Victories

So much of my discontent is in this: I prepare myself with the knowledge, but am unable to descend into action. I have no voice, and no hands–only eyes. Maybe this is the danger of blogs and forums. They give us a voice, but satisfy us with table scraps. "Think" satisfied me. The Philosophical Society satisfied me. It gave an outlet for my voice to be heard, and for respect to be won. But these were small victories.

We must find ways to share our voices with those who have power. Will protests legitimate our cause to those with power, or will our unruly chants distance us even further? It seems all too easy for the powerful to scoff at the misfits they see, chuckling to themselves at the idea that those people could run their company or rule the nation.

It's not that I'm categorically against protesting in the streets—the nonviolent protests led by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had profound effects. It's that I'm cautious of massive groups of people all chanting slogans together, all raising fists together. It's all a bit too... bacchanalian. The identity of the individual has a way of breaking down and blending in with the group. That experience is usually quite intoxicating. But I'm not sure it's conducive the creating the kind of world we want to live in.

During the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, the anarchists actually broke through the line—they achieved the impossible. But then they froze. The question of "Now what?" resonated through every triumphant mind. And nothing happened.

While in D.C. filming for a documentary on social responsibility, the five of us began to notice different kinds of activists. After interviewing a number non-profits, we identified three basic motivations: to build, to burn, or to belong. Builders hold visions of a better world. Burners despise the institutions that oppress humans. Belongers, for the most part, came in with the wind. Far from being a negative, this last category is actually rather important. We want to structure our institutions and social incentives so that they can accommodate those who want to belong, but do so in a way that is socially beneficial.

Builders are willing to burn when it is necessary. Some institutions must be done away with if we are to clear the path towards a better future. But the abiding desire is for a better world, a world which they can see in their minds. Burners, however, are motivated more by anger and resentment. They want to tear down corporations, governments, and oppressive institutions. They aren't so much interested in what comes next. Of course they will be able to talk about it with you if asked, but their motivation comes from the darker corners of the human psyche.

But in a world that needs change so desperately, perhaps those who are driven to burn are exactly what we need. I'm skeptical, though. I think builders will always be more beneficial in the long-run.

What kind of motivation do street protests cultivate? I have seen the desire to burn rise amidst a protest. Self-righteous anger is reinforced by the faceless masses around you. And this kind of behavior only polarizes those who were already far too stratified. Onlookers will likely react with their own brand of self-righteousness, or will look upon the mass with condescending amusement.

We need a form of protest that emphasizes what we want to build, not what we want to destroy. This is the wisdom of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. They saw that only by taking the moral high ground—the ground of humility, principle, and earnest perseverance, not the repugnant ground of self-righteousness—that only then could they help create the world they sought. Pragmatically speaking, the end cannot justify the means. The end must be weaved inextricably into means. In other words, if we envision a world that is compassionate, just, and reasonable, then the movement itself must be compassionate, just, and reasonable.

So blogs, forums, and clubs are often small victories: accomplishments that satisfy our desire to contribute without contributing anything substantial. But the victories won through normal protests are of a different sort: they often sacrifice the long-term for the short-term by:

1. Cultivating detrimental dispositions within protesters.
   
2. Alienating onlookers through self-righteous anger.
3. Polarizing rather than uniting communities.

Let us be wary of these Pyrrhic victories.

Life 1

A patient sits uncomfortably in a nondescript hospital, illuminated by the glow of their x-ray photography and — looking to the doctor — asks, “Is it serious?” The question travels through corridors, finds me. I see a human, a nondescript human, any human really, looking to the stars, or maybe the moon, and asking (themselves?), “Is it serious?”

The Wayward Children

These are a few moments of thought that have taken form in the essay I've been writing, The Wayward Children. So much lies unwritten, but I wanted to share some small portion of my thoughts with you. With time, more will come of these ideas.

...

From whence come the traits so rarely seen? What is the source of intellectual honesty? Of empathy, rigorous thinking, and open-minded inquiry? It is in these traits that I find hope for the future of my species. But it is a hope contingent on the possibility of their cultivation. For if these attributes are no more than genetic anomalies, then their voices will taunt us, but never save us.

