A distinction must be made between religion and spirituality, because while religion poses some rather severe problems in the modern world, spirituality does not. The two are usually lumped together, thereby allowing generalizations about one to be applied to another. In fact, while religion and spirituality may often be found in close proximity with each other, each has certain features not necessary to the practice of the other. You can have religion without spirituality, and spirituality without religion.
Religion is primarily a system of beliefs concerning physical and metaphysical reality, delineating the sacred and the profane. These beliefs are transmitted orally or in writing; experience and practice are not essential components, and may be entirely absent in followers who nevertheless profess profound belief. Scripture and its interpretation by the clergy is the final arbiter. Correctness in religion can only be judged by comparison to external sources. Personal experience is highly suspect--due to its occult nature, it may even be delusional (religion's battle with the occult stems from the fact that it is itself a species of the occult.) The content, therefore, is cognitive and emotional, but only the cognitive content (belief) is approached in a systematic manner. It's main concern is to make truth claims about the world, even if the subject of those claims is hidden or shrouded in mystery. This is why religion may find itself in an adversarial relationship with science.
The sacred usually includes certain geographic locations, historical persons, texts, rituals, modes of dress, dietary habits, and the items used in these rituals. Although some of these may have had a practical purpose in the past (the avoidance of pork in desert religions is an example; pork spoiled quickly and dangerously in the desert heat), their continued persistence is traditional and fetishistic. This ritualistic behaviour seems eccentric or even foolish to those not of the faith. It is likely that it serves mostly to ensure a high level of commitment within the religious community and distinguish believers from non-believers. Seen in this light, the battles between various sects over minor details of conformity becomes understandable--these details exist precisely for the purpose of encouraging conformity.
There is usually an ethical system attached to the religion, but this ethical system is often simply an encouragement of adherance to the tenants of the faith: professions of faith may be granted more importance than ethical acts towards others. In a choice between adherance to articles of the faith and ethical behaviour towards others, faith may take higher priority. Ethical obligations usually follow tribal lines (towards fellow adherants.) In extreme cases, the ethical component may be dropped entirely, but this does not mean that belief system has been abandoned. Extremist sects merely alter the belief system, or may return to an earlier, more primitive version. Whatever else a religious fanatic may be, he is still slavishly devoted to his faith. Although touted as the most important aspect of the faith, the moral system is subject to intepretation, and is negotiable, and ultimately, dispensable.
Spirituality is primarily a system of practice and experience. Both cognitive and emotional elements are approached in a systematic manner. A system of beliefs may be present but the tradition can operate without them. There is no direct conflict between spirituality and science. The main goal is the attainment of happiness and well-being through an experience of communion with all of reality. The greatest obstacle to be overcome is our own obsession with self. The practice to attain this cannot be taught without considering relations with others, since the relatedness of self and other lies at the very heart of spirituality. Love and happiness require each other. An ethical system is therefore an integral part of the practice, and cannot be discarded without abandoning the practice entirely. If the ethical component is absent, claims to spirituality are a sham.
Rituals, when found in spiritual traditions, serve a practical purpose, and may be dropped if that purpose is not served, or if no purpose can be found for them. Texts may be studied, but only under the proviso that they are by nature flawed and incomplete--the spiritual experience cannot be put into words. Undue emphasis placed on any text or teaching is seen as an obstacle. The embodiment of the practice is the accomplished practitioner--but no teacher may become a target of worship and blind obedience. As Gautama Buddha said, "If you meet the buddha on the road, kill him!" External control is also an obstacle to enlightenment. Gurus and Messiahs maintain their flocks in a state of perpetual childhood. The very word flock is illustrative of the messianic attitude towards followers; they are sheep, to be herded, sheared, and slaughtered. The goal of spirituality is not to create followers, or to follow a leader, but to follow a path and help others who are willing to do the same. Proselytizing is considered somewhat vulgar and a symptom of arrogance.
The confusion between the two exists largely because many religious figures were in fact spiritual practitioners, who were later elevated to heroic or divine status in a religious pantheon. Many quotations from these figures make little sense in a religious context but perfect sense in a spiritual context. Spiritual traditions exist within religious traditions, but are kept quiet through constant censure. Mystics and monks of various religions will understand and agree with each other, but clerics and lay believers will fight tooth and nail. The truth is always and everywhere the same, but religion is obsessed with peripheral details, and the devil is in the details. Most religious believers are like sports fans who collect statistics and anecdotes, but have little idea what it is like to play the game.
The incorporation of spiritual figures into a religion is a matter of cooption and neutralization. Cooption prevents a schism from forming around the figure, and brings those who respect the spiritual figure into the fold. By elevating the spiritual figure to the level of hero or deity, the person in question is placed beyond the reach and emulation of the ordinary believer. His influence is limited to those sources controlled by the priesthood. One of the most blatant examples I found in a Catholic Bible, in a footnote for Jesus' words "Heaven is within you." At the bottom of the page was the explanation "ie., it is within your grasp, it is Jesus." The source of spirituality is externalized and removed to a distant pedestal, where the Church can charge admission. There is no greater embarrasment for a religion than a living prophet. A living prophet will contradict the clergy, and people will realize that he knows what he's talking about. Religion prefers its prophets dead, stuffed, and mounted as high as they can place them.
Religion is not spirituality. It is the dead husk of spirituality.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Utopias
I came across an article on Arts and Letters Daily about the rise of religion which I found all the more depressing because I think it may be true. Even in the most secular of societies there are a growing number of people seeking refuge in that old time religion. Something strange is happening to drive back the tide of secularism, and I think I know what it is. It has to do with utopian visions--that is, perfect worlds offered up with no viable or visible means of achieving them.
Marcus Aurelius opposed Christianity because he favoured Stoicism, but Christianity had a selling point that gave it the edge: it promised the afterlife. Christianity eventually won. Apparently virtue and self-discipline are not enough. People want a bright light at the end of the tunnel, a promised land. And this promised land can take many forms.
Christianity and Islam offer the most opulent of promised lands; a paradise beyond the vicissitudes of the world, where one is preserved for all time. According to Islam, one is preserved in a state of sensual largesse, with a ready compliment of willing sexual slaves and an endless supply of delicious foods. Apparently, all the desire that are to be denied in this world are to be fulfilled in the next. This is not materialism denied, merely materialism delayed. For the Christian the reward is more dubious, though it is argued to be more spiritual. One may look forward to an eternity of the presence and eternal praise of God. But it is never adequately explained why an eternity of membership in some sort of celestial choir, singing the praises of an apparently narcissistic diety, is the pinnacle of happiness. As the leading Heather in the movie Heathers complains, having been dead only a short while, "If I have to sing Cum By Ya one more time, I will throw up." One man's heaven is another man's hell. The primary consolation seems to be that the Christian will get to gloat over the fate of the non-Christian, content in the knowledge that the unbeliever will suffer a fate far worse. Revenge may be sweet, but this flies in the face of core of Jesus' teachings. In both of these afterlives, the highest good is the preservation of the individual ego. You may surrender, submit, and sacrifice as much as you like, but in the end, you'll get your way, and all the pleasures you've renounced. The payoff is an orgy of egotism. I suspect that the first Christians, and Jesus himself, would be appalled by this, and would likely have renounced the doctrine of the afterlife altogether if confronted with it in this form.
These utopias also fall prey to what Tolkien found evident in the immortality of his elves--an eternity spent chained to one's own personal limitations and the weight of past mistakes. I have always wondered why Tolkien did not realize that the fate of his elves would be shared by mortals as well, trapped in an afterlife that was largely a continuation of their own limited identity. Had the afterlife promised a release from one's own ego by having it merged with the consciousness of the divine, like a drop of water returned to the ocean, this objection might be overcome. But I suspect that this anihilation of self would be as terrifying to most believers as the fires of hell. They may want some sort of communion with God, but only on their own terms.
The rise of secularism came with the promise of secular utopias. The most obvious of these were the political utopias promised by Naziism and Communism; the Thousand Year Reich and the worker's paradise. Both of these had limited appeal and a limited base, and were known to be unworkeable long before their final collapse. The most popular secular utopia in the west was progress, the gleaming world of convenience and wealth promised in the middle of the 20th century. You can see this in The Jetsons, where everyone was supposed to drive hover cars and own a robot that would do all the housework, while we lived in leisure. This hit a snag in environmentalism and the energy crisis, when the bills of our increasingly profligate lifestyles came due. It became clear that there were limits to growth, that we simply did not have enough resources to sustain endless consumption. But this utopia shares a common trait with the heavenly utopias: the promise of infinite material reward. It is a materialistic answer to a spiritual question. It it like trying to assuage one's hunger by eating rocks. But the secular utopias have failed because they are subject to falsification, unlike the religious utopias, which float free in the clouds, and whose existence and limitations are beyond the reach of proper scrutiny. This goes a long way to explaining the resurgance of religious faith.
Utopias of more limited appeal have continued to appear. I suspect that Star Trek gained its popularity, not because it was a prime example of great science fiction (it wasn't,) but because it provided a promise of a utopian future without racism, sexism, proverty, or war amongst mankind, a universe in which human beings had overcome the problems of our present and soared amongst the stars like gods. The very idea that we would be alive and well five hundred years from now was reassuring. Political utopias continue to abound, now largely from the right rather than the left; the promised land will now come through the invisible hand of the market, or through the reduction of government, or through the return of traditional values. Never mind that the market is a blind machine insensitive to many real human needs, that a weak government simply opens the field to new forms of government not subject to democratic control (the ability of Wal Mart, for example, to dictate what is available for people to read and hear,) or that traditional values led us to where we are now, and were instrumental in creating many of our existing problems. Cults continue to abound, promising a glorious future if only we can convert enough people. And there is the individual utopia, where with enough money, power, or fame, one can move beyond the irritants of everyday life to a promised land of ease and luxury. This is the utopia inherent in the American Dream.
What these utopias promise is a magical way to bypass the messy business of personal responsibility in order to achieve a perfect world. Totalitarian utopias (including cults and old school political ideologies) are offered with the claim that you don't have to do anything, you only have to give your leaders the power to do it. Religious utopias leave it all to God. Libertarian utopias promise that the system will provide, if only it is not interfered with. The individual utopia requires effort, but only in serving one's own self interest; being a psychopath is not a problem as long as one is a successful psychopath. Personal success may come at a cost to others that outweighs the benefit to you, but this is not your responsibility. Pursuit of other utopias results in the damage caused by sins of omission, but the search for a personal utopia may actively cause harm.
Real progress towards a better world is a slow and arduous journey, in which small gains are made, carefully checked to see whether they really are gains, and then firmly established before going on to the next task. It requires a mastery of the real complexities involved, but this in turn require cooperation and individual competence. The last renaissance man died in the renaissance. Mastery of any domain of knowledge requires specialization, and to gain an understanding of any situation, these specialists must convey their knowledge, or lack therof, honestly and without a destructive measure of self interest. Effecting change requires efforts at all levels of society, and a genuine attempt to understand the consequences of ones own actions. And the strictly materialistic goals enshrined in nearly all utopias (including the religious ones) must be abandoned.
Perhaps the ideal of broad personal responsibility is itself utopian. But without it, nothing will improve. The result may not be a perfect world, but it may be a better world.
Marcus Aurelius opposed Christianity because he favoured Stoicism, but Christianity had a selling point that gave it the edge: it promised the afterlife. Christianity eventually won. Apparently virtue and self-discipline are not enough. People want a bright light at the end of the tunnel, a promised land. And this promised land can take many forms.
