or true simulacra, is when these representations become the real.  There are no longer originals to be represented, there are only representations that compete with each other.  Conservatives (or liberals for that matter) no longer have opinions that later become a part of the zeitgeist, they join an existing zeitgeist.

What does all of this have to do with Scotsmen?  Well, my impetus for this was reading an article in which an Evangelical Christian group is pushing for action on climate change: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/20/3439695/evangelical-environmental-network-rick-scott-petition/  This article was, in some ways, refreshing as I've maintained for a while that Christians should be more concerned about environmental issues in light of the Bible's casting of humans as guardians of earth.  At the same time, however, this struck a sour chord with me.  One reason is that it continues to feed into destructive rhetoric.  The president of this group, Rev. Mitch Hescox, makes such statements as "climate change is not a liberal issue" (as if liberal issues should be summarily ignored), "I think [Rick Scott has] gotten caught up...in some of the rhetoric...of climate change being...a polar bear issue" (as if preserving polar bears on their own isn't enough to makes this an issue, which strangely conflicts with his statement about Christians being concerned about all forms of life), and "for us, it's a pro-life issue" (as if an issue must fit into some Christian or conservative talking point for it to be a relevant issue).  The point here should not be to feed into these common conceptions of what a liberal or conservative or Christian is, these simulacra.  Baudrillard asserts that participating in this process, even in an iconoclastic way, feeds into it.  Hescox is feeding this process.  He is challenging the perception of what conservative values are, but in so doing simply creating an alternative perception.  He is not challenging the notion that we should stop fighting each other based on these perceptions, these ethereal entities, of what conservatives and liberals are.

The "No true Scotsman" fallacy is forth-order representation, true simulacra.  When employing this fallacy one asserts that no true member of a group would exhibit a certain behavior.  If someone told me, for example, that no Christian would support abortion and I pointed out that plenty of Christians support abortion, a reply of anyone who supports abortion isn't really a Christian would employ this fallacy.  While Hescox doesn't explicitly employ this fallacy, he comes close.  His appeal to Florida Governor Rick Scott to stop denying climate change and start to take action on it is based on what he believes a Christian to be, someone who cares for all life on earth.  This, however, is not what a Christian is, this is simply what Hescox envisions a Christian to be.  He is offering this vision up as a fourth-order representation of Christians in opposition to the dominant fourth-order representation.  I'll also briefly mention that I don't believe Hescox and Scott share the same religion.  They share in the representation, but their own religion, the true reality within them, is quite different.  Christian is the public simulacrum that they both identify with, but it is also the private beliefs within their hearts, two entities that are quite distinct from each other.

So what is the solution to all this?  Stop.  Stop worrying about what a true Scotsman is and whether or not someone is acting like one.  Stop acting as if we need to adhere to a public conception of conservative values or liberal values because we consider ourselves conservative or liberal.  The preacher who attacked Baudrillard, in fear of losing real value, obscured the absence of it and encouraged others to live without it, albeit unknowingly. The Dao de Jing tells us "If you wish to become whole, let yourself be partial. If you wish to become straight, let yourself be crooked. If you wish to become full, let yourself be empty. If you wish to be reborn, let yourself die. If you wish to be given everything, give everything up."  Sometimes wanting something and striving for it, as in the case of the preacher, are counter-productive to achieving it.  Don't try to achieve truth and value by insisting on them, live as if they don't matter and they will be found.  "If you want to take something, you must first allow it to be given.  This is called the subtle perception of the way things are."

Zombie Meat?

Jesus, it's been two years since I've made an entry here.  Thinking about it now it seems like such a short period of time, but when I really think about what's transpired since then it feels like an eternity.  Anyways, I didn't want to reminisce, but since I couldn't help myself I'll just keep it to a minimum.

In my recent readings I've come across a series of three articles, one right after the other, that all have to do with the same subject, zombie meat.  Actually, it's quite serendipitous that I came across them when I did, they come together in almost a perfect narrative.  The first was an article in a scientific magazine that gave a brief overview of cultured meat, meat grown in a lab from animal stem cells.  Then today I read an editorial by local writer John Kass (I knew I wasn't going to like it before I clicked on it).  Almost immediately after I read a third article in a scientific magazine on the sustainability of beef production.

I'll give you the bullet points for these articles.  Cultured meat: It is prohibitively expensive right now and there are questions as to its nutritional value, but it has the potential to drastically reduce the environmental impacts of meat production.  From the article: "The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that demand for meat will swell by more than 70 percent by 2050.  Already 30 percent of the world's ice-free land is devoted to feeding animals for meat thanks to the fact that cows and pigs convert only roughly 15 percent of the plants they eat into edible meat...The FAO estimates that livestock are responsible for nearly 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activities."

Mr. Kass' article is, to put it simply, a tirade against cultured meat.  It is a typical "change is bad"-type soliloquy positing cultured beef as some Frankenstein-esque example of science run amok while recalling the sights, sounds, and smells of cooking real meat.  "This is the way the world ends," he says of cultured meat, and later "But before their sick dreams are realized, I hope I'm dead, because I refuse to live in a world without spits and coals and tasty real critters."

The last article I read talked about the sustainability of global meat production, or rather the lack of it.  The takeaway-the less land we use for meat production the better.  According to the article "Looking at alternate diet scenarios, if we shift all crops from current uses to direct human consumption, we could feed an additional 4 billion people," and "Animal products, which require more calories to produce than they end up creating, also need more land and represent one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions."