The exposition of ideas alone will not suffice. I would have to explore the lives of those who embodied these traits, and determine how much or how little they resembled one another. As a contrast between discovery of the intellectual life and instruction leading to it, I sought out the lives of David Hume and John Stuart Mill. And although I write with their lives in mind, I have allowed my own story to guide the inquiry. For it is there that I can best separate the learned from the inherited. I would be remiss, however, to neglect that my motivation for this approach comes as much—if not more—from the cry to understand myself.

Perhaps you and I will cry together? For we must first confront whether these traits, which so benefit our species, are of any worth to ourselves. Or if, as E.M. Cioran confesses, “forgetfulness is the only salvation."

...

And so any definition of the reasonable reduces to the task of arranging yourself and your surroundings so that all your desires, preferences, and needs are met. Notice that this description allows for a broad definition of what counts as reasonable. For some whose desires have been frustrated and denied at every turn, the reasonable choice is suicide. For others more fortunate, their desires for community and love will enable them to find or create loving communities. Still, for others, it is reasonable to extinguish desires that cannot be fulfilled. This process of evaluating emotions, of discarding the hurtful and emphasizing the good, can be both beneficial and problematic. For there are some emotions and desires that would be best if laid to rest. Others, though, drive us to achieve and create things that improve or add meaning to human life. The difficulty is in knowing what to accept, and what to change.

But despite whatever attempts you make at arranging things around your desires, and despite whatever success you may have, you are still arranging the pieces on a board you did not choose in a game you did not create. And what compels you to move the pieces at all? This too was instilled within you from the history of your species.

...

But though the purpose was denied, the mechanism remained—a uniquely human occurrence. Here were desires, needs, preferences, and sensations all tuned by the necessity of survival and reproduction. A complete genetic inheritance pointed towards the furthering of my species. Yet I defied their purpose. I began to feel like a wayward child, doing with my inheritance things undreamt-of by my blind and ruthless parent.

...

Where identity is concerned, limitation is key. Our borders define us. If I mention the name Chloe, you know from cultural experience that I am referring to a female (which, by the way, is more than you would know if I mentioned the name Aabha). But the rest of her personality is a mystery. She could be outgoing and disorganized, or shy and meticulous with her things. Traits isolate one option over the alternatives, they limit, they identify. To exist without limitations is to exist as an undifferentiated mass, that is to say, without an identity. The emergence of self-awareness requires that it already sit atop a mountain of decisions made prior to its existence. To posit the existence of self-awareness apart from a particular context is nonsensical. What would be the content of its deliberation?

Take, for example, an invulnerable, perfectly rational, self-sustaining robot that is capable of self-awareness. It has no needs, no desires, and no preferences. What will it think about? How will it spend the time? When a being has needs, desires emerge as a way of corralling it in a direction suitable to those needs. But what will a being such as our robot do? I am tempted to say suicide, but suicide is driven by desire. Lacking any need for input, does it make sense to describe this robot as self-aware? If we strip the self of needs, desires, and preferences, then we will find that we have nothing left. Self-awareness, then, is a capacity only of those beings that have something to be aware of—that is, those beings that have something they need to be aware of.

...

Though the path to knowledge is littered and blockaded, there are those who have found their way. Perhaps a time will come, after we’ve asked the questions long enough, when we will seek to cultivate such lives rather than gawking at their occasional appearance.

Adaptation

My mind has begun to calm.

I've felt myself adapting to the pressures of writing at this level. Where a few hours spent writing on Sunday left me drained, they now find me lucid and engaged. I woke up at 6:00am this morning, eager to begin.

Life 2

A commercial for hair re-growth, or perhaps it was hair removal, greets my return. I shift in my chair, away from the television, and find that my leg has gone numb. Numbness has a strange way of seeping into our awareness: its presence is an absence. Its sole gift an uncanny awareness that what should be is not. The numbness I feel in my leg is simple enough. But the numbness I feel when I look around this room is something different, something else. It’s as though I’m waiting for that piercing sensation, that feeling of blood rushing back to its neglected passageways. Waiting for the assurance that the feeling will return, grateful even for the pain. But nothing ever comes. Nothing ever has come. I shake my leg to hurry the return of the familiar. But I was born into numbness, and my body shakes for the return of something it’s never known.