Christianity and Islam offer the most opulent of promised lands; a paradise beyond the vicissitudes of the world, where one is preserved for all time. According to Islam, one is preserved in a state of sensual largesse, with a ready compliment of willing sexual slaves and an endless supply of delicious foods. Apparently, all the desire that are to be denied in this world are to be fulfilled in the next. This is not materialism denied, merely materialism delayed. For the Christian the reward is more dubious, though it is argued to be more spiritual. One may look forward to an eternity of the presence and eternal praise of God. But it is never adequately explained why an eternity of membership in some sort of celestial choir, singing the praises of an apparently narcissistic diety, is the pinnacle of happiness. As the leading Heather in the movie Heathers complains, having been dead only a short while, "If I have to sing Cum By Ya one more time, I will throw up." One man's heaven is another man's hell. The primary consolation seems to be that the Christian will get to gloat over the fate of the non-Christian, content in the knowledge that the unbeliever will suffer a fate far worse. Revenge may be sweet, but this flies in the face of core of Jesus' teachings. In both of these afterlives, the highest good is the preservation of the individual ego. You may surrender, submit, and sacrifice as much as you like, but in the end, you'll get your way, and all the pleasures you've renounced. The payoff is an orgy of egotism. I suspect that the first Christians, and Jesus himself, would be appalled by this, and would likely have renounced the doctrine of the afterlife altogether if confronted with it in this form.
These utopias also fall prey to what Tolkien found evident in the immortality of his elves--an eternity spent chained to one's own personal limitations and the weight of past mistakes. I have always wondered why Tolkien did not realize that the fate of his elves would be shared by mortals as well, trapped in an afterlife that was largely a continuation of their own limited identity. Had the afterlife promised a release from one's own ego by having it merged with the consciousness of the divine, like a drop of water returned to the ocean, this objection might be overcome. But I suspect that this anihilation of self would be as terrifying to most believers as the fires of hell. They may want some sort of communion with God, but only on their own terms.
The rise of secularism came with the promise of secular utopias. The most obvious of these were the political utopias promised by Naziism and Communism; the Thousand Year Reich and the worker's paradise. Both of these had limited appeal and a limited base, and were known to be unworkeable long before their final collapse. The most popular secular utopia in the west was progress, the gleaming world of convenience and wealth promised in the middle of the 20th century. You can see this in The Jetsons, where everyone was supposed to drive hover cars and own a robot that would do all the housework, while we lived in leisure. This hit a snag in environmentalism and the energy crisis, when the bills of our increasingly profligate lifestyles came due. It became clear that there were limits to growth, that we simply did not have enough resources to sustain endless consumption. But this utopia shares a common trait with the heavenly utopias: the promise of infinite material reward. It is a materialistic answer to a spiritual question. It it like trying to assuage one's hunger by eating rocks. But the secular utopias have failed because they are subject to falsification, unlike the religious utopias, which float free in the clouds, and whose existence and limitations are beyond the reach of proper scrutiny. This goes a long way to explaining the resurgance of religious faith.
Utopias of more limited appeal have continued to appear. I suspect that Star Trek gained its popularity, not because it was a prime example of great science fiction (it wasn't,) but because it provided a promise of a utopian future without racism, sexism, proverty, or war amongst mankind, a universe in which human beings had overcome the problems of our present and soared amongst the stars like gods. The very idea that we would be alive and well five hundred years from now was reassuring. Political utopias continue to abound, now largely from the right rather than the left; the promised land will now come through the invisible hand of the market, or through the reduction of government, or through the return of traditional values. Never mind that the market is a blind machine insensitive to many real human needs, that a weak government simply opens the field to new forms of government not subject to democratic control (the ability of Wal Mart, for example, to dictate what is available for people to read and hear,) or that traditional values led us to where we are now, and were instrumental in creating many of our existing problems. Cults continue to abound, promising a glorious future if only we can convert enough people. And there is the individual utopia, where with enough money, power, or fame, one can move beyond the irritants of everyday life to a promised land of ease and luxury. This is the utopia inherent in the American Dream.
What these utopias promise is a magical way to bypass the messy business of personal responsibility in order to achieve a perfect world. Totalitarian utopias (including cults and old school political ideologies) are offered with the claim that you don't have to do anything, you only have to give your leaders the power to do it. Religious utopias leave it all to God. Libertarian utopias promise that the system will provide, if only it is not interfered with. The individual utopia requires effort, but only in serving one's own self interest; being a psychopath is not a problem as long as one is a successful psychopath. Personal success may come at a cost to others that outweighs the benefit to you, but this is not your responsibility. Pursuit of other utopias results in the damage caused by sins of omission, but the search for a personal utopia may actively cause harm.
Real progress towards a better world is a slow and arduous journey, in which small gains are made, carefully checked to see whether they really are gains, and then firmly established before going on to the next task. It requires a mastery of the real complexities involved, but this in turn require cooperation and individual competence. The last renaissance man died in the renaissance. Mastery of any domain of knowledge requires specialization, and to gain an understanding of any situation, these specialists must convey their knowledge, or lack therof, honestly and without a destructive measure of self interest. Effecting change requires efforts at all levels of society, and a genuine attempt to understand the consequences of ones own actions. And the strictly materialistic goals enshrined in nearly all utopias (including the religious ones) must be abandoned.
Perhaps the ideal of broad personal responsibility is itself utopian. But without it, nothing will improve. The result may not be a perfect world, but it may be a better world.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Reciprocity and World Making
Sam Harris, in The End of Faith, writes about an ethical dilemma. We would consider torture wrong under any circumstances. But consider this situation: a terrorist that you have captured boasts that he has placed a nuclear bomb somewhere in the a large population area. It will go off in 24 hours. Would torturing him to find out where he placed the bomb be wrong?
Against this, he compares the use of bombs used on military targets near civilian populations. We drop these bombs, and expect some collateral damage. This inflicts suffering on innocent people equal or greater than the suffering inflicted in torture. Yet we are willing to accept this outcome. Harris believes that this is because we don't directly experience the suffering we cause. He mentions a Russian soldier who said that shooting a man at point blank range was terrible, but killing en masse, in combat, was actually fun.
But in the case of the terrorist, I would offer this analysis. The terrorist has abandoned the social contract by which we limit the harm done to others by our actions--indeed, he has abondoned all social contracts. His target is nothing less than civilization itself. He intends to cut the ties that bind societies together, to wreak havoc and chaos wherever he can. He has abandoned all social contracts; or, he has entered a new one, in which there are no restrictions. And so, there should be no restrictions in dealing with him.
The answer to this would be that we should not sink to his level in dealing with him. But think about war. Do we not sink to our enemy's level in accepting the contract of war? Because it is a contract, as the Geneva Convention demonstrates. And yet, we don't flinch from this contract when faced with a military threat. Under this contract, killing is not only permitted, it is actually celebrated.
Think about something closer to home. You go to a restaurant with someone. They eat a meal, and then demand that you pay for it. Naturally, you get angry, and insist that they pay for their own meal. This anger and reaction would not be justified without the breach in ethical behaviour. It would be inappropriate to eye someone suspiciously and insist that they pay for their meal if they haven't given you cause to believe that they won't. You have accepted the modified social contract, because the normal one has been breached. This is reciprocity. This is how we learn and correct aberrant behaviour. This is everyday justice.
Beliefs and actions shape the world around us. In nearly all formulations of the Golden Rule, there is an element of contagion. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" carries the notion of reciprocity--there is an unspoken expectation (thought not a guarantee) that others will respond in kind. Kant's categorical imperative is even clearer: "Act only by that maxim whereby you could will it to be a universal maxim." Inherent in this is a form of world making, the creation of a social contract of mutual respect and fair play. If we are conscious of the effects of our actions, we attempt, through ethical action, to create the world we want to live in. This is also expressed in the idea of paying it forward--good deeds are propogated through others, and shift the world towards a better state of affairs. And by reciprocity, we are able to live, to some extent, in the world we seek to create.
Now consider what kind of world the terrorist is attempting to create: hell on earth. He is attempting to disrupt all social bonds, sow discord and mistrust at every level. He is trying to unravel the social fabric and bring about a state of universal warfare, bringing social, economic, and political ruin, with a resultant list of casualties that far outstrips the casualties he inflicts with his act of terrorism. This is the world he seeks to create, and this is the world which he has volunteered, by his actions, to live in. The terrorist has volunteered to sit in the iron throne. He has asked to be tortured. By the principle of reciprocity, we owe this to him. Or, at the very least, we have to show him the abyss he is opening under his own feet. Perhaps a glimpse of this moral black hole will achieve more than torture itself will. He will never learn unless he can see where his actions are leading. But we also owe it to him to warn him and others, in advance, of where his actions are leading.
Note that this does not excuse torture of captives suspected of terrorism. This is a preemptive breach of the social contract. Until a fairly strong proof of guilt is established, this encourages a reciprocity with the act of torture as the originating point of a negative chain of tit-for-tat. In other words, it provides a source of justification for potential terrorists. The torture of innocents as part of a war on terrorism amounts to giving aid and comfort to the enemy. In this case, the defenders of civilization are themselves breaching the wall of civility, exposing a weakness to their enemies.
In this light, it is easy to understand why terrorists are suicidal. They have no desire to live in the world that will result if they suceed. Nor, indeed, do they wish to live in the world as it is. As my wife Debbie pointed out, the terrorist is attempting to create hell on earth because he already believes that earth is hell. He believes that the Devil rules the world. As Dostoyevsky said, if there is no God, all is permitted. But if the Devil is seen to hold sway over the world, God is completely eclipsed and utterly absent. God here can simply stand for the belief that there is something good in the world worth saving, the Devil for the degree to which the world is corrupt and worthless. Substitute for God and the Devil the utopia and bane of any political or conspiracy theory, and you can see where supposedly secular terrorist groups are coming from. The configuration is the same, and the result is the same. No bounds need be respected in dealing with others, nothing is to be spared, all is to be destroyed and swept away.
The most frightening statistic about the religious right is that 65% of Americans believe in Satan. The Left Behind series clearly illustrates that Christians who read these books consider the rest of the world to be the province of the Devil, to be destroyed and swept away. If they suffer a dramatic setback, quashing their belief that God will intervene and rapture them away from all harm, what happens then? An America convinced that the world has gone to hell, armed with a nuclear arsenal, may decide to send it to hell, hoping to be raptured up in the mushroom clouds.
Believe strongly enough in the Devil, and you become him.
Against this, he compares the use of bombs used on military targets near civilian populations. We drop these bombs, and expect some collateral damage. This inflicts suffering on innocent people equal or greater than the suffering inflicted in torture. Yet we are willing to accept this outcome. Harris believes that this is because we don't directly experience the suffering we cause. He mentions a Russian soldier who said that shooting a man at point blank range was terrible, but killing en masse, in combat, was actually fun.
But in the case of the terrorist, I would offer this analysis. The terrorist has abandoned the social contract by which we limit the harm done to others by our actions--indeed, he has abondoned all social contracts. His target is nothing less than civilization itself. He intends to cut the ties that bind societies together, to wreak havoc and chaos wherever he can. He has abandoned all social contracts; or, he has entered a new one, in which there are no restrictions. And so, there should be no restrictions in dealing with him.
The answer to this would be that we should not sink to his level in dealing with him. But think about war. Do we not sink to our enemy's level in accepting the contract of war? Because it is a contract, as the Geneva Convention demonstrates. And yet, we don't flinch from this contract when faced with a military threat. Under this contract, killing is not only permitted, it is actually celebrated.
Think about something closer to home. You go to a restaurant with someone. They eat a meal, and then demand that you pay for it. Naturally, you get angry, and insist that they pay for their own meal. This anger and reaction would not be justified without the breach in ethical behaviour. It would be inappropriate to eye someone suspiciously and insist that they pay for their meal if they haven't given you cause to believe that they won't. You have accepted the modified social contract, because the normal one has been breached. This is reciprocity. This is how we learn and correct aberrant behaviour. This is everyday justice.
Beliefs and actions shape the world around us. In nearly all formulations of the Golden Rule, there is an element of contagion. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" carries the notion of reciprocity--there is an unspoken expectation (thought not a guarantee) that others will respond in kind. Kant's categorical imperative is even clearer: "Act only by that maxim whereby you could will it to be a universal maxim." Inherent in this is a form of world making, the creation of a social contract of mutual respect and fair play. If we are conscious of the effects of our actions, we attempt, through ethical action, to create the world we want to live in. This is also expressed in the idea of paying it forward--good deeds are propogated through others, and shift the world towards a better state of affairs. And by reciprocity, we are able to live, to some extent, in the world we seek to create.