Now, a disclaimer to start, cultured meat is a very new technology and therefore is both prohibitively expensive and comes with many question marks.  The first article states that "the lab meat would reduce methane pollution by 95 percent, as well as reduce the need for farmlands to feed livestock by 98 percent, according to a 2011 study by the University of Oxford published in Environmental Science and Technology," but only if certain technologies progress further in the coming years, by no means a guarantee.  However, technology not only progresses and becomes more refined with time, the cost also comes down as improvements in the process are made and enough competitors join the mix.  That there are technological or financial barriers is not a decent argument for abandoning a product altogether.  The potential gains these articles put forward are massive.  We could increase the efficiency of our farmland, divert more food resources to feeding people, perhaps even combat or wipe out malnutrition, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a sizable number, not to mention drastically reduce animal cruelty.

The response Mr. Kass gives is disappointing to say the least, if not unexpected.  His entire article lacks substance, relying more on prose about his love affair with eating "real critters" and the horrors of modern science.  The first part makes me wonder if there isn't a bit of spite in the anti-vegetarian mindset.  Personally, I must admit this news of cultured meat is a bit exciting to me.  I happily accept the challenge of abstaining from meat, but I can't say I wouldn't welcome being able to taste it again guilt-free, or that something like this might make managing my intake of vitamins that are normally attained through meat easier.  If we could get all the nutritional benefits from meat and its taste from synthetic meat, then what would be the argument against abstaining from killing animals for consumption?  I just like killing them?  I have some nostalgic attachment to killing and eating them?  I think it goes beyond even that, I think there's some sick pleasure that Mr. Kass gains from cooking something that was living and breathing, possibly some biological holdover from our hunter-gatherer days.

Anyways, beyond the reservations I have about killing animals for consumption, there are other consequences to eating "tasty real critters."  Let's say everything falls into place tomorrow, the technology to make cultured meat viable is instantly available, it can reduce methane pollution by 95% and farmlands used to feed livestock by 98%, are Mr. Kass' romantic notions about consuming living animals really worth giving that up? He refers to a world where people eat synthetic meat as apocalyptic, but that is exactly the sort of world we are looking at if we don't cut our greenhouse gas emissions.  Species are already dying, global temperatures are already shifting, and we are on the precipice of hitting some of the road markers in global temperature shifts that scientists have been warning us about.  Even if our emissions are cut to zero tomorrow, the gasses already in thee atmosphere will continue to trap heat and drive global change.  To reduce methane emissions by 95% would not only not be apocalyptic, it would help us to avert disastrous scenarios down the line.

We are sitting at a crossroads right now where we have the potential to do a lot of good.  We have the ability to invest in new sources of energy that don't pollute our atmosphere, in new and old modes of transportation that reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses, in alternative ways of living that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make us healthier individuals for it.  The world is changing, and many of us are trying to find constructive ways to change with it.

Mr. Kass is not one of those people.  His article speaks of apocalyptic consequences, but provides no substantive arguments to support such hyperbole.  He is rallying against the future and he doesn't know why.  I think this is a fairly common theme among conservatives in this country, the world is changing and they don't know how to change with it.  While it is true that tradition is important, it is also important to be able to change at the same time, to know what to let go of and what to hold on to.  Lao-Tzu writes "Should you want to contain something, you must deliberately let it expand...Flexibility and yielding overcome adamant coerciveness."  Change cannot be stopped, that is the way of things.  People like Mr. Kass cannot understand that, they need to hold on to the world they remember, even in a coercive manner.  Worse yet, they feel the need to pull as many people into their way of thinking, even if it's destructive.  Is it worth giving up a 95% reduction in greenhouse gasses to preserve Mr. Kass' nostalgia, his view of how the world is, to keep the world as he sees and remembers it?  Absolutely not.  Mr. Kass' argument is an appeal to sentimentality, an appeal to tradition, and when that runs straight up against practical benefits to all of humanity then sentimentality and tradition must lose out.

Process of Change: Part Five

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Assault on the Working Class

I have always accepted the political dichotomy of the U.S., even G.W.F. Hegel based his entire philosophy on a dialectical process. I agree with Hegel, it is this process of conflicting ideas butting heads against one another that creates social progress. However, it seems to me like the political arena in this country is taking a massive turn for the worse. Since the exodus of our esteemed ex-president George W. Bush from the political arena, it seems like his party has seized the opportunity to not only put his legacy behind them (though their failure to do this ideologically reminds me greatly of principles discussed by Jean Baudrillard), but to take it one step further and push through the agenda that has been so impossible to sell to voters wholesale over the past sixty years. What really disturbs me is how easy it seems for them to sell this systematic dismantling of the working class in America to the working class itself, yet again reminiscent of Baudrillard. While this dynamic has been recognized for quite some time (Thomas Frank wrote a book on it in 2004), it seems to be even more insidious in its present form, no longer concerned with simple profiteering at the expense of the working class but in the complete and utter subjugation of the working class, a return to industrial revolution era corporate despotism.

One recent turn of events that brought this to the forefront of my concern is the new commission on deficit reduction and their recent report. Glancing over the bullet points I saw a couple of items that sounded like a good idea, a reduction in military spending for instance. It was nowhere near the amount needed to cripple the military industrial complex our country has become so enamoured with, a phenomenon which we received due warning about by the way, but it was a start. However, what really struck me were the suggestions targeting the middle class. A restructuring of the tax code, an increase in social security age to almost seventy, and eliminating tax deductions and entitlements. The first thing that jumped out at me was how difficult it would be for an average voter to understand all this, it would seem a beneficial proposal to anyone not particularly well-versed in politispeak. A language comparison is perhaps most fitting, as I read the suggestions in the same manner I read French: un chien-dog, du café-coffee, my mind must go through a process that is absent when I am reading English. In the same way I had to look at these recommendations and think to myself what they really meant: restructuring the tax code-passing a greater tax burden on to the working class; increasing the social security age-making it harder for young workers to break into an industry. With tax deductions and entitlements they did not even list what was specifically on the chopping block, I had to do some digging to find that out. It's not surprising either, go to the voters with the proposal to cut student loan subsidies or employer-based health care benefits and they may lash out against you politically, even in their current domesticated state. However, call such cuts entitlements or discretionary spending and they'll cheer you all the way to the capitol building to vote against their own interests.