The Last Paper

This paper, this last paper I will write as an undergrad, is consuming my mind. It has a darkness to it, and a weight about it. I've more than once slowly backed away from its pages. Yet these are my own ideas. Am I frightened by what I might find?

I'm up, out of my chair, walking again. Pacing, really. These ideas are getting to me. Something is at stake. I'm disconcerted and lightheaded. And I can't grab hold of my thoughts.

Life 3

The blood rushes back to my leg, stinging and tingling. I never chose this. The blood, the leg, the hospital, the incessant visits, that damned numbness. Everything’s out of my reach, sealed before I even knew I was supposed to look. But I guess you’re not supposed to look, are you? Because I keep trying and I can’t find me. It’s all accidents and mishaps. What else could it be with pleasure and pain both serving some undead master? Hell, at least I’m not alone — even the gods had limits.

Appropriating Social Pressure

Sitting in the library, a history graduate student named Todd walked by asking if anyone was a sociology major. One happened to be sitting across from me: he turned and answered the call. The question came, "What is the definition of society?" This sociologist in training was having difficulty, so I stepped in.

I tend to think that philosophy guards against this problem by its very nature, but even there we sometimes find ourselves speechless in the face of broad questions. If we do so because of issue's immense complexity, that is one thing. It is another thing entirely, though, to find ourselves without words because we have never before considered the question.

Now for something about motive. I wonder how much the desire to avoid being caught off guard by questions like these drives me? The intellectual component is crucial to my identity, so to be asked a question directly related to my particular field, to be unable to answer it, and then to have someone else step in to deliver a well thought-out answer... it would humiliate me. And it would do so to the point that I wouldn't want it to happen again.

I've been on his end of situations like this before, but never to the same degree. They have certainly played a part in motivating intellectual rigor and competence. It's one way that social pressure can be used positively. Which brings up the question, why does "social pressure" promote what it does? In other words, how have we formed the content of what we pressure socially?

Moments after the encounter with the sociologist-in-training, two sorority sisters were talking and one asked, "So, you going out tonight?" When she received a negative, she automatically turned up the pressure and delivered an incredulous "What? Why not?" How did this become the lifestyle that we promote?

I'm reminded of Stuart Silvers and Richard Carrier here. There are facts of the matter as to what constitutes a flourishing individual (as there are facts of the matter as to what constitutes a flourishing society). Given most people's preferences, it would not be a difficult task to demonstrate how their immediate actions are counterintuitive to their deep desires and preferences. The compulsive, recidivist party-goer lifestyle fits this bill. As would the lifestyle advocated by most mono-theistic religions.

How is it that we get so off base? How is it that we, as individuals, pressure our friends to do things which none of us really wants to do? With alcohol, there is a massive (and massively profitable) industry which is quite interested in our continual consumption of alcohol. Thus advertising and culture shaping. But it looks to get darker from there: alcohol placates. We drink away our sorrows rather than acting to change the conditions of our lives. The image that comes to mind is that of a working class bar - exhausted workers find small bits of solace. And so it goes, people deplore their lives but never seek to change them because of transient solace.

But how is it that we've created institutions opposed to our needs and preferences as human beings? It's as if these institutions have taken on their own identities and perpetuate regardless of their effect on human happiness. Instead, they perpetuate based on their ability to perpetuate themselves. I've now walked into a larger discussion of sociocultural evolution.

I'll put that aside for now. What I'm wondering is how we can direct and channel sociocultural evolution. How can we use social pressure to change the way we think? (I'm tempted to say: to make us think in the first place). This kind of pressure certainly can't be separated from other forms of pressure: economic and political (the kind of social pressure I'm talking about would find its home in the community and kinship spheres of life). Real change will only take place when we touch all the spheres of life. But it always has to start with the community and kinship spheres of life. And after we have affected enough change there, we could begin to change the economic and political spheres. But those sort of top-down solutions are always the logical outcome and maturation of bottom-up movements.