Now consider what kind of world the terrorist is attempting to create: hell on earth. He is attempting to disrupt all social bonds, sow discord and mistrust at every level. He is trying to unravel the social fabric and bring about a state of universal warfare, bringing social, economic, and political ruin, with a resultant list of casualties that far outstrips the casualties he inflicts with his act of terrorism. This is the world he seeks to create, and this is the world which he has volunteered, by his actions, to live in. The terrorist has volunteered to sit in the iron throne. He has asked to be tortured. By the principle of reciprocity, we owe this to him. Or, at the very least, we have to show him the abyss he is opening under his own feet. Perhaps a glimpse of this moral black hole will achieve more than torture itself will. He will never learn unless he can see where his actions are leading. But we also owe it to him to warn him and others, in advance, of where his actions are leading.
Note that this does not excuse torture of captives suspected of terrorism. This is a preemptive breach of the social contract. Until a fairly strong proof of guilt is established, this encourages a reciprocity with the act of torture as the originating point of a negative chain of tit-for-tat. In other words, it provides a source of justification for potential terrorists. The torture of innocents as part of a war on terrorism amounts to giving aid and comfort to the enemy. In this case, the defenders of civilization are themselves breaching the wall of civility, exposing a weakness to their enemies.
In this light, it is easy to understand why terrorists are suicidal. They have no desire to live in the world that will result if they suceed. Nor, indeed, do they wish to live in the world as it is. As my wife Debbie pointed out, the terrorist is attempting to create hell on earth because he already believes that earth is hell. He believes that the Devil rules the world. As Dostoyevsky said, if there is no God, all is permitted. But if the Devil is seen to hold sway over the world, God is completely eclipsed and utterly absent. God here can simply stand for the belief that there is something good in the world worth saving, the Devil for the degree to which the world is corrupt and worthless. Substitute for God and the Devil the utopia and bane of any political or conspiracy theory, and you can see where supposedly secular terrorist groups are coming from. The configuration is the same, and the result is the same. No bounds need be respected in dealing with others, nothing is to be spared, all is to be destroyed and swept away.
The most frightening statistic about the religious right is that 65% of Americans believe in Satan. The Left Behind series clearly illustrates that Christians who read these books consider the rest of the world to be the province of the Devil, to be destroyed and swept away. If they suffer a dramatic setback, quashing their belief that God will intervene and rapture them away from all harm, what happens then? An America convinced that the world has gone to hell, armed with a nuclear arsenal, may decide to send it to hell, hoping to be raptured up in the mushroom clouds.
Believe strongly enough in the Devil, and you become him.
Monday, August 15, 2005
The Egotism of Triumphalism
One of the things I've noticed about career alcoholics (people who have been drinking steadily for decades) is that, if you argue a point with them, they will refuse to see your point. Then, sometime later, they will come back and restate the idea as their own. If you mention that you had already argued for it, they will insist that they taught it to you. Apparently, Steve Jobs does the same thing. He will argue against something, and then come back and say "I have a great idea..." and then repeat your own idea back to you. If you repeat their own words back to these people, they will deny they said them. If you prove that they said otherwise, they will again reverse their position, rather than admit they were wrong.
Religions do the same thing. Organized religion always fights a rear action against the advance of civilization. Religions have sided with the aristocracy against democracy, the workshop owners against children, slave owners against the slaves, Nazis against the Jews, superstition against science, and so on. But later, all of the opposite positions are reclaimed as achievements of religion. Like any complete egotist, triumphalist religions can never admit that they are wrong, that there was something that they didn't know. They can only assimilate an idea if they believe they thought of it. But since the scriptures are written down, we have a record of what was actually claimed. This, combined with the egotism of triumphalism, is a major obstacle to learning in any devout follower.
Hindus are now claiming that their religion prefigured science from the beginning. Muslims claim the golden age of Islam as a natural outgrowth of their faith, rather than what it was--a relaxation of rigid orthodoxy and a willingness to embrace outside influences. And the proponents of Intelligent Design wish to claim that science supports creationist views, when it does nothing of the sort. The first step in learning is to admit that there is something that you don't know, or that something you believed is wrong. But if you insist that you had all the answers centuries or millenia ago, you can't do either. The real motive behind this is narcissistic egotism--pure, undiluted and unrepentant pride.
Religions do the same thing. Organized religion always fights a rear action against the advance of civilization. Religions have sided with the aristocracy against democracy, the workshop owners against children, slave owners against the slaves, Nazis against the Jews, superstition against science, and so on. But later, all of the opposite positions are reclaimed as achievements of religion. Like any complete egotist, triumphalist religions can never admit that they are wrong, that there was something that they didn't know. They can only assimilate an idea if they believe they thought of it. But since the scriptures are written down, we have a record of what was actually claimed. This, combined with the egotism of triumphalism, is a major obstacle to learning in any devout follower.
Hindus are now claiming that their religion prefigured science from the beginning. Muslims claim the golden age of Islam as a natural outgrowth of their faith, rather than what it was--a relaxation of rigid orthodoxy and a willingness to embrace outside influences. And the proponents of Intelligent Design wish to claim that science supports creationist views, when it does nothing of the sort. The first step in learning is to admit that there is something that you don't know, or that something you believed is wrong. But if you insist that you had all the answers centuries or millenia ago, you can't do either. The real motive behind this is narcissistic egotism--pure, undiluted and unrepentant pride.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
The Culture of Multiculturalism
A few years back during the first season of Babylon 5, one of the episodes depicted each of the major alien races on the station inviting others to witness some cultural or religious event that defined the dominant culture of their world. When at last it came to the humans' turn, the captain introduced his alien guests to a row of representatives of all of the major religions on earth. The message was that there was no dominant culture or religion. But as my friend Pat pointed out, there was--the culture of the captain, who was able to arrange all of those believers in a line, like voices in a choir.
This is the culture of multiculturalism. It's premises, briefly stated, are as follows:
This position is the high water mark of human civilization. By extension, it might be better if we abolished religion altogether. It is, after all, not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and encourages a great deal of muddy, wishful, magical thinking, not to mention some extremely dangerous irrational behaviour. The ethical component so often touted as the primary incentive to preserve religion is a cunard. Religion is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for moral behaviour, and it encourages as many sins as it does virtues. But it is foolish to insist on this position, simply because religion is encouraged and supported by a host of emotional motives and cognitive disfunctions that are apparently endemic to the human mind. I've prepared a list of these, but they are too many to go into here. Suffice it to say that it takes more effort and dedication than most people are willing to spend to rid themselves of it, and even most atheists have arrived at their position without much thought. Religion is not going to go away.
At the same time, the essentially secular attitude upon which multiculturalism is based can, should, and will defend itself against all challengers. These challengers will espouse some form of orthodoxy, whether religious or secular. Political correctness in all its variations are as much a form of orthodoxy as Christianity or Islam; the views of a confirmed Marxist or free market proponent will often rival the staunchest fundamentalist for pigheaded rigidity. Even postmodernism is a form of orthodoxy; defending its positive assertions with the sophistry of relativism, postmodernists dodge counterarguments by denying all truth, only to sneak back and try to establish their own opinions as the final word.
Multiculturalism amounts to the admission that you can't control what people think, nor should you try. It's a broader form of a tolerance for eccentricity. The tolerance ends, though, when it is abused and taken for weakness, when the broad social contract that underlies it is ignored or exploited. Then we remember why we chose this ironic attitude towards beliefs of all kinds. Our own history demonstrates how, given the chance, religion becomes tyranny. We may not be able to get rid of it, but at least we can prevent it from taking over.
This is the culture of multiculturalism. It's premises, briefly stated, are as follows:
- You may believe anything you like, provided that you accept that your beliefs may be wrong.
- Rational discourse based upon solid evidence shall be the sole mode of discourse in the establishment of the truth. Anything outside this is mere opinion. You may not dictate to others what they must believe, nor employ force to spread your beliefs.
- You may choose to partake in the arts and customs of any culture within the limitations laid out by the law, but you have no power to force anyone else to do the same.
- No governmental agency may act to encourage or discourage any religious belief or lack thereof.
This position is the high water mark of human civilization. By extension, it might be better if we abolished religion altogether. It is, after all, not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and encourages a great deal of muddy, wishful, magical thinking, not to mention some extremely dangerous irrational behaviour. The ethical component so often touted as the primary incentive to preserve religion is a cunard. Religion is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for moral behaviour, and it encourages as many sins as it does virtues. But it is foolish to insist on this position, simply because religion is encouraged and supported by a host of emotional motives and cognitive disfunctions that are apparently endemic to the human mind. I've prepared a list of these, but they are too many to go into here. Suffice it to say that it takes more effort and dedication than most people are willing to spend to rid themselves of it, and even most atheists have arrived at their position without much thought. Religion is not going to go away.
At the same time, the essentially secular attitude upon which multiculturalism is based can, should, and will defend itself against all challengers. These challengers will espouse some form of orthodoxy, whether religious or secular. Political correctness in all its variations are as much a form of orthodoxy as Christianity or Islam; the views of a confirmed Marxist or free market proponent will often rival the staunchest fundamentalist for pigheaded rigidity. Even postmodernism is a form of orthodoxy; defending its positive assertions with the sophistry of relativism, postmodernists dodge counterarguments by denying all truth, only to sneak back and try to establish their own opinions as the final word.
Multiculturalism amounts to the admission that you can't control what people think, nor should you try. It's a broader form of a tolerance for eccentricity. The tolerance ends, though, when it is abused and taken for weakness, when the broad social contract that underlies it is ignored or exploited. Then we remember why we chose this ironic attitude towards beliefs of all kinds. Our own history demonstrates how, given the chance, religion becomes tyranny. We may not be able to get rid of it, but at least we can prevent it from taking over.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
On Faith and Love
I've written before that faith has little to do with a belief in unverifiable tenants, in so called "articles of faith', but is instead an essentially optimistic approach to life and other human beings. Rote beliefs in metaphysical or magical propositions are no more than mere superstition, and have little influence on practical considerations. Belief in the afterlife is as likely to encourage the acts of the suicide bomber as it is to encourage altruistic behaviour. Stubborn adherance to the superstition of creationism says little about the ethical character of the believer beyond a tendancy to willful ignorance, itself a major character flaw. Indeed, M. Scott Peck, in People of the Lie, attributes evil to willful ignorance. And unquestioning adherance to the literal word of any scripture is at best ethically neutral. These same works have inspired acts ranging from the selfless devotion of Mother Theresa to the homicidal manias of Charlie Manson. The interpretation of these works says much more, since people will find there what they bring with them. Those seeking the Fellowship of Humanity will find it there, but so will those seeking a justification for whatever crimes they are already inclined to commit.
There is one area in which we are required to make assumptions without proof, and that is in our opinions of people we do not know, and in future outcomes involving unknowns. Faith in human beings has two essential aspects: the trust that they will deal fairly with us, and the confidence that they can do what they say they can. If we habitually assume the worst, we will often find our suspicions justified when those we suspect react to us in kind, or become discouraged by our show of doubt. If we assume the best, we may be disappointed, but we will also be far more likely to encounter the best in others, and we will be more likely to succeed. Pessimists have a more accurate estimate of the outcome, but optimists are more likely to succeed. This may be in part because pessimism both anticipates failure and contributes to it. The pessimist is not disappointed in his expectation of disappointment. But he is also unlikely to take the risk needed to find that rare nugget of gold, that true friend, or that serendipitous discovery. Faith, hope, and charity are in fact different sides of the same thing.
Faith extends to ourselves as well as others, in our confidence in our own abilities. Certainty of failure prevents action; success in any endeavour is prevented because the endeavour is not attempted. This is the paralyzing gaze of the black dog of depression. The concept of grace is that quality of confidence that some have and others lack, which may be rooted in past experience or in brain chemistry. The roots of this faith or doubt in self may lie in psychological or physiological causes. The physiological causes are now coming into view, but the psychological conditions may take a lifetime to unravel, if they can be unraveled at all. It is no wonder, then, that doctors are so willing to prescribe pills, which in some cases may be all that is required to break the cycle.