In addition, the absolute apathy, no, contempt with which the bourgeoisie and their supporters treat those who oppose such "reforms" makes the words of Karl Marx resound with more vigor than they did in the supposed golden age of communism. 176 years ago, Karl Marx wrote that "The non-worker does everything against the worker which the worker does against himself; but he does not do against himself what he does against the worker." In the same manuscript he describes the relationship of the worker to his labor, "The more the worker produces, the less he has to consume; the more value he creates, the more valueless, the more unworthy he becomes; the better formed his product, the more deformed becomes the worker; the more civilized his object, the more barbarous becomes the worker; the more powerful labor becomes, the more powerless becomes the worker; the more ingenious the labor becomes, the less ingenious becomes the worker and the more he becomes nature's slave." It is amazing how relevant his words are almost two centuries after they were written, even the language they use to describe worker benefits seems to denigrate the worker, "entitlements." It is not such a stretch to go from the original connotation of that word, that workers actually are entitled to such benefits, to the pejorative connotation that is almost universally accepted today, that the worker feels entitled to what he does not deserve. And when we go beyond the surface, deeper into the culture of modern-day capitalism, we find even more comparisons to the warnings of Marx. Today the product of the worker's labor is eminently ingenious, as technology has progressed to a point where we view such inconveniences as paging through a dictionary as archaic; it is eminently well-formed, as the industrial process leaves nothing to the fallibility of human craftsmanship; it is supremely powerful, having infiltrated every corner of our lives and completely dominating our desires. So too is the worker eminently deformed and powerless. As the worker creates these modern marvels, the capitalist demands the cutting of entitlements in order to increase, what else, capital. Certain corporations now post record profits, and they concurrently demand more of their workers in terms of paying for benefits and forgoing cost of living increases. "The more the worker produces, the less he has to consume; the more value the worker creates, the more valueless he becomes."

Strange also how Marx's relevance reaches a critical point just as his legacy has all but buried his political relevance. A slur of being a Marxist, founded or not (and not even taking into consideration that Marx himself did not consider himself a Marxist), is enough to immediately invalidate your opinion among a good deal of citizens, and yet so many of them exist as Marx described: alienated from their labor, alienated from each other, slaves to nature. Perhaps more interesting is how relevant his prophecies are becoming so far from his death. Marx once lamented that Britain was, "the rock against which the waves of revolution break," disappointed in the ability of British communist movements to gain political power. Perhaps this is the reason some were initially so dismissive of Marx, they believed the worker would never dare to challenge this state of being so long as he is wooed by the temptations of capitalism. What they underestimated, perhaps, is the tenacity of the capitalist in pursuing capital, the absolute extremes that he would go to in search of more. What they thought impossible, Marx thought inevitable. Such behavior will invariably turn on itself he predicted, and such a system is bound to fail. What Marx may have underestimated is the amount of time it would take for this to take place. While he lamented to his grave that Britain's proletariat could not gain traction in his adopted homeland, what he failed to realize was the amount of time such occurrences take to manifest themselves. Today the capitalist economy is hit by a recession that destroys proletariat and bourgeoisie alike, ignited by a drive for more capital. Once that drive threw a monkey wrench into the economy it was the worker who valued his capital, who hoarded it in fear of losing it entirely, and the capitalist system which suffered by virtue of not being able to secure more capital. Today's capitalist model represents the pinnacle of an insatiable hunger, cost/profit projections. As Baudrillard outlined, representations go through a progression of simulacra until they have no referential. The numbers on a cost/profit projection do not represent workers, they do not represent a person with a family to feed, with costs to bear, or even one who produces capital. It is a self-representing simulacra, a representation that is believed to represent the worker, but instead represents only the idea of the worker contained in itself, a cost. Profit, capital, is the ultimate goal and the worker a necessary expense. In this mentality cost is cut wherever possible, and the worker becomes not a producer of capital, but a hindrance in achieving capital, one that must be minimized. Thus the prediction of Marx comes into full realization, the worker becomes the scourge of the capitalist, a cost to be minimized. The worker becomes eminently deformed and powerless.

Herein lies the process of the system turning on itself, as the worker is the producer of labor and the system is obsessed with consuming labor. It will consume labor until there is nothing left to consume, and it will fall upon itself. We have been given a cautionary warning from the system itself, as the refusal of the worker to part with his capital perpetuated the downward spiral of the economy just a handful of months ago. Still we do not learn, still we use the pejorative "entitlement," still we persist in decreasing the tax burden on the rich and increasing that of the poor, still the worker and even now the consumer are treated with malevolence, as creatures that inhibit the accumulation of capital. These are the more subtle signs, even the obvious signs of Marx's prediction go unheeded. Middle management, once part of the bourgeois, is now being cut in the name of capital. Those that survive reap the benefits-capital, larger salaries-then turn their attention to the government to attain even more capital. Even those who experience these ill effects continue in their alienation. A wage earner goes from $300,000 to $250,000 and laments his own strife, his inability to pay for the costly amenities he and his family had grown used to. This, against the backdrop of a single mother with the same size family, earning below the national average and having to live out of her car. She is still the leech to the earner, still not able to pull her own weight in society, still alienated from him. Even that now they have a common enemy, the capitalist who is alienated from them both, they refuse solidarity. The system rejoices, even in their collective misery they can not bring themselves to turn against the system, but the system again overlooks its one damning trait, its Achilles' heel: insatiability.