If a movement never affects the political and economic spheres, it's likely because they failed to legitimate themselves. While I think this is a valid critique of many activist groups past and present, I think their response is well taken: Why should I legitimate myself to a corrupt and repugnant society? Because you will hardly ever affect the change you desire otherwise. I'd say that response also overestimates the hold darker parts of society have over the individual. If activists would appeal to the real needs and preferences of the individuals and illuminate how particular actions fit into a broader context, then they would be legitimating themselves. If you shudder at the idea of legitimating yourself to society, them legitimate yourself to the human being hiding below the surface.

Liberty & Equality: Some Thoughts

Are liberty and equality opposed?

I can act however I choose so long as it doesn’t harm another individual. But how far will we take that concept? Don’t we affect others with every action we take and avoid? As a legitimate restriction, could this be too much of a burden? Where do we draw the line? If I move to a cabin, far-removed from all human contact—then am I harming those who my skills would have benefited? Do we have responsibilities to all of the alternatives for every action we take?

Perhaps we don’t have to go to such an extreme. Could we say, instead, that there are good and bad ways to spend one’s time? The bad ways are not beneficial at all, a waste of time and resources. This category would greatly outnumber the second: the good actions. It seems unlikely that we could weigh, for every action, the cost we caused by having acted this way and not that way. It seems, also, that we couldn’t be held morally responsible for the result of not having acted a certain way. But this, perhaps, applies only to beneficial uses of one’s time.

How should we define beneficial uses of one’s time? An action that contributes to some good while not actively detracting from some other (passively detracting understood as the kind of unlimited alternatives we mentioned earlier). If I bring economic benefit to myself, but in the process severely harm the livelihoods of thousands of workers, then this is not a beneficial use of my time. But this is not so clearly defined: what if I bring benefit to myself and maintain the livelihood of those same workers when I could have distributed the wealth at least somewhat more equally? Is that a beneficial use of my time? Is that a moral act? I suppose we could say that it is ethically justified, but not morally exemplary.

There is a part of me that wants to say that I should not have had the ability to make that decision. The distribution of pay should be more equitable. This doesn’t mean that the manager and the worker receive the same amount of money—it simply means that they both receive a percentage of the company’s profits. Which would be a form of workplace democracy.

It appears as though we will have to expand our categories to three: maleficent, neutral, and beneficial. Under these categories, my decision to increase personal profits and maintain the worker’s would be neutral. But even this seems charitable to me. It seems an abuse of liberty. Liberty for the wolves, after all, is death for the sheep. The problem arises again and again: our institutions. Could we re-cast our institutions in more equitable ways? This would take the aforementioned business decision out of my hands. I wouldn’t be able to abuse equality under the banner of liberty.

We restrict liberty all the time. We say that you can’t murder others, or steal from others because these things are bad for society overall. You don’t have the liberty to kill me because that would be direct harm. So we’re back to the question of how far-reaching we want our definition of harm to be. We restrict liberties when it’s in the public’s best interest to do so.

What sort of difference is there in direct, active murder and indirect, passive death-dealing? Is there an important difference?

Stories

I've let so many meaningful moments slip away. I'd like to say that life has been so astounding that it hardly leaves room for anything other than itself. But it's more likely a story of laziness.

So, why return to this now desolate landscape? Because the contextualization of memories plays an important role in developing an identity. Some memories evoke pain and serve as reminders of what I'm capable of doing in my darker moments. These must never be forgotten. Some point me in the direction of the life well-lived. Some serve as landmarks, marking off important points of growth and change. Some have provided insights that, if not intentionally pursued, will fade away.

But some are meaningful in ways that can't be quantified - don't need to be quantified. They may not serve as a reminder, a guide-post, a landmark, or an insight, but my identity is tangled up with them nonetheless.

And I don't want to forget.

Cosmic Indifference

I find myself on a giant rock that spends its time orbiting a spherical fire. This concerns me. It apparently concerns others, too, because they compassionately lay siege on my mind with a number of competing instructions for what to do after finding myself on the aforementioned flame-bound rock. But let’s not concern ourselves with their misplaced concern, for they are almost certainly wrong. Instead, let’s go back to the original setup: me, the rock, and the fireball. It’s a bit strange, isn’t it? Every moment of unbearably powerful love, every masterful work of art, everything we’ve ever done goes unnoticed by the spherical duo. They’re indifferent, really. Oh, and the rest of the universe feels the same way. This cosmic indifference reduces me to a feeble question: Is it serious—is this vast arena of experiences we call life serious? Does it warrant a response deeply rooted in emotion? Or are we better off taking things lightly and carrying laughter with us through every experience?