But this faith in oneself is by no means a necessary or sufficient condition for ethical behaviour. Sociopaths tend to have a rather high estimation of themselves. Self esteem is by no means a guarantee of virtue. Something else is required for this, and that something is love. I am not talking about mere sentimentality here. Sentimentality is the love of person as an object, a construct of imagination in which the person become the mere repository of the wishes and desires of the beholder, a hollow automoton that we paint with our favourite colors. Sentimentality quickly turns to anger and hate when the object in question suddenly reveals themselves to be another messy human being, with all the flaws humans are heir too, and with a will of their own that frustrates our expectations. The romantic perfection promised by our grandiose wedding ceremonies is an illusion. It's one thing to throw a lavish party, it's another to expect the party to last forever. Sentimentality is easy; love is hard work. And marriage is not the only relationship that requires love--to some extent, even the briefest encounters require some measure of it.
Love is the motivation that powers faith, the desire to see the best in others and to accept their imperfections. Love is comprised of three aspects: good will, compassion, and empathy. Good will is the willingness to root for the other person, to take pleasure in their achievements without petty jealousy. A uniform application of good will requires a conquest of one's own ego, the petty, needy desire to be better than others. Compassion is the capacity to forgive and give aid to others in need, a counter to greed and selfishness. In fact, compassion counters greed at the societal level as well--ubiquitous generosity calms the fear of material ruin. If helping hands are there to catch us, we need not spend our lives hording wealth in fear of the spectre of poverty. Generosity encourages generosity in others.
Empathy is the counter to sentimentality, a genuine effort to understand the other person. Without understanding, good deeds are worthless. If I were hungry, I would like a peanut butter sandwich, but that same sandwich would kill someone with a strong allergy to peanuts. A glass of wine might be of great benefit to someone in stress, but if that person is an alcoholic, that glass of wine might destroy them. In order to help someone, you must first take the time to understand them. This means listening rather than assuming, giving them what they need rather than what you think they need. This applies, again, at both the personal and societal level. There have been many aid programs that have done more harm than good, in which money or goods blindly given have supported corrupt governments or harmed the health or economic prospects of the recipients. Charity without empathy is simply an attempt to feel good about ourselves, without any real concern for the recipient of our charity.
All of this demands that the question of evil be faced; how do we deal with those who would be all to willing to take without giving back, those in whom no faith is justified? The answer, I think, is fairly obvious--you give them the benefit of the doubt on your first meeting, and punish or simply avoid them after this if they betray your trust. Researchers have discovered that people will, even at a real cost to themselves, punish others they perceive as having cheated them or others, and the desire to do this seems to be very deeply rooted. This, in fact, is called in game theory optimistic tit-for-tat, and is the best general strategy for the prisoners dilemma. However, it produces negative results when applied against a pessimistic or aggressive strategy. One of the ways to recover from this is a variation that allows optimistic tit-for-tat to forgive periodically, or give two chances rather than one, but that still does not deal with the case of the uniformly aggressive strategy, in which the other person always cheats. Such simple models of game strategy, however, do not take into account that aggressive players eventually get a reputation as such. The number of people willing to give them the benefit of the doubt dwindles as the number of people waiting to exact revenge grows. Eventually, they lose all their winnings.
Contrary to the simplistic philosophy of Star Wars, anger is not always the path to the Dark Side. Simple anger directed at a clear transgression has a corrective effect. Sustained anger does not--this is hatred, and leads to the same aggressive behaviour which loses the game. We have evolved this strong tendency to punish cheating because it threatens not only us, but the entire society upon which we depend. We retaliate against those who betray our trust because they are a threat to our kind, to humanity itself. Consider the value of money. It is in fact, merely a promisary note, ink on paper. We attach value to it based upon our faith that others will make good on it. Money is a magical object. The real currency is the faith we hold in others and our institutions. Each betrayal of trust erodes this faith, threatening the very basis that our money, and our entire society, is based on. People who lie, cheat, and steal are like the Coyote in those old Road Runner cartoons, sawing the board in the middle between himself and cliff, cutting his only means of support. The pathetic thing about most criminals is their incapacity to grasp the consequences of their own actions. And yet, there are many legitimate businessmen who act just within the boundaries of the law, and yet are guilty of the same ignorance. If a critical mass of corruption and distrust is reached, the very money they have sacrificed so much else for will be worth less than the paper it is printed on.
If betrayal of the faith in others for personal gain is evil, the ultimate evil is betrayal of faith for the purpose of destroying faith itself. This is the intent of terrorists. Freedom and responsibility are inseparable; one earns one by demonstrating the other. We extend and defend freedoms as a testament of our faith--real faith, not some inconsequential, childish superstition. There is always the danger that someone will abuse this freedom, but that is the price we are willing to pay. To exploit this freedom in an attempt to destroy it is to declare war on humanity itself. And to do this in the name of God is to declare good evil and evil good.
I do not believe in God. The Muslim extremists better hope I'm right. Because if I'm not, they have declared war on God as well.
There is one area in which we are required to make assumptions without proof, and that is in our opinions of people we do not know, and in future outcomes involving unknowns. Faith in human beings has two essential aspects: the trust that they will deal fairly with us, and the confidence that they can do what they say they can. If we habitually assume the worst, we will often find our suspicions justified when those we suspect react to us in kind, or become discouraged by our show of doubt. If we assume the best, we may be disappointed, but we will also be far more likely to encounter the best in others, and we will be more likely to succeed. Pessimists have a more accurate estimate of the outcome, but optimists are more likely to succeed. This may be in part because pessimism both anticipates failure and contributes to it. The pessimist is not disappointed in his expectation of disappointment. But he is also unlikely to take the risk needed to find that rare nugget of gold, that true friend, or that serendipitous discovery. Faith, hope, and charity are in fact different sides of the same thing.
Faith extends to ourselves as well as others, in our confidence in our own abilities. Certainty of failure prevents action; success in any endeavour is prevented because the endeavour is not attempted. This is the paralyzing gaze of the black dog of depression. The concept of grace is that quality of confidence that some have and others lack, which may be rooted in past experience or in brain chemistry. The roots of this faith or doubt in self may lie in psychological or physiological causes. The physiological causes are now coming into view, but the psychological conditions may take a lifetime to unravel, if they can be unraveled at all. It is no wonder, then, that doctors are so willing to prescribe pills, which in some cases may be all that is required to break the cycle.
But this faith in oneself is by no means a necessary or sufficient condition for ethical behaviour. Sociopaths tend to have a rather high estimation of themselves. Self esteem is by no means a guarantee of virtue. Something else is required for this, and that something is love. I am not talking about mere sentimentality here. Sentimentality is the love of person as an object, a construct of imagination in which the person become the mere repository of the wishes and desires of the beholder, a hollow automoton that we paint with our favourite colors. Sentimentality quickly turns to anger and hate when the object in question suddenly reveals themselves to be another messy human being, with all the flaws humans are heir too, and with a will of their own that frustrates our expectations. The romantic perfection promised by our grandiose wedding ceremonies is an illusion. It's one thing to throw a lavish party, it's another to expect the party to last forever. Sentimentality is easy; love is hard work. And marriage is not the only relationship that requires love--to some extent, even the briefest encounters require some measure of it.
Love is the motivation that powers faith, the desire to see the best in others and to accept their imperfections. Love is comprised of three aspects: good will, compassion, and empathy. Good will is the willingness to root for the other person, to take pleasure in their achievements without petty jealousy. A uniform application of good will requires a conquest of one's own ego, the petty, needy desire to be better than others. Compassion is the capacity to forgive and give aid to others in need, a counter to greed and selfishness. In fact, compassion counters greed at the societal level as well--ubiquitous generosity calms the fear of material ruin. If helping hands are there to catch us, we need not spend our lives hording wealth in fear of the spectre of poverty. Generosity encourages generosity in others.
Empathy is the counter to sentimentality, a genuine effort to understand the other person. Without understanding, good deeds are worthless. If I were hungry, I would like a peanut butter sandwich, but that same sandwich would kill someone with a strong allergy to peanuts. A glass of wine might be of great benefit to someone in stress, but if that person is an alcoholic, that glass of wine might destroy them. In order to help someone, you must first take the time to understand them. This means listening rather than assuming, giving them what they need rather than what you think they need. This applies, again, at both the personal and societal level. There have been many aid programs that have done more harm than good, in which money or goods blindly given have supported corrupt governments or harmed the health or economic prospects of the recipients. Charity without empathy is simply an attempt to feel good about ourselves, without any real concern for the recipient of our charity.
All of this demands that the question of evil be faced; how do we deal with those who would be all to willing to take without giving back, those in whom no faith is justified? The answer, I think, is fairly obvious--you give them the benefit of the doubt on your first meeting, and punish or simply avoid them after this if they betray your trust. Researchers have discovered that people will, even at a real cost to themselves, punish others they perceive as having cheated them or others, and the desire to do this seems to be very deeply rooted. This, in fact, is called in game theory optimistic tit-for-tat, and is the best general strategy for the prisoners dilemma. However, it produces negative results when applied against a pessimistic or aggressive strategy. One of the ways to recover from this is a variation that allows optimistic tit-for-tat to forgive periodically, or give two chances rather than one, but that still does not deal with the case of the uniformly aggressive strategy, in which the other person always cheats. Such simple models of game strategy, however, do not take into account that aggressive players eventually get a reputation as such. The number of people willing to give them the benefit of the doubt dwindles as the number of people waiting to exact revenge grows. Eventually, they lose all their winnings.
Contrary to the simplistic philosophy of Star Wars, anger is not always the path to the Dark Side. Simple anger directed at a clear transgression has a corrective effect. Sustained anger does not--this is hatred, and leads to the same aggressive behaviour which loses the game. We have evolved this strong tendency to punish cheating because it threatens not only us, but the entire society upon which we depend. We retaliate against those who betray our trust because they are a threat to our kind, to humanity itself. Consider the value of money. It is in fact, merely a promisary note, ink on paper. We attach value to it based upon our faith that others will make good on it. Money is a magical object. The real currency is the faith we hold in others and our institutions. Each betrayal of trust erodes this faith, threatening the very basis that our money, and our entire society, is based on. People who lie, cheat, and steal are like the Coyote in those old Road Runner cartoons, sawing the board in the middle between himself and cliff, cutting his only means of support. The pathetic thing about most criminals is their incapacity to grasp the consequences of their own actions. And yet, there are many legitimate businessmen who act just within the boundaries of the law, and yet are guilty of the same ignorance. If a critical mass of corruption and distrust is reached, the very money they have sacrificed so much else for will be worth less than the paper it is printed on.
If betrayal of the faith in others for personal gain is evil, the ultimate evil is betrayal of faith for the purpose of destroying faith itself. This is the intent of terrorists. Freedom and responsibility are inseparable; one earns one by demonstrating the other. We extend and defend freedoms as a testament of our faith--real faith, not some inconsequential, childish superstition. There is always the danger that someone will abuse this freedom, but that is the price we are willing to pay. To exploit this freedom in an attempt to destroy it is to declare war on humanity itself. And to do this in the name of God is to declare good evil and evil good.
I do not believe in God. The Muslim extremists better hope I'm right. Because if I'm not, they have declared war on God as well.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Respect for Religion
I have some sympathy for the position that religion deserves some respect, but this does not mean that we should simply bow and accept it.
The problem is that the naturalistic world view is not what most people are exposed to first, and those who are not already on the naturalist side experience the arguments of people like Dawkins as strange and rather alien. Science, like religion, requires an initial leap of faith. The scientific method does not demonstrate its value as a means of making sense of the world until some time after it has been accepted. It takes some experience applying the method to see that it works and how it works. Religion also 'works', by disabling rational argument in certain matters so that the nonsensical parts of dogma don't bother people. The leaves us with a horrible symmetry, where the naturalistic and supernaturalistic world views have little to distinguish them at first approach. Right now, religion is in the better position because few children have a good grasp of science, but religion is easy. Much of what passes for religion is really just fairy tales for adults. The passage from childlike fancy into adult superstition is seamless.