The system will never be satisfied, it will always hunger for more, and such a hunger inevitably leads to cannibalism. Even now as so many workers rejoice and revel in the bask of what is supposedly a resurgent conservatism, the system that masks itself as such has its sights set on them. It eyes their entitlements, it eyes their unions, it eyes all of their labor and capital, and it salivates. Get rid of their health care, get rid of their education, get rid of their ability to bargain for a fair wage, and then maybe the worker will finally fit Marx's dystopic unideal, truly deformed, barbarous, and the furthest thing from ingenious.

The ironic part is that I do not believe in the abolition of private property as Marx did, I do not believe that capitalism must go through this stage of self-imposed destruction. As people like myself send out calls of urgency, calls to preserve stability, calls against the harsh style of progress which this insatiable hunger will lead to, we become more and more like the worker: marginalized. President Obama calls for level-headedness, he strives for negotiation, and is met with harsh rebuke. "We are out to destroy him," the other entity freely admits, it has no concern but that of sating its hunger. The more this happens, the more akin such people feel to Daedalus. We cry out to Icarus that he is flying to high, that he risks destruction, that such turmoil is unnecessary, but he ignores us. Ever looking for a higher horizon, ever in search of a greater thrill, such behavior is analogous to the unending desire for capital, the constant taint of avarice. "Do not fly too close to the sun," Daedalus has called out, all that is left is for him to watch to see whether or not Icarus comes down in flames.

In Defense of the World

I was in a discussion a while ago about Islamic culture when someone argued that the Islamic world hates America.  "Look at what goes on there," he said, "they're burning flags and shouting death to America."  What I inferred from his context is that these people held not only a hatred for America, but an unfounded one at that, a prejudice.  Ignoring the part about the Islamic world and expanding this discussion to the entire world, I would like to beg the question, is this hate really a prejudice?  In other words, is this hate unfounded?

I say the entire world because there seems to be some level of dissatisfaction with our country in just about every other country on the planet.  Perhaps the word hate is extreme in certain countries, I saw a program where they interviewed French citizens about their opinions on the United States.  While overwhelmingly negative, they didn't seem vociferous enough to warrant the qualification of hate.  On the extreme end of the spectrum, though, you have flag burning, effigy burning, and chants of death to America, which certainly seem to indicate an active hatred.  Perhaps generalizing the two and any who fall in between is too broad a generalization, but it serves my purposes so far as this discussion is concerned.  If I can justify the extreme end of the spectrum, speaking only in terms of sentiment and non-violent protest and not extremist violence, then the more muted disdain for the United States should naturally be justified as well.

Is this hatred unfounded?  That is the question that draws the line between hatred and prejudice, a concrete justification of one's views.  In the United States, African slaves and their descendants were largely viewed as mentally inferior, a prejudice due to a lack of scientific support for that position.  We now know, in fact, that there is no genetic difference in the mental capacity of dark and light-skinned humans thanks to our advanced science.  On the other hand, one might say there was a hatred of the white populations by enslaved Africans, such as in Haiti where the first successful slave revolt took place, and why not?  Is that an unjustified hatred, one that is directed at the people who displaced you from your homeland, shipped you across the world in dank ships like cargo, and sold you to a life of hard labor?  There is no prejudice there, an extreme reaction is not only justified but should be reasonably expected.

Can the same be said, though, of a hatred of the United States?  Are these people just prejudiced?  Are they simply jealous of our successful society, wishing themselves to elevate themselves from their current state?  Curious, that the language here even resembles that used to justify slavery in the past.  These people are savages we said, they know nothing of higher learning, only labor.  At least we can use their barbaric nature to further our great society, and by providing that labor they can be part of something greater than they ever could hope for in their primitive society.  Funny, the cyclical nature of history. 

Perhaps it is jealously, though.  Even the impetus for my writing this seems to suggest some level of jealousy.  Today I was reading the newspaper and there were plenty of articles about politics.  The first one I read was about Republican measures to de-list American wolves as an endangered species.  As I read it, their motivations became quite clear.  Why is it necessary to kill these animals?  Because they are threatening human establishments, such as ranching and hunting.  When we Americans expand beyond our needs, when we step over into territory belonging to other species we complain of their presence.  They need to die to satisfy our needs, and why?  Because we are not satisfied with what we have.

I turned next to an article on a Republican senator, one who is rallying to oust not only Democrats but Republicans who do not fit his own dogmatic description of a true conservative.  When not only is there suffering and pain aplenty around the world in many forms but here in the United States in an economic form what is this man concerned about?  Ideology.  I was reminded a bit of my recent arguments over healthcare, and what was the primary argument against it?  It was an imposition on personal liberty.  The biggest issues here are the personal mandate and the taxes on certain foods, but these arguments have a fundamental flaw, that is that the personal decisions of these people naturally effect other people.  We do not live in personal bubbles, our actions can have consequences beyond the reach of us and those in our immediate vicinity.  Having individuals who do not need health insurance buy it provides revenue for the health insurance companies to cover individuals who actually need care, and in turn those same people who are buying insurance and not using it will one day reach a point where their use will surpass their payments and they too will be dependent on those who do not use insurance.  In the same way, those who over-consume sugary foods are at increased risk of diabetes and other health concerns and are therefore costlier to insure.  What is the problem with attributing this cost directly to the people incurring it, rather than on to the insurance consumer body as a whole?  Well, it's an imposition on personal liberty.  There is a reciprocity to our personal actions, though, and liberty is not always as clear cut as it is made out to be.  The concern on one side of the argument is pertaining to the actual consequences of actions, and on the other side the intangible, ideological concerns.