It certainly feels as though our lives matter. Natural selection has left its mark here: we struggle to live even if we fail to love life. Most of us don’t need to be told that life matters, we dive in headfirst. But we stay curiously close to the surface, leaving the depths largely unexplored. Consider this: How often do you laugh after something leaves you emotionally vulnerable? How many misplaced chuckles find their way into discussions about murder, genocide, or some natural disaster?

We don’t know how to respond, and so we very quickly inject levity into the situation. We’re unknowingly using humor to defend ourselves against strong negative emotions. This defense allows us to face situations that would otherwise leave us debilitated. But humor has a darker side: it gives reverence to nothing. We laugh in the face of tragedy, but perhaps we should fall silent instead. We laugh because we don’t know what else to do, but perhaps it is time to learn.

Just as humor allows us to escape from tragedy, it protects us from ecstasy. It seems that we are not merely afraid of feeling pain, but of feeling at all. For feeling leaves us vulnerable and uncertain. Moments of intense connection with others are incredibly difficult to sustain. After we share kind words or stories about our lives, we almost universally feel compelled to break out of the moment—to come up for air. Even presenting these words to you is difficult because I run the risk of appearing foolishly sentimental. But what I’m proposing is simply that we give credibility to our emotions. Cosmic indifference would scoff at the idea of life’s significance (if it ever took the time to notice). But even if we concede that human life isn’t important to the universe, it’s still important to us. And, really, what more do you want?

So our living in an indifferent universe doesn’t eliminate the possibility of meaning—far from it. We have evolved the capability for both detached humor and profound emotion. We can live a deeply meaningful life. We see the beauty of life, but we also see the darkness within it. To allow ourselves to feel profoundly means facing both the beauty and the horror of life. To live lightly—through humor—means discarding the richness of life in favor of playfulness.

Does this playfulness lack depth? Is it an immature response to life when compared to the notion of responding with profound emotion? If we take that line of thought too far, we would discard laughter and replace it with profound emotion. But such a life is too burdensome. Fortunately, these two responses aren’t isolated from each other. A robust sense of humor can exist alongside a profound sense of meaning and emotion. The deployment of either response is a matter of practical wisdom. Some situations need to be faced and felt to their fullest extent. These are the experiences that give our lives meaning. But not all situations call for that kind of response—not all experiences need to be deeply meaningful. What’s essential is that we know when to laugh and when it’s important that we do otherwise.

Beyond the Instrumental

As my source of meaning shifts from the celestial to the earthly, I begin to cherish what I once neglected. Friendship. Family. Beauty. Reaching back into my earliest memories, I find a longing for intimacy and connection. But it was consistently displaced by an admonishing awareness that my true longing should be for intimacy and connection with the divine. Human connections were implicitly instrumental. Friendships mutually strengthened faith. Strangers were opportunities for proselytizing. The scope of my existence was eternal, and in a quiet way it seemed foolish to fill my time on this planet with transient concerns. Family was valuable, but the uniqueness of those bonds was lost on me. Their love, their attention, and their instruction were all useful insofar as they enabled me to fulfill the call. Beauty, too, was subsumed under this divine mission. A magnificent oak tree was not a source of wonder, but an argument. So too with sunsets, waterfalls, and sprawling mountain ranges. They were useful for fortifying belief and furthering the cause.

Morality, perhaps above all, was made into an instrumental matter. With heaven on the horizon and fire at our heels, we're bribed into obedience. Within this perspective, all motivation is reduced to selfishness. I don't help you because of empathy, compassion, or respect for life—I help you because such actions are required for my entrance into heaven, and my escape from hell. It is a view that, essentially, treats us like children.

These were my ideas, vivified in the corridors of my mind but impotent in the world. Instead of defining me, they haunted me. These views, though consistent with my Christian metaphysics, had little correspondence to my actual experience of life. In my own way, I always knew that friendship, family, and beauty were good in and of themselves.