But superstition has about as much to do with faith as masturbation has to do with true love, and literalist interpretations of scripture are mere superstition. Faith is not simple adherance to rote beliefs. There is an essential element of optimism concerning ourselves and others, regardless of its theological content (which may be metaphorical, or entirely redundant.) It both expects and encourages the best in human nature, and makes us more willing to dare and risk failure. "Faith, hope, and charity" are simply different aspects of the same basic attitude. This is the signal in the relgious message. All the rest is just noise.
'Respecting' religion doesn't mean agreeing with it or simply agreeing to disagree. The arguments over the last 200 years that advanced rationalism and secularism were as often fought in religious terms as in secular terms. The success of western civilization stands on two pillars; both Socrates and Jesus chose to die rather than run, fight, or deny what they believed to be true. This simple act I believe to be more important than the specific beliefs they chose to die for--it illustrates an allegiance to the truth, and in the power of truth to win on its own terms. If religious fundamentalists want to play hardball, play hardball back, but do it by proving that they are betraying Christianity. If they don't understand your language, learn theirs. After all, they are trying to prove that science isn't science.
Argument by authority is a fallacy, but an argument that appeals to cultural authority can still be used to destroy a position if your opponent claims to base his argument upon that authority. Fundamentalism is a fortress when attacked from without, but a house of cards when attacked from within. There is nothing more entertaining than watching a secular humanist or moderate Christian well versed in scripture demolish fundamentalist sophistry. You can destroy the symmetry between science and religion if you invalidate bad religion on its own terms. Then all roads lead to science. The goal is not atheism, but an allegiance to the truth and a willingness to follow wherever it leads you. The rest will take care of itself. Ultimately, I think, you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, simply because God retreats whenever approached by a refutation, and advances into all empty spaces.
Islam may have a problem here; it is sometimes argued within the Muslim faith that the later positions of Mohammed (when he wanted to kill everyone who disagreed with him) superseded the teachings of his early years (when he preached peace and tolerance.) With this position the religion has been corrupted by a cult of personality. However, what Muslim extremists seem to desire most is a return to the greatness of medieval Islam, and this was the period in which Islam embraced science and reason while the Christians were foundering in ignorance and superstition. If this is their goal, then the fundamentalists are taking Islam in exactly the wrong direction, and they too are betraying their faith.
The problem is that the naturalistic world view is not what most people are exposed to first, and those who are not already on the naturalist side experience the arguments of people like Dawkins as strange and rather alien. Science, like religion, requires an initial leap of faith. The scientific method does not demonstrate its value as a means of making sense of the world until some time after it has been accepted. It takes some experience applying the method to see that it works and how it works. Religion also 'works', by disabling rational argument in certain matters so that the nonsensical parts of dogma don't bother people. The leaves us with a horrible symmetry, where the naturalistic and supernaturalistic world views have little to distinguish them at first approach. Right now, religion is in the better position because few children have a good grasp of science, but religion is easy. Much of what passes for religion is really just fairy tales for adults. The passage from childlike fancy into adult superstition is seamless.
But superstition has about as much to do with faith as masturbation has to do with true love, and literalist interpretations of scripture are mere superstition. Faith is not simple adherance to rote beliefs. There is an essential element of optimism concerning ourselves and others, regardless of its theological content (which may be metaphorical, or entirely redundant.) It both expects and encourages the best in human nature, and makes us more willing to dare and risk failure. "Faith, hope, and charity" are simply different aspects of the same basic attitude. This is the signal in the relgious message. All the rest is just noise.
'Respecting' religion doesn't mean agreeing with it or simply agreeing to disagree. The arguments over the last 200 years that advanced rationalism and secularism were as often fought in religious terms as in secular terms. The success of western civilization stands on two pillars; both Socrates and Jesus chose to die rather than run, fight, or deny what they believed to be true. This simple act I believe to be more important than the specific beliefs they chose to die for--it illustrates an allegiance to the truth, and in the power of truth to win on its own terms. If religious fundamentalists want to play hardball, play hardball back, but do it by proving that they are betraying Christianity. If they don't understand your language, learn theirs. After all, they are trying to prove that science isn't science.
Argument by authority is a fallacy, but an argument that appeals to cultural authority can still be used to destroy a position if your opponent claims to base his argument upon that authority. Fundamentalism is a fortress when attacked from without, but a house of cards when attacked from within. There is nothing more entertaining than watching a secular humanist or moderate Christian well versed in scripture demolish fundamentalist sophistry. You can destroy the symmetry between science and religion if you invalidate bad religion on its own terms. Then all roads lead to science. The goal is not atheism, but an allegiance to the truth and a willingness to follow wherever it leads you. The rest will take care of itself. Ultimately, I think, you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, simply because God retreats whenever approached by a refutation, and advances into all empty spaces.
Islam may have a problem here; it is sometimes argued within the Muslim faith that the later positions of Mohammed (when he wanted to kill everyone who disagreed with him) superseded the teachings of his early years (when he preached peace and tolerance.) With this position the religion has been corrupted by a cult of personality. However, what Muslim extremists seem to desire most is a return to the greatness of medieval Islam, and this was the period in which Islam embraced science and reason while the Christians were foundering in ignorance and superstition. If this is their goal, then the fundamentalists are taking Islam in exactly the wrong direction, and they too are betraying their faith.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
The End of Liberals and Conservatives
There is an article in this month's Vanity Fair about how liberals have forgotten to how to laugh. There are probably a few reasons for this: orthodoxy that takes itself too seriously, the overweaning desire to be taken seriously by others, and perhaps even a feeling of being under siege. But I suspect that these are all just other ways of saying political correctness, and if the old left only has Marxism, and the new left only has political correctness, it's no wonder that liberal has become a dirty word. Poltical correctness was old five minutes out of the gate; it's what sophomores do when they can't be bothered to think, puritanism practiced by pagans. It's what you espouse when you're secretly a reactionary but still want to sleep with a feminist. And though Marx provided a brilliant critique of 19th century capitalism (which is becoming relevant again as the disparity between rich and poor grows,) it offered no solution, and all attempted solutions failed miserably. The worst trait of Marxists was not their love of Marxism, but their defense of communist regimes, which were little different from their fascist rivals.
Conservatives used to be people who wished to move slowly, in order to preserve the existing order so that chaos would not ensue. They resisted new ideas and practices for fear that these would upset the balance. Conservative usually meant The Establishment. Conservative now means the people who want to do away with the established order and return to the past, usually a past imagined in 3D technicolor with little or no resemblance to the real past, and with no real plan to get back there. As my parents used to complain, "you know, in our day, you never heard about child molestation and rape and street gangs." No, you never heard about it. Of course, all of this was rampant in their day, but you never heard about it. And that made it so much easier to get away with, as revelations about the Catholic church make painfully obvious. Before you can solve a problem, you have to see it and admit that it exists. No, the world has not gone to hell in a handbasket. Now it's the left that is fighting to preserve the status quo, so that social advances are not rolled back (not all of which were really desireable or workable.) Conservative imagine a past that they want to return to, liberals remember the past and have no desire to go back. But neither side really wants to go back to the past, and have damn few ideas about where to go in the future.
Libertarian? Everyone is libertarian about their freedoms, and something of a fascist about protecting their rights. Pure libertarianism is as much a pipe dream as communism. You need government to protect your freedoms. For many, government power and democratic involvement are the only means they have to protect their freedoms. We can't all afford rent-a-cops, and somebody has to delineate the powers of private police forces, or we end up with civil wars. Capitalism itself is a creation of government, protected and regulated by laws, courts, and police. Without these, your property goes to the guy with the most guns and the biggest gang. Conservatives rack up huge debts and build enormous bureaucracies and intrusive police agencies. Liberals balance the budget, pay down the debt, and limit police powers. Both sides favour some blend of economic protectionism and liberalism. So which side is libertarian?
Values? Orthodox religion is notorious for fighting rear guard action against the advance of civilization, defending slavery, exploitative labour practices, brutal enforcement of laws, and undue privelege. Grassroots and minority religion used to be the major constituency for the advancement of social policies. But the populism of the grassroots has made it a ripe target for orthodox demagogues, which the more erudite traditional orthodoxies find repugnant. Again, everyone has switched dancing partners, and we now have the working poor voting for the priveleges of the rich, while the many of the old rich support more socialist policies. The old guard may have despised atheism and relativism, but what would they say when faced with the new age Christianity, which enshrines relativism as its own defense? The traditional values of charity and forgiveness have been replaced with traditional prurient prejudices, judgemental and mean.
What has happened is that we rushed forward during the 60's and 70's into unprecedented freedom and tolerance, and we scared ourselves. Some people couldn't handle it all. But we also had an unprecedented wave of youth, most of whom don't know any better, and the danger of freedom is that some people are going to abuse it. That doesn't make freedom itself a bad thing. If drug abuse is becoming less of a problem, it probably has less to do with law enforcement than it does with pure Darwinian selection. Drugs will take who they will; it's not up to you. The rest will learn to avoid them, or will be naturally wary of excess. This process has probably already taken place with alcohol and those of European descent, while native North Americans, with no experience of alchohol, are being bloodied by their first encounter. They will adapt as we did, as we now are, slowly, with regard to drugs. New freedoms mean new mistakes, but that doesn't make freedom itself a mistake. Given time, we find a balance, without it being imposed upon us. Gays want to marry, not to tear down traditional values, but to partake in them. The new conservatives bandy the word liberty about because secretly, they despise it. I now cringe when I hear the word, because nearly everyone who uses it means the opposite. Where there's no faith, there's always force. Because, you know, people just can't be trusted to do the right thing. In God we trust, but you're not Him.
So I really don't think that Liberals and Conservatives exist anymore. Mostly, they are flags for partisans to rally under, or to tell them who to attack. But while all the fighting is going on, not much is getting done, and any hint of useful information is being lost in all the noise. If we could make everyone forget the labels, do you think that they could sit down and have an honest conversation?
Conservatives used to be people who wished to move slowly, in order to preserve the existing order so that chaos would not ensue. They resisted new ideas and practices for fear that these would upset the balance. Conservative usually meant The Establishment. Conservative now means the people who want to do away with the established order and return to the past, usually a past imagined in 3D technicolor with little or no resemblance to the real past, and with no real plan to get back there. As my parents used to complain, "you know, in our day, you never heard about child molestation and rape and street gangs." No, you never heard about it. Of course, all of this was rampant in their day, but you never heard about it. And that made it so much easier to get away with, as revelations about the Catholic church make painfully obvious. Before you can solve a problem, you have to see it and admit that it exists. No, the world has not gone to hell in a handbasket. Now it's the left that is fighting to preserve the status quo, so that social advances are not rolled back (not all of which were really desireable or workable.) Conservative imagine a past that they want to return to, liberals remember the past and have no desire to go back. But neither side really wants to go back to the past, and have damn few ideas about where to go in the future.
Libertarian? Everyone is libertarian about their freedoms, and something of a fascist about protecting their rights. Pure libertarianism is as much a pipe dream as communism. You need government to protect your freedoms. For many, government power and democratic involvement are the only means they have to protect their freedoms. We can't all afford rent-a-cops, and somebody has to delineate the powers of private police forces, or we end up with civil wars. Capitalism itself is a creation of government, protected and regulated by laws, courts, and police. Without these, your property goes to the guy with the most guns and the biggest gang. Conservatives rack up huge debts and build enormous bureaucracies and intrusive police agencies. Liberals balance the budget, pay down the debt, and limit police powers. Both sides favour some blend of economic protectionism and liberalism. So which side is libertarian?
Values? Orthodox religion is notorious for fighting rear guard action against the advance of civilization, defending slavery, exploitative labour practices, brutal enforcement of laws, and undue privelege. Grassroots and minority religion used to be the major constituency for the advancement of social policies. But the populism of the grassroots has made it a ripe target for orthodox demagogues, which the more erudite traditional orthodoxies find repugnant. Again, everyone has switched dancing partners, and we now have the working poor voting for the priveleges of the rich, while the many of the old rich support more socialist policies. The old guard may have despised atheism and relativism, but what would they say when faced with the new age Christianity, which enshrines relativism as its own defense? The traditional values of charity and forgiveness have been replaced with traditional prurient prejudices, judgemental and mean.