How does this pertain, though, to the hatred of the United States across the world?  It shows exactly how we are becoming a society that is increasingly concerned with theorizing rather than actual consequences, a society of pontification.  The reason this is a problem is because this does not hold true for most other citizens of the world.  As soon as I finished the article on the Republican I read an article on Somali refugees.  This article talked about a man who had his whole family killed by a rocket, and another man who was forced from his small subsistence orchard and lives as a transient.  The article detailed the lives of people who have to live with war, death, and total unpredictability their whole lives.  Similarly, a while ago I heard someone complaining about their trip to France being postponed because of terrorist threats and lashing out at Middle Easterners in general.  Immediately I thought of someone else I knew living in the Middle East who had previously described fleeing her home before rocket attacks hit in the area.  Given this, it seems a bit petty to complain about a ruined vacation while others have to live in constant danger every day.  It also seems petty to me to spend so much national energy on ideological debates when there are people who literally have nothing but the clothes on their back.  Does ideology matter to the Somali refugees?  While we sit here and argue about the intangible, people all over the world deal with the tangible through no choice of their own.

So perhaps this hatred really is derived from jealousy, but is that really unjustifiable?  Is it really so incomprehensible to be jealous of those who can work and live and have the luxury of debating ideology without having to worry about the real world results?  More importantly sometimes they have to deal with results created by us.  We create conflicts, like preparing the Taliban to fight the USSR, only to invade Afghanistan decades later because those same people empowered by us to impose our will are suddenly not as friendly to us.  We upset the established progression of societies like that in Iraq because we think we have the right to impose our way of life on other countries, and in the wake of such invasions chaos ensues.  The United States contributes to 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, yet does not constitute 1/4 of the world's population.  We over-consume, and the rest of the world pays the economic price.  We consume one of the largest portions of the world's oil, again despite not having a proportional representation of population.  We create problems of global supply, and while the rest of the world deals with both supply and pollution problems we sit around and debate ideology.  We debate about rights: about our right to pollute the earth, about our right to alter ecosystems, about our right to impose these problems on the rest of the world without any concern given to consequences.

And yes, some around the world approach the idea of living like Americans with trepidation for this very reason.  I recently saw a man being interviewed who said he wanted America's prosperity in the Middle East, but he didn't want America's attitude.  There is a jealousy of our prosperity, but not of our way of life.  What people want, what everyone wants, is some level of stability and the rights that are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  There is no shame in being jealous of that, but that doesn't necessarily translate to hatred.  What translates to hatred is our national apathy over issues that affect the entire world, and the contrast with national outrage over ideology.  What translates to hatred is the fact that we can sit here, fat asses and all, and complain about the issue of liberty in regards to taxing food items that can drive health insurance prices up for everyone.  What translates to hatred is the fact that while people go without water, food, shelter, or even a way of life across the globe we sit here and argue over whether we have a right to kill ourselves through gluttony.  Is that hatred unjustified?  Is it wrong to hate a person who gorges themselves while you go hungry, who throws out food while yours is rationed carefully and sparingly, who is indignant at the thought of being taxed for buying unhealthy foods while you would relish three square meals a day, healthy or no?  Is it wrong to hate a nation that constantly intervenes in foreign struggles, and is constantly being met with resentment by those who must deal with the consequences while we sit and argue about it?

And yes, you might think it an injustice for this to be generalized to all Americans, but why should that matter to them?  Perhaps there were white men in Haiti who were sympathetic to the slaves, but they received the ire of the slaves nonetheless, and why not?  To those slaves, white men had imprisoned them and that is where they directed their angst.  This is not a prejudice, this hate is founded.  Undoubtedly there are Americans who are part of the solution, who give to humanitarian causes, oppose war, and do everything they can to make the world a better place, and yet this America that the rest of the world knows remains.  We concern ourselves with the intangible, and we direct our energy to the perpetuation of apathy.  As a society we support this system of exploitation and reckless indifference of the consequences.  I am not saying that Americans don't have cause to resent this to some degree, but we should not think that this hate is a prejudice.  Some resentment is natural when presented with an opinion that is critical of one's own culture, but what absolutely must not be allowed is for us to think that this hatred is unfounded.  Yes, some people hate America, but if any American were displaced and put in their position it is likely they would come to hate America too.

Common Ground

In recent years, there has been a growing fear in Europe about the spread of Islam throughout the continent.  It is not relegated to one specific area, cropping up in countries such as England and the Netherlands.  It is perhaps most apparent, though, in France, which has gained considerable attention in recent years for taking drastic measures to curb the public display of Islamic religious symbols under the pretense of secularization.  These measures are horribly misguided, and are creating acrimony around a social dynamic that already has a good deal of it.  They are simply a mistake, and completely counter to the democratic ideals that France helped instill across the globe.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not have a favorable view of religion.  I'm an agnostic atheist myself, and I frankly don't think religion is necessary at all in today's world.  However, these measures not only target religion but culture, are based in xenophobia, and do nothing but further acrimony between different religious groups, even those not directly involved.  They should not be tolerated if not for the obvious nature of suppressing human rights, then for the malice they paint the different religious groups with.  I, personally, think that France's history of secularization has been beneficial for the most part.  France has walked a delicate line of keeping government as removed from religion as possible and vice versa without upsetting its large portion of religious citizens (61% Catholics, 6% Islamic, 1% Jewish).  Some secular practices I think could be very beneficial to the United States, such as the requirement that any school receiving government money not require any religious classes as a requirement.  Not only would that be scoffed at here, but some movements have tried to go the other way, manipulating curricula to include religious doctrine as in Texas and Kansas.  Indeed, secularization has some far-reaching benefits, such as the curbing of the systematic degradation of objectivity in the sciences by religious extremists.

That being said, not only are laws like the one passed in France in 2004, banning the wearing of any religious symbol, horribly discriminatory against religion, but are completely detrimental to the cause of secularization.  France, as well as the rest of Europe, has been marred by religious quarrels for as far back as modern history goes.  Ever since Christianity spread to the so-called barbarian tribes that once occupied those lands have they been fighting over who has the correct interpretation, in addition to fighting Muslims from the Ottoman Empire and placing harsh, discriminatory laws on their Jewish populations.  Secularization in France was actually intended to be a response to this, the government is not to interfere in religious matters and religion is not to interfere in the policy-making of government.  This is another example of a secular reform that I think could be universally beneficial, I only dream of the day when politicians such as Bobby Jindal and Ayatollah Khamenei no longer use their government positions in order to broadcast their extremist religious policies.  However, these recent secular reforms go completely against that spirit.

The main argument against secularization has always been that government can become too oppressive, that they can begin to curtail the rights granted to the religious.  Any good secularist should consider it their duty to prevent exactly this from occurring.  When secularization works this is nothing more than an unfounded fear, when these concerns start to become reality they strengthen the arguments against secularization.  American Christians fear secularization, they fear the government intrusion onto their religious practices.  Up until this point those fears have been unfounded, France has had a perfectly functional secular democracy in a country dominated by Catholics.  They know have a right to fear, they can now point to secularization banning religious symbols in school and say that there is concrete evidence of secularization being oppressive.  More than in any other manner, I am against this as a secularist.

The interesting dichotomy that this last point brings up is one of the Christian perspective.  One would think that, especially given the long-standing grudge many American Christians have held towards secularization, these recent bans would be prime fodder for an argument against secularization.  Not so, most Christians I have heard from are largely in favor of this.  Why would that be?  Perhaps because the law doesn't so much target religious expression as it does Islamic culture.  These laws have been passed under the pretense of secularization, but the wearing of religious ornaments in schools has never been an issue for either Jewish or Christian students in the past in France.  It seems it doesn't become an issue until hijabs and burqas begin to become more prevalent.  In short, these secular reforms are specifically targeted at Islam and are supported due to the growing Islamaphobia present in France and other European countries at the moment.  Like the Jews of old Europe, Muslims are now the target of social ridicule and ostracization in an institutionalized manner.  The reason most Christians do not speak out against secularization when they would otherwise is because they, too, harbor some of this Islamaphobia.  I believe I wrote extensively about the golden rule a short while back, again Christians should learn to heed their own scripture.  The Bible preaches tolerance and evangelism not by proselytism, but by setting a good example.

To be fair, there are some within Christianity who do still abide by these principles.  For as much criticism as I heap on the Catholic Church, they are taking the lead in this issue in Europe.  The church has allocated substantial funds to helping immigrants, the bulk of which are Islamic, become more acclimated in their new homes throughout Europe.  Some detractors have called this movement, started under Pope John Paul II, one motivated by his own memories of Polish Jews who were forced into transience during the days of institutionalized racism against Jews.  My question to them is why is this a bad thing?  History is there for us to learn from, to ensure we do not repeat mistakes.  I understand that some might invoke Godwin's Law here, that no one is talking about killing Muslims outright or anything even close to that.  To them, though, I would say that all oppression begins this way, that the oppression of the Jews began with false tales of their supposed supernatural nature and unflattering caricatures and depictions.  It began with a lack of understanding of their culture, and a vilification of them due to this lack of understanding.  This is exactly what we have occurring with Islamic culture.  Will it devolve into mass genocide?  More than likely no, but there is plenty of recent oppression that can be traced back to cultural tensions, such as the fighting in Rwanda and Sudan and the systematic oppression of Muslims in China.  To let this type of cultural warfare not only take hold, but to do so in a country whose thinkers birthed the very ideas of modern democracy and human rights, is simply unconscionable.

Speaking of these cultural differences, they are less pronounced than most people think.  A common rallying cry of secularization supporters who target Islam in Europe is that Muslims want to spread Sharia law.  Aside from the misunderstanding of that word that is inherent in western culture, most Muslims do not actually support Sharia law in the context we commonly know.  The word has been hijacked from religious extremists, and the Muslims who do support Sharia law only support broad, religious principles that are typically synonymous with what we refer to as human rights.  Furthermore, a distinct minority of Muslims actually support subversion of existing governments, only about seven percent.  Another common misconception is one that Muslims do not respect women's rights, and also that the hijab is a solely religious garment.  A majority of Muslim women actually support women's rights, and though smaller, so do a majority of Muslim men.  Muslim women also do not view the hijab as a symbol of female oppression, as has commonly been suggested by western women's movements, but as a part of their culture, and also as a way to be recognized not only by their beauty but by their own intellectual merit.  It is frankly arrogant of westerners to suggest that they do not have the right to choose whether or not it is a symbol of oppression.  Women fought for so long to have the rights to express themselves how they wanted, and now they choose to dogmatically dictate what is oppression and what isn't?  It is hypocrisy at its finest.