What has happened is that we rushed forward during the 60's and 70's into unprecedented freedom and tolerance, and we scared ourselves. Some people couldn't handle it all. But we also had an unprecedented wave of youth, most of whom don't know any better, and the danger of freedom is that some people are going to abuse it. That doesn't make freedom itself a bad thing. If drug abuse is becoming less of a problem, it probably has less to do with law enforcement than it does with pure Darwinian selection. Drugs will take who they will; it's not up to you. The rest will learn to avoid them, or will be naturally wary of excess. This process has probably already taken place with alcohol and those of European descent, while native North Americans, with no experience of alchohol, are being bloodied by their first encounter. They will adapt as we did, as we now are, slowly, with regard to drugs. New freedoms mean new mistakes, but that doesn't make freedom itself a mistake. Given time, we find a balance, without it being imposed upon us. Gays want to marry, not to tear down traditional values, but to partake in them. The new conservatives bandy the word liberty about because secretly, they despise it. I now cringe when I hear the word, because nearly everyone who uses it means the opposite. Where there's no faith, there's always force. Because, you know, people just can't be trusted to do the right thing. In God we trust, but you're not Him.
So I really don't think that Liberals and Conservatives exist anymore. Mostly, they are flags for partisans to rally under, or to tell them who to attack. But while all the fighting is going on, not much is getting done, and any hint of useful information is being lost in all the noise. If we could make everyone forget the labels, do you think that they could sit down and have an honest conversation?
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Relativism Strikes Back
A friend of mine suggested that the mystical experience of the divine in all things might be a possible motivation for the conviction amongst religious believers that God is necessary as the underpinning of morality. Plato's argument, as presented in my last post, presents goodness and God as two separate things, one coming before the other. Instead, the believer may see God and the Good as being indistinguishable. As God is the basis for all of being, this means that goodness is the ultimate reality. Therefore, to deny the existence of God is to deny that goodness exists.
I have a great deal of respect for the mystical experience. As much as I despise the attempts by the religious to impose their views upon the physical world, I am still convinced that this esoteric experience is not just some brain fart. It is this experience that lies at the root of all religions and much of our art. If fundamentalists really wanted to return to the foundations of their faith, this is where they would go.
But I do not for a moment think that this is where conservative Christians are coming from. The equation Reality = God = Good doesn't really require the middle term--neither Plato nor the Bhuddists use it. For them that Goodness is inescapable. To see the world as anything else is an illusion. But the middle term introduces a qualifier, a volitional aspect. Goodness isn't necessarily the Ultimate Reality; Christianity still has its Manichean streak. If God can save you by showering you with Grace, it is equally obvious that God can withold his Grace and let you rot. You see, if the true nature of reality is goodness, you can't charge admission. It's already there all around you, and within you. I found it comical that in the Catholic Bible, Jesus words "Heaven is within you" were immediately explained away in a footnote as meaning "it is within your grasp, it is Jesus." Although there may be Christian mystics who see God as the Unifying Principle of Being, organized religion is a political endeavour, and God is used as a term of separation.
The second snag lies with the mystical experience itself. As Lao Tzu put it, the Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. The experience is inexpressible, and yet we feel compelled to express it. This means that this universal ground is expressed in billions of different ways around the world and throughout history. Each expression is true insofar as it springs from this Truth, but is imperfect because this Truth is ultimately beyond our ability to express. So what you end up with, again, is relativism, but a relativism which is closer to the relativity of Einstein than the relativism of the postmodernists. The reality is what it is, but what you see depends upon your frame of reference. For our current discussion, this means that there will be almost as many religions as there are people.
So while the Truth may be absolute, its expressions are always dependant upon the person or group in question. Christianity and Islam are triumphalist religions, however, and that means that for the believers in those faiths, it is not only their right, but their responsibility, to eradicate all other expressions of this Truth but their own. This is like a one-eyed man insisting that everyone else be blinded in one eye, so that the heresy of depth perception may be stamped out. By dwelling upon one expression to the exclusion of all else, they deny the very Truth that it is based upon, and accentuate the importance of the merely contingent. They make an Idol of their own beliefs and the particular expression of the Truth that they adhere to. In other words, they enshrine the value of the purely contingent and deny the very possibility of a universal truth that might lie beneath all the religions. Ethics are considered dependant not just on religion, but upon a particular religion, and indeed, upon one sect within that religion.
There is much to be said for ethical relativity, as opposed to relativism. Take the golden rule: "Treat all others as you would have them treat you." Well, I like peanut butter. If I were very hungry, I would very much like for someone to give me a peanut butter sandwich, which would give me a good mix of proteins and energy. But someone with a severe peanut allergy would die if they were given the same thing. In this case, what is good for me is bad for someone else. So there is more to following the golden rule than just following it to the letter. It is an imprecise expression of a deeper principle. We have to understand the other person's circumstances in order to carry it out. What is good for them is only good relative to their situation. The first and most important part of loving your neighbour is empathy; putting yourself in his or her shoes, seeing things from their point of view. Generosity is pointless if what is given is useless or harmful to the receiver. And you cannot know what someone needs without trying to understand him. It is this very attempt to understand the other that the primitive absolutism of reactionary religions would like to forbid.
I have a great deal of respect for the mystical experience. As much as I despise the attempts by the religious to impose their views upon the physical world, I am still convinced that this esoteric experience is not just some brain fart. It is this experience that lies at the root of all religions and much of our art. If fundamentalists really wanted to return to the foundations of their faith, this is where they would go.
But I do not for a moment think that this is where conservative Christians are coming from. The equation Reality = God = Good doesn't really require the middle term--neither Plato nor the Bhuddists use it. For them that Goodness is inescapable. To see the world as anything else is an illusion. But the middle term introduces a qualifier, a volitional aspect. Goodness isn't necessarily the Ultimate Reality; Christianity still has its Manichean streak. If God can save you by showering you with Grace, it is equally obvious that God can withold his Grace and let you rot. You see, if the true nature of reality is goodness, you can't charge admission. It's already there all around you, and within you. I found it comical that in the Catholic Bible, Jesus words "Heaven is within you" were immediately explained away in a footnote as meaning "it is within your grasp, it is Jesus." Although there may be Christian mystics who see God as the Unifying Principle of Being, organized religion is a political endeavour, and God is used as a term of separation.
The second snag lies with the mystical experience itself. As Lao Tzu put it, the Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao. The experience is inexpressible, and yet we feel compelled to express it. This means that this universal ground is expressed in billions of different ways around the world and throughout history. Each expression is true insofar as it springs from this Truth, but is imperfect because this Truth is ultimately beyond our ability to express. So what you end up with, again, is relativism, but a relativism which is closer to the relativity of Einstein than the relativism of the postmodernists. The reality is what it is, but what you see depends upon your frame of reference. For our current discussion, this means that there will be almost as many religions as there are people.
So while the Truth may be absolute, its expressions are always dependant upon the person or group in question. Christianity and Islam are triumphalist religions, however, and that means that for the believers in those faiths, it is not only their right, but their responsibility, to eradicate all other expressions of this Truth but their own. This is like a one-eyed man insisting that everyone else be blinded in one eye, so that the heresy of depth perception may be stamped out. By dwelling upon one expression to the exclusion of all else, they deny the very Truth that it is based upon, and accentuate the importance of the merely contingent. They make an Idol of their own beliefs and the particular expression of the Truth that they adhere to. In other words, they enshrine the value of the purely contingent and deny the very possibility of a universal truth that might lie beneath all the religions. Ethics are considered dependant not just on religion, but upon a particular religion, and indeed, upon one sect within that religion.
There is much to be said for ethical relativity, as opposed to relativism. Take the golden rule: "Treat all others as you would have them treat you." Well, I like peanut butter. If I were very hungry, I would very much like for someone to give me a peanut butter sandwich, which would give me a good mix of proteins and energy. But someone with a severe peanut allergy would die if they were given the same thing. In this case, what is good for me is bad for someone else. So there is more to following the golden rule than just following it to the letter. It is an imprecise expression of a deeper principle. We have to understand the other person's circumstances in order to carry it out. What is good for them is only good relative to their situation. The first and most important part of loving your neighbour is empathy; putting yourself in his or her shoes, seeing things from their point of view. Generosity is pointless if what is given is useless or harmful to the receiver. And you cannot know what someone needs without trying to understand him. It is this very attempt to understand the other that the primitive absolutism of reactionary religions would like to forbid.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Relativism
The newly appointed Pope Ratzinger rails against 'the dictatorship of relativism", and conservative Catholics, like columnist David Warren, agree. It is the opinion of many conservative Christians that ethical values originate with and are supported only by religion, and that without religion anything goes. As Dostoyevsky put it, without God, everything is permissible.
This is nonsense, and very old nonsense at that, first refuted by Plato. Plato's argument separated morality from religion, and it still stands firm. It goes as follows: if something is good simply because God commands it, then the most horrific injustices might be commanded and therefore considered good. The definition of good and evil would then be completely arbitrary... in other words, relative. In fact, this is precisely what you do find in the Old Testament, though Plato had never read it. But if God commands something because it is good, then it is already good whether God commands it or not. So either divine authority is irrelevant to ethics, or basing morality upon such authority constitutes a claim that all ethics are relative, and can only be supported by pure force of will (in this case, Divine will.) This claim, incidently, is the guiding motive behind fascism, and the reason that a fascist will beat you up rather than engage in a discussion with you; fascists are essentially nihilists who do not believe in truth, and therefore have no faith in rational argument. The Nazi's so-called 'Triumph of the Will' was intended precisely as the imposition of a purely invented moral order onto what they believed was a moral vacuum. In the absence of the Divine Will, a State will is imposed, but in either case, there is no truth.
By insisting that divine authority is needed to support ethics, Ratzinger is in effect claiming that there is no support for moral behaviour apart from the irrational. It is this very argument which has opened the door to relativism. Ratzinger is playing a kind of philosophical brinksmanship; he is claiming that all hell will break lose unless we agree with him (fallacy of consequence.) Unfortunately, he is not the first to do this, and too many people who have abandoned religion have taken this claim at face value. The real relativists here are the likes of Ratzinger and Warren.
Consider what relativism is: in logical terms, relativism may be summarized as A & ~A, where A is any well-formed statement. One of the standard conventions of logic is that the acceptance of such a contradiction can be used to prove anything; by tolerating the contradiction, you abandon sound argument itself, and anything can be true. Contradictions are not tolerated in logic, mathematics, or in science. If something known to be true contradicts your theory, your theory is destroyed.
Religion, however, seems to revel in contradiction. Kierkegaard believed that faith required the "crucifixion of reason." The scriptures of virtually all faiths are riddled with contradictions. This is not merely due to difficult esoteric ideas--indeed, the difficult spiritual ideas are usually the first casualties to this method of teaching. These are real inconsistencies which result because the scriptures are patchworks gathered from sources with opposing views and different goals, assembled by people who may have held still other views and goals. The leaders of the faith usually consider this a good thing; you cannot charge for your expertise if everyone can figure it out for themselves (this was why the Catholic Church suppressed vernacular translations of the Bible.) And indeed, the only way you can figure out something like the Bible is to realize at the outset that some parts of it are just plain bad--bad poetry, bad history, bad ethics, and even bad religion.
Pass the Bible off as the infallible Word of God, and you can use it to prove anything. The Bible has been used to justify wars, torture, slavery, murder, genocide, and virtually any other crime you can think of. It has inspired as many serial killers as saints. Its contradictory content can make it like an empty book, waiting to be filled, but cloaked with authority that its interpreters claim for themselves.
Certainly, reason isn't the only faculty required to form a clear ethical picture of the world, but it is an essential component. Observation, empathy, introspection and self-knowledge, study, and consultation all play a part. Blind obedience is not a path to moral understanding, but a way of avoiding it. The advance and refinement of our cultural mores--indeed, of civilization itself-- does not occur within the bosom of orthodoxy, but at the fringes. Even the messiahs and saints live at these fringes, which is why they so often die horrible deaths at the hands of the authorities. Orthodoxy always brings up the rear, supporting the kings against the people, the owners against the slaves, the workhouse directors against the children. Religion is not the source of our values. At best, it expresses them, but more often, it simply co-opts them well after the fact, plagiarizing the work of others.