The simple truth with Muslims, as with Jews and any other religious groups, is that they are more similar to us than we give them credit for.  They believe in principles of equality and democracy, they choose to go to countries like France not to subvert their culture, as has been claimed, but to adapt to their culture, to find a haven from the oppression that occurs in countries like Iran where religion is used as a smokescreen to hide political authoritarianism.  By focusing on the small differences and using them to vilify and dehumanize a group such as Muslims countries like France are spitting in the face of their democratic ideals.  These laws are wrong; they are wrong on a level of human rights, they are wrong on a level of religious toleration, they are wrong on a level of properly representing secularization.  I am proud of being not only a secularist but an atheist in part because such disputes as this should be beneath either one, and not only does it lessen my pride to see that is not true but it also serves to make me a target of ridiculous arguments that atheists and secularists are religious bigots.  France has three words at the bottom of the symbol of its government: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.  Où est-ce que ta liberté?  Où est-ce que ton egalité?  Où est-ce que ta fraternité?  Liberté, egalité, et fraternité pour tout le monde, ou pour personne.

We're Living in a Society

So the subject of healthcare has been on my mind a bit as of late, due in part to arguments I have had and a particularly arrogant debater from the Wall Street Journal spouting off on a radio show.  In addition, the topic of government spending has come up quite a bit in this discussion, and I feel a need to get a few things out there that seem to be flying under the radar.  For one, this snide journalist who also made assertions that colleges don't offer meaningful education (mental footnote for a later discussion), stated that we don't have the money to be spending on healthcare, and that it was a fallacy to say that having more young people in Medicare would help with its cost issues.  I'll shelf the latter right now and go straight for this, "we don't have the money," argument, my question is where were all these conservatives during the Bush years?  Oh dear god in heaven, medicaid is broke, that absolutely proves that government-run programs can't work successfully, right?  Not when you intentionally run them at a deficit.  That's one thing that never ceases to enrage me, is these conservatives will talk until they're blue in the face about fiscal responsibility, then turn around and act in the most fiscally irresponsible manner in order to acquire political capital.  We didn't have the money for Medicare Part D back then, everyone knew that, and yet Bush and the Republican Congress passed that, "socialist," spending increase.  Better than just that, they passed it at a time when they were paying for two wars AND cutting taxes.  Now suddenly we try to spend money on something that isn't politically motivated and that actually helps the health of our citizens and we don't have the money?  But we still have money for war, we still have money for the type of government-run medicine that garners votes.

Speaking of which, you hear many Republican congressmen coming out in support of the Tea Party, saying they don't believe in government spending, but is anyone paying attention to what they're doing behind the scenes?  There was a lot of rhetoric being circulated among right wing circles during the debate around healthcare about transparency, or the purported lack thereof on the Democratic side, but are they keeping track of what their own camp is doing?  While Obama and the Democrats proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid (that's right, socialist Obama proposing cuts to government-run medicine), the conservative side fought against those cuts.  Aren't these the same people crusading against government-run medicine?  Don't they hate all forms of government spending short of military?  The answer is simple, they don't have the guts to go to senior citizens and make their grand, hyperbolic speeches about conservative ideology.  They have no problem going to young voters, first-time voters, voters who rarely use the healthcare system and making these sensationalistic claims about government spending, but put them in front of a crowd of seniors and government-run healthcare is the best thing in the world.  And why?  Because it garners them votes.

This brings me to my next point, which I will preface with a discussion of economics.  Tea Partyers, conservatives, libertarians, whatever you want to call them, always claim that their ideology is based on simple economics.  It's common sense, it's right there for everyone to observe.  Why, then, do they continue to ignore certain basic economic rules that don't fit in with their ideology?  This journalist, and I use the term lightly (yet another mental footnote concerning later discussion), claimed that the assertion that having a younger contingent in Medicare would help to bring down costs was faulty.  Faulty, how is that?  Let's go through the basic operation of the insurance industry.  Insurance is mutual risk, that is a group of people pay into a fund knowing they may not see a return on that money, but when they do need a costly item such as medical care an individual will see a return.  Let's go even simpler for this, insurance is a gamble.  Think of the insurance companies as the house and the consumers as the players.  Whom  the  odds favor is dependent on whom we are talking about.  If we take an example of a twenty year old the odds favor the house, he will pay for the insurance and use it probably only for checkups, and perhaps less than that.  All the money he pays winds up as a profit for the insurance company.  Now let's say his father, fifty or sixty, has insurance under the same provider, the odds favor him.  He's going to use his insurance more and for more costly procedures, the insurance company stands to lose money on him.

This is where we get to the reason why this journalist's logic is simply wrong.  Insurance providers are casinos that make money on younger patients and lose it on older patients.  Medicare is insurance targeted towards the elderly; this means a lot of operations, a lot of visits to the doctor, and in general more costs.  An operation running almost exclusively on providing care to those 65 and older is simply not sustainable.  Medicare cannot run at a profit without young people paying money that they will likely not recover, and if there are young people paying into Medicare it will result in increased profits.

This is also the reason we need the government mandate for all consumers.  I have heard arguments against this measure in principle, but not in practicality.  The fact is that getting rid of industry policies of bumping policy holders with pre-existing conditions or those who become more of a liability as they get older was necessary.  This was the game the insurance industry was playing, and why I think health insurance simply cannot remain for-profit.  Executives were playing a game, they were treating the industry as a market and not as a necessity for individuals.  Take the example of the father and the child, if the money they make on the child outweighs the money they lose on the father they're still running at a profit.  One would think that would be good enough, but not so.  The attitude the industry took was one of maximizing profits, whatever the cost, and is part of an unsustainable attitude towards capitalism (mental footnote for later examination).  It's not enough that they make a profit, if there's money they could be making, or saving, they treat that as a loss.  Together the father can child represent a net profit, but if they bump the father that's increased profit for them.  This is the detrimental attitude I am speaking of, not being content with just making a profit but maximizing profits, even if it comes at the expense of certain consumers.  Furthermore, this completely defeats the purpose of insurance, there is no risk because as soon as there is a risk the individual is bumped.  That really is a scam, that's saying to the young people that when you're young we'll take your money because it nets us a profit, but when you're old we're going to bump you because we'll actually have to pay you.  That is, frankly, outright robbery.  And I know there is a sentiment among younger people of not wanting to pay in the first place?  Why pay money for something you're not going to use?  Well, in the words of George Costanza, "because we're living in a society here!"  This is a perfect example of co-dependence, of the type of communal thought that benefits individuals.  Yes, you pay more money than you use when you're young, but when you're old you just might see a return on that money, if you don't get bumped that is.