The most troubling aspect of this is that these religions are at heart very old and primitive. The fate of Islam could become ours. The Bible does not condemn slavery; though many have reinterpreted passages as such, there are no direct condemnations of the practice. Although Jesus himself died on the cross, there are no protestations against the diabolical cruelty of the punishment itself. Nor are there any hints in the Bible of support for democracy. We should not be surprised by this. The Bible was prepared primarily by Romans under the watchful eye of Constantine the Great; they still owned slaves, sentenced people to the cross, and Constantine certainly wanted no hint of democracy in the new religion. The Divine Right of Kings is probably the direct result of his influence. Christianity is not only primitive by our standards, it was even primitive by Roman standards.
A return to some imagined glorious past would, at best, force us to repeat a number of difficult lessons. At worst, it would squander the advances of hundreds of years of civilization, at a time when population density and sheer human technological power may well destroy us if we move anywhere but forward. The religions of the middle east may well be the cradle of our civilization, but our civilization is not a child any longer. We cannot go back there. And very few secular humanists are actually relativists; Ratzinger is arguing with a straw man of his own fevered imagination. We hold our values quite firmly. So firmly that we believe they can stand on their own, without God to bully people into believing them.
This is nonsense, and very old nonsense at that, first refuted by Plato. Plato's argument separated morality from religion, and it still stands firm. It goes as follows: if something is good simply because God commands it, then the most horrific injustices might be commanded and therefore considered good. The definition of good and evil would then be completely arbitrary... in other words, relative. In fact, this is precisely what you do find in the Old Testament, though Plato had never read it. But if God commands something because it is good, then it is already good whether God commands it or not. So either divine authority is irrelevant to ethics, or basing morality upon such authority constitutes a claim that all ethics are relative, and can only be supported by pure force of will (in this case, Divine will.) This claim, incidently, is the guiding motive behind fascism, and the reason that a fascist will beat you up rather than engage in a discussion with you; fascists are essentially nihilists who do not believe in truth, and therefore have no faith in rational argument. The Nazi's so-called 'Triumph of the Will' was intended precisely as the imposition of a purely invented moral order onto what they believed was a moral vacuum. In the absence of the Divine Will, a State will is imposed, but in either case, there is no truth.
By insisting that divine authority is needed to support ethics, Ratzinger is in effect claiming that there is no support for moral behaviour apart from the irrational. It is this very argument which has opened the door to relativism. Ratzinger is playing a kind of philosophical brinksmanship; he is claiming that all hell will break lose unless we agree with him (fallacy of consequence.) Unfortunately, he is not the first to do this, and too many people who have abandoned religion have taken this claim at face value. The real relativists here are the likes of Ratzinger and Warren.
Consider what relativism is: in logical terms, relativism may be summarized as A & ~A, where A is any well-formed statement. One of the standard conventions of logic is that the acceptance of such a contradiction can be used to prove anything; by tolerating the contradiction, you abandon sound argument itself, and anything can be true. Contradictions are not tolerated in logic, mathematics, or in science. If something known to be true contradicts your theory, your theory is destroyed.
Religion, however, seems to revel in contradiction. Kierkegaard believed that faith required the "crucifixion of reason." The scriptures of virtually all faiths are riddled with contradictions. This is not merely due to difficult esoteric ideas--indeed, the difficult spiritual ideas are usually the first casualties to this method of teaching. These are real inconsistencies which result because the scriptures are patchworks gathered from sources with opposing views and different goals, assembled by people who may have held still other views and goals. The leaders of the faith usually consider this a good thing; you cannot charge for your expertise if everyone can figure it out for themselves (this was why the Catholic Church suppressed vernacular translations of the Bible.) And indeed, the only way you can figure out something like the Bible is to realize at the outset that some parts of it are just plain bad--bad poetry, bad history, bad ethics, and even bad religion.
Pass the Bible off as the infallible Word of God, and you can use it to prove anything. The Bible has been used to justify wars, torture, slavery, murder, genocide, and virtually any other crime you can think of. It has inspired as many serial killers as saints. Its contradictory content can make it like an empty book, waiting to be filled, but cloaked with authority that its interpreters claim for themselves.
Certainly, reason isn't the only faculty required to form a clear ethical picture of the world, but it is an essential component. Observation, empathy, introspection and self-knowledge, study, and consultation all play a part. Blind obedience is not a path to moral understanding, but a way of avoiding it. The advance and refinement of our cultural mores--indeed, of civilization itself-- does not occur within the bosom of orthodoxy, but at the fringes. Even the messiahs and saints live at these fringes, which is why they so often die horrible deaths at the hands of the authorities. Orthodoxy always brings up the rear, supporting the kings against the people, the owners against the slaves, the workhouse directors against the children. Religion is not the source of our values. At best, it expresses them, but more often, it simply co-opts them well after the fact, plagiarizing the work of others.
The most troubling aspect of this is that these religions are at heart very old and primitive. The fate of Islam could become ours. The Bible does not condemn slavery; though many have reinterpreted passages as such, there are no direct condemnations of the practice. Although Jesus himself died on the cross, there are no protestations against the diabolical cruelty of the punishment itself. Nor are there any hints in the Bible of support for democracy. We should not be surprised by this. The Bible was prepared primarily by Romans under the watchful eye of Constantine the Great; they still owned slaves, sentenced people to the cross, and Constantine certainly wanted no hint of democracy in the new religion. The Divine Right of Kings is probably the direct result of his influence. Christianity is not only primitive by our standards, it was even primitive by Roman standards.
A return to some imagined glorious past would, at best, force us to repeat a number of difficult lessons. At worst, it would squander the advances of hundreds of years of civilization, at a time when population density and sheer human technological power may well destroy us if we move anywhere but forward. The religions of the middle east may well be the cradle of our civilization, but our civilization is not a child any longer. We cannot go back there. And very few secular humanists are actually relativists; Ratzinger is arguing with a straw man of his own fevered imagination. We hold our values quite firmly. So firmly that we believe they can stand on their own, without God to bully people into believing them.
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The Two Realms
Subjectivity is a pain in the ass. Nobody knows what to make of it. You see, we have two perceptions of human beings: the perception of other human beings or ourselves as these creatures walking around the world, and the perception of ourselves from the inside--the endless procession of mental, emotional, and sensational events. Personally I don't think that there is any question that the cognitive and emotional realms emerge from the physical processes of the brain. It's not just a temporary resident. Destroy the brain and you destroy the mind. But there is something irreducible about the mind. You can look at the firing of neurons, the balances of neurochemistry, the physical brain, for as long as you want, and never know what someone is actually thinking. There was a time that we could say that you could not figure out what someone was feeling, but analysis of neurochemistry and brain scans can actually tell you a lot about this. But something about the mind remains irreducible.
I suspect that the irreduciblity is actually due to the sheer complexity of the brain. If it were possible for us to hold in our mind a picture of the sum total of all neural events in real time, we might very well be able to see how the mind arises from brain function. But we can't do this, and never will. So we're stuck with the two realms, the realm of the subjective and of ideas, and the realm of the objective, of observable objects and events. We can't draw the causal link between them because it's not one link, but billions of silmultaneous links, none of which is relevant in isolation. And because of this we get into a lot of trouble.
I heard a minister on BBC radio, for example, claim that the mind's very ability to comprehend reality is a proof of the existence of God. This is a miracle that just couldn't happen without divine intervention. Well, duh... if our ancestors had not been able to comprehend reality in any way, they would have promptly run off pursuing imaginary creatures instead of food, and that would have been the end of that. And in fact, that is precisely what some humans do to this very day. It's called superstition, and in extreme cases, psychosis. The extraordinary level of comprehension typical of mathematics and physics are extremely rare and take a lot of discipline to master, and a lot of the people who achieve this tend to be a bit deficient when it comes to noticing, say, that they're not wearing matching socks. The fact is, the majority of the human race have a fingernail grip on reality at best. So if God is responsible for making us comprehend the world, he's botched the job.
The attempt to reduce one realm to the other provides us with no end of entertainment. On the one had you have the analytics who tried to convince us that all statements pertaining to the inner world were meaningless. This made many people want to punch them, and for good reason; it's this sort of thing that gives philosophers a bad name. It takes a staggering insensitivity to insist that the private thoughts and feelings of the entire human race are meaningless. In fact, the analytic discussions were themselves phenomena of the inner world, and therefore meaningless by their own criteria. This is why Wittgenstein would sit facing the wall and chant Vedic poetry during these discussions.
On the other hand, you have the seething hordes of New Age flakes who believe that reality is only what they think it is. This is really an excuse to believe whatever you want to believe without the embarassment of evidence. It also means you can stay stupid and still be a Zen Master, a good Christian, or whatever current misinterpretation is making the rounds. An ignorance of sound reasoning makes the hermetic seal complete, and these people can stumble through life in a narcissistic haze like a bull in a china shop.
In fact, there are certain domains of knowledge that pertain to the facts of the physical world, and other domains that pertain to phenomena arising from the mental world. Beliefs are irrelevant to one but have a critical influence on the other. Believing you can fly will not make it so. You cannot move or remould matter with your mind. Opinion doesn't have much bearing in mathematics or logic either. Big Brother cannot make two plus two equal five, though many dictators have tried.
Nevertheless, belief does matter when talking about how we think and behave. It was recently discovered that Economics majors, who had been schooled to believe that people were motivated by rational self-interest, were in fact far more motivated by this than any other segment of the population. A theory of human nature may not tell us much about human nature, but it speaks volumes about the theorist. The problem with 'sciences' like social studies and economics is that they tend to produce self-fulfilling prophecies. The purpose of science is to be able to predict and control, but for social sciences prediction is control, if only enough people can be convinced that the prediction is true.
The postmodernist falacy, that everything is just a matter of opinion, is based on a kernel of truth: some opinions are presented as scientific fact when they are merely emotionally motivated beliefs. Evidence appears to support these theories because the theory leads one to consider only the evidence that supports it. Having found a few pseudo-scientific theories guilty of this, the less subtle postmodernists took this is mean that all science was pseudo-science. Magical thinking is also an exageration of something real: humans have such influence on the environment (and on the lives of others) that our beliefs, through our actions, can change the reality we live in. There is an objective reality which has nothing to do with what we want to believe, but it is also true that what we believe colours our perceptions of reality, and we tend to remake the world in accordance with our beliefs.
Due to the sheer complexity of neuralogical process that produces it, mind cannot be reduced to terms of simple physical process without the loss of essential information. So we're stuck with mind and body, not because they're separate in any way, or somehow free from each other's influence, or for any mystical or spiritual reason. We're stuck with them because we cannot talk about the world, and what it is like to live in it, without both of them.
I suspect that the irreduciblity is actually due to the sheer complexity of the brain. If it were possible for us to hold in our mind a picture of the sum total of all neural events in real time, we might very well be able to see how the mind arises from brain function. But we can't do this, and never will. So we're stuck with the two realms, the realm of the subjective and of ideas, and the realm of the objective, of observable objects and events. We can't draw the causal link between them because it's not one link, but billions of silmultaneous links, none of which is relevant in isolation. And because of this we get into a lot of trouble.
I heard a minister on BBC radio, for example, claim that the mind's very ability to comprehend reality is a proof of the existence of God. This is a miracle that just couldn't happen without divine intervention. Well, duh... if our ancestors had not been able to comprehend reality in any way, they would have promptly run off pursuing imaginary creatures instead of food, and that would have been the end of that. And in fact, that is precisely what some humans do to this very day. It's called superstition, and in extreme cases, psychosis. The extraordinary level of comprehension typical of mathematics and physics are extremely rare and take a lot of discipline to master, and a lot of the people who achieve this tend to be a bit deficient when it comes to noticing, say, that they're not wearing matching socks. The fact is, the majority of the human race have a fingernail grip on reality at best. So if God is responsible for making us comprehend the world, he's botched the job.
The attempt to reduce one realm to the other provides us with no end of entertainment. On the one had you have the analytics who tried to convince us that all statements pertaining to the inner world were meaningless. This made many people want to punch them, and for good reason; it's this sort of thing that gives philosophers a bad name. It takes a staggering insensitivity to insist that the private thoughts and feelings of the entire human race are meaningless. In fact, the analytic discussions were themselves phenomena of the inner world, and therefore meaningless by their own criteria. This is why Wittgenstein would sit facing the wall and chant Vedic poetry during these discussions.
On the other hand, you have the seething hordes of New Age flakes who believe that reality is only what they think it is. This is really an excuse to believe whatever you want to believe without the embarassment of evidence. It also means you can stay stupid and still be a Zen Master, a good Christian, or whatever current misinterpretation is making the rounds. An ignorance of sound reasoning makes the hermetic seal complete, and these people can stumble through life in a narcissistic haze like a bull in a china shop.
In fact, there are certain domains of knowledge that pertain to the facts of the physical world, and other domains that pertain to phenomena arising from the mental world. Beliefs are irrelevant to one but have a critical influence on the other. Believing you can fly will not make it so. You cannot move or remould matter with your mind. Opinion doesn't have much bearing in mathematics or logic either. Big Brother cannot make two plus two equal five, though many dictators have tried.
Nevertheless, belief does matter when talking about how we think and behave. It was recently discovered that Economics majors, who had been schooled to believe that people were motivated by rational self-interest, were in fact far more motivated by this than any other segment of the population. A theory of human nature may not tell us much about human nature, but it speaks volumes about the theorist. The problem with 'sciences' like social studies and economics is that they tend to produce self-fulfilling prophecies. The purpose of science is to be able to predict and control, but for social sciences prediction is control, if only enough people can be convinced that the prediction is true.
The postmodernist falacy, that everything is just a matter of opinion, is based on a kernel of truth: some opinions are presented as scientific fact when they are merely emotionally motivated beliefs. Evidence appears to support these theories because the theory leads one to consider only the evidence that supports it. Having found a few pseudo-scientific theories guilty of this, the less subtle postmodernists took this is mean that all science was pseudo-science. Magical thinking is also an exageration of something real: humans have such influence on the environment (and on the lives of others) that our beliefs, through our actions, can change the reality we live in. There is an objective reality which has nothing to do with what we want to believe, but it is also true that what we believe colours our perceptions of reality, and we tend to remake the world in accordance with our beliefs.
Due to the sheer complexity of neuralogical process that produces it, mind cannot be reduced to terms of simple physical process without the loss of essential information. So we're stuck with mind and body, not because they're separate in any way, or somehow free from each other's influence, or for any mystical or spiritual reason. We're stuck with them because we cannot talk about the world, and what it is like to live in it, without both of them.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Government and Efficiency
Government organizations are usually (but not always) plagued by politics and power, which produce inefficient and dishonest bureaucracies. Political partisanship makes it political suicide to take responsibility for a mistake. As a result, politicians take no responsibility, and the job of the lower ranks of the bureaucracy is to cover their ass when the blame comes down. The best way to avoid making mistakes is to do nothing, and to shuffle all real useful work to the bottom of the ladder. This is the zero-error principle, but it might just as well be called the zero-effectiveness principle. When a mistake is made, the worker bees take the fall, and the politically savvy middle or upper managers escape blame and continue to clog the system. The cost of political partisanship is that the government is nit-picked into paralysis. Thus, the expansion of government is the fault of all sides of the political spectrum.
Indeed, these professional bureaucrats protect themselves by building empires, and can actually turn their own incompetence to their benefit, by demanding more money to address their own failings. Governmental power attract the corruptible, who seek to turn that power and public wealth to their own ends. To counter this decay, and to attempt to prevent normal administrative errors, new departments accumulate to check existing ones (the Department of Homeland Security is an example of this.) This is how the government grows, again, usually through partisan criticism and demands for change. Ironically, much of this expansion may be the result of calls for more fiscal responsibility--bean counters on bean counters on bean counters.
The most efficient form of government is probably a benevolent dictatorship, but dictatorships never stay benevolent. The tradeoff in government is between effectiveness and damage control. Too little power and nothing gets done, too much power and the wrong thing gets done. Most democratic governments are built for gridlock, to provide checks and balance on power. You may not get the most efficient government, but you will get a less harmful one. The problem comes when a politician wants heavy handed effectiveness. This soon causes the system to grow rapidly, as the new powers attract political beaurocrats, greedy for a piece of the pie, while at the same time abuses of that power encourage the growth of institutions of restraint. It is not surprising, then, that the Bush administration has ushered in an period of unprecendented governmental expansion that will likely continue long after it has left office.
Far from solving the problem, calls for large government cuts make it worse, because these are merely simplistic, populist postures to gain votes. They act like binge and purge dieting, burning muscle and leaving fat. Political beaurocrats, who actually do no work, are politically savvy enough to escape the cuts. The ones who get cut will be those too busy doing actual work to notice the axe coming down. Indeed, the perfect political beaurocrat will be right there beside you, calling for the cutbacks, because that will score political points and make his job more secure. And the ones most likely to jump this demoralized beaurocracy will probably be the most competent, who are also the ones most likely to find other employment. The end product is survival of the fattest--who are also the ones that cost the most.
Nor are these problems unique to government; large corporations are prone to the same problems, and private industry with a pipeline to the public gravy train combines the worst of both worlds. The military-industrial complex is a good example of this. There are simply some jobs that must be done on a non-profit basis, with the public paying for and handling the books.
The cuts, once made, are rapidly felt--capitalism is, after all, a partnership between business and government. The economic system we all live under was created and is sustained by continual government intervention. It's amazing how many people don't know this and think all government should be abolished. So the cuts must be rolled back--in fact, the government must be expanded well beyond its previous size to get any useful work done.
The solutions would be less partisanship and a higher fault tolerance in the beaurocracy (rather than the zero-error principle), with emphasis on accomplishment rather than mere error-avoidance. But above all, we have to abolish the narcissistic management style, epitomized by Bush administration and encouraged by pundits everywhere, where leaders take all of the credit but none of the blame.
Indeed, these professional bureaucrats protect themselves by building empires, and can actually turn their own incompetence to their benefit, by demanding more money to address their own failings. Governmental power attract the corruptible, who seek to turn that power and public wealth to their own ends. To counter this decay, and to attempt to prevent normal administrative errors, new departments accumulate to check existing ones (the Department of Homeland Security is an example of this.) This is how the government grows, again, usually through partisan criticism and demands for change. Ironically, much of this expansion may be the result of calls for more fiscal responsibility--bean counters on bean counters on bean counters.
The most efficient form of government is probably a benevolent dictatorship, but dictatorships never stay benevolent. The tradeoff in government is between effectiveness and damage control. Too little power and nothing gets done, too much power and the wrong thing gets done. Most democratic governments are built for gridlock, to provide checks and balance on power. You may not get the most efficient government, but you will get a less harmful one. The problem comes when a politician wants heavy handed effectiveness. This soon causes the system to grow rapidly, as the new powers attract political beaurocrats, greedy for a piece of the pie, while at the same time abuses of that power encourage the growth of institutions of restraint. It is not surprising, then, that the Bush administration has ushered in an period of unprecendented governmental expansion that will likely continue long after it has left office.
Far from solving the problem, calls for large government cuts make it worse, because these are merely simplistic, populist postures to gain votes. They act like binge and purge dieting, burning muscle and leaving fat. Political beaurocrats, who actually do no work, are politically savvy enough to escape the cuts. The ones who get cut will be those too busy doing actual work to notice the axe coming down. Indeed, the perfect political beaurocrat will be right there beside you, calling for the cutbacks, because that will score political points and make his job more secure. And the ones most likely to jump this demoralized beaurocracy will probably be the most competent, who are also the ones most likely to find other employment. The end product is survival of the fattest--who are also the ones that cost the most.
Nor are these problems unique to government; large corporations are prone to the same problems, and private industry with a pipeline to the public gravy train combines the worst of both worlds. The military-industrial complex is a good example of this. There are simply some jobs that must be done on a non-profit basis, with the public paying for and handling the books.
The cuts, once made, are rapidly felt--capitalism is, after all, a partnership between business and government. The economic system we all live under was created and is sustained by continual government intervention. It's amazing how many people don't know this and think all government should be abolished. So the cuts must be rolled back--in fact, the government must be expanded well beyond its previous size to get any useful work done.
The solutions would be less partisanship and a higher fault tolerance in the beaurocracy (rather than the zero-error principle), with emphasis on accomplishment rather than mere error-avoidance. But above all, we have to abolish the narcissistic management style, epitomized by Bush administration and encouraged by pundits everywhere, where leaders take all of the credit but none of the blame.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Heuristics
A heuristic is a simplified rule of thumb, an approximation of reality. We use these in programming because they are simpler than a full fledged model, easier to understand and faster in execution. I've just written a new movement system for our game, because the old heuristic was too simple to accomodate the tasks laid upon it. The two things that strike me in this kind of work are that a) it's mind numbingly hard, especially if the data is messy (in this case, it's essentially polygon soup) and b) the more accurate the model, the more likely it is to handle unforeseen cases appropriately. Getting the model right in the first place means fewer patches later to fill in the cracks. But we usually don't put the work in until the old one breaks, the bug reports come in, and we have to admit that current system just won't handle the strain, and write a new one.
The human mind uses heuristics too. We use simple pictures of the world, blunt approximations of reality, which serve us well as long as these simple notions do not have to support a heavy load. Indeed, I suspect that the picture that we all hold of the world consists of a very low resolution image with a few spots of detail. The attention to detail in these pictures vary from person to person. Prejudices result, I suspect, not just because our ideas are wrong in a kind of one-to-one correspondence with the facts, but that they lack the level of detail required to represent their subject matter accurately. Ignorance breeds prejudice by labelling parts of our world as empty spaces with the words "Here there be dragons." It is not just that the spaces are blank, but that we insist that the map is accurate. Out of pride we expend a great deal of effort in defending, not our knowledge, but our ignorance. And as I've said, it's hard work to build a more accurate model. It's easier to just insist that you're right.
The broad swaths of primary color which represent large realms of unknown details are often represented by buzz words and caricatures. Words like liberal, conservative, fascist, communist, Nazi, terrorist, fanatic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, humanist, and all the other words for social, religious, political and racial classification are typically thrown about with the blithe assumption that everyone knows what they mean. In fact, I suspect that most of the people who use these words actually have little idea of what they mean. In many cases they are employed like the caricatures used in propaganda posters, with no idea of the beliefs or histories that lay behind them. This is quite evident when an outright bigot tosses them out as an insult. It may be far less obvious when someone who accuses others of being a fascist but is himself a fascist in all but name, unaware of the consequences of his own beliefs.
One of the chief tenants of magical thinking is that if you can name a thing, you can control it. This is indeed part of the motivation behind the name calling; you're just 'that', no more, and we know how to handle 'that'. It is also the reason that the name Jehovah was not to be spoken in the Old Testament. Jehovah was not a simple word, but a pointer to an entire system of thought and experience. To bandy the word about in common usage was to presume that everyone understood what in fact very few understood. If knowledge is power, ignorance is a mortal weakness. It is dangerous to believe that you can control what you do not understand. The slave you believe cowed may turn and become your master. The enemy you believe defeated may rise again. And the very evil you most despise may appear, not just in those close to you, but in your own eyes when you look in the mirror.
The danger posed by relativistic arguments, not just in ethical arguments, but in arguments of fact, is that they despise the very effort of educating oneself, of correcting these oversimplified models of the world. The easiest way to prevent any meaninful challenge to our beliefs is to represent all evidence and argument as merely differing opinion, with no objective means of comparison. I find nothing more infuriating than to hear this argument come on the heels of a bald unqualified assertion, used only as a defense when the original assertion is challenged. The relativist speaks the unvarnished truth--until, of course, he is asked to provide proof, and then there is no truth. This legalistic maneuver attempts