Which is, again, why the individual mandate was required, to get the number which ranges between fifteen and thirty million Americans who are young and uninsured to buy insurance, to drive up profits for insurance companies, to make it more feasible for them to keep the customers who net them a loss in the form of payouts.  I still hold that executive salaries are extreme in the industry, that going to a non-profit format would cut down on overhead in this regard and net a lower price for the consumer (isn't that what free market theory states, that the market should provide the best product for the lowest price?), and that there are other issues such as the overabundance of overpriced and sometimes inferior drugs and medical techniques when talking about Medicare costs.  The issue still remains, though, that this is all basic economics, why can't these supposed masters of economics realize these simple economic tenets?

On the Mark

There's plenty going on in the world right now, but nothing more notable, or important, as the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. President Obama just delivered a live address from the Oval Office dealing entirely with the situation down there, and his speech hit all the right points with exactly the right tone. Contrary to what the Republican Party would have the rest of the world believe, having a single moment where you even begin to stop hating President Obama will not automatically impose cultish devotion to him upon you. Many of us, including myself, who have supported the President from the beginning have disagreed with many of his actions. I can say that there are a couple key issues in which I feel he has not been as assertive as he should be, but thankfully he picked the most important issue to draw a line with and hold his ground. This oil spill is not only an economic issue in terms of jobs lost, an environmental issue in terms of sheer damage, or a policy issue in terms of enforcing regulations on corporations, but it is an issue that will affect this country for generations to come in the way the ecosystems of the Gulf are affected.

The President hit on all of these points and said all the right things. For all the people complaining about the severity of how the government is dealing with BP, the President reminded us that people lost their lives and their livelihoods. For all the people complaining about government regulation the President reminded us that increased oversight would and should have prevented this problem. For all the people complaining about the temporary halt imposed on offshore drilling the President reminded us THE most important thing in this issue, which is that a delicate ecosystem that was already endangered was compromised further, and that the natural beauty which has been part of America for well over a century has been irreversibly altered. The President didn't mince words in fear of being called a hippie environmentalist, or a raving socialist, or a bleeding heart liberal. He said what absolutely needed to be said in a strong and assertive manner.

And make no mistake, he will be called all those things and more. I'd wager all the money I had right now that the ideologues are already spewing these insults, hell I wish someone would take that action, I could use the eleven dollars. When those insults do come, though, they will be, to put it bluntly, bullshit. We can sit here and debate the pros and cons of government intervention and non-intervention, we can talk about socialist policies vs. the free market, but if there is one political constant it is that purely ideological views are never completely correct. I've never before stated that free market principles are useless, simply that there are pros and cons and that the goal should be to minimize the latter and maximize the former. One particularly prominent drawback are the corners that are cut by corporations when there is no watchdog looking over their back, such as BP's lack of proper equipment and safety procedures on the Deepwater rig. They you have the apex of an unrestricted industry, millions of gallons polluting our natural beauty, the deaths of eight oil rig workers, and the loss of productivity for an entire coastal region. This is where the free market ideology fails, this is where sensible conservatives should be able to say to themselves that there are limits to how far corporations should be allowed to go without oversight. You think BP doesn't wish the government had been more forceful with them now? They lost well over half of their value in the stock market, their debts now outnumber their holdings, when they were making millions of dollars by cutting costs I'm sure all the execs were patting themselves on the back and talking about that vaunted free market philosophy, but now that they're losing billions-not because of socialism or government intervention but because of their own short-sightedness-I'm sure they wish they had spent a little more on trying to prevent a disaster like this.

BP is not the victim here. Their recklessness led to the deaths of eight of their workers. How is it that certain people would talk about capital execution for someone like Michael Jackson, who had never been convicted of a crime, but then turn around and defend the people who have the deaths of eight innocent workers on their hands? Why is it that a corporation is now a person in the eyes of the Supreme Court in terms of their right to exercise free speech, but not in their responsibility in reckless homicide? Recklessness leading to eight deaths would be a death penalty in Florida, it would be multiple life sentences in other parts of the country, if BP is a citizen of the United States why shouldn't it get the [corporate] death penalty? That's not even counting the damage done to the environment. Think of if an individual citizen polluted a natural beauty near wherever you are. What if I had defaced Mount Rushmore, dumped oil at Yellowstone or in Lake Michigan, or at one of our other countless places of natural beauty? This is our country, not an individual's country, not a corporation's country, our country. One person, or even a group of people, could care less about what happens to OUR natural beauty, but it affects far more people than just them. The idea that anyone who cares about these natural treasures we have can have their opinions simply written off is selfish, small-minded, and un-American. This country and its natural beauty were meant to be enjoyed by all Americans, and BP ruined that beauty for all Americans. The American people, including the ones who lost their lives in that explosion, are the true victims.

This is the right time for President Obama to be assertive, this is the right time for him to call all the profiteering opportunists in political positions across the country that the claims they made in pursuit of more money are flat out wrong, and it is time for him to take a stand for a group of concerned citizens who care about this country in a sense that transcends the political and financial arenas, and who have been written off for daring to care in the past, and tonight the President did exactly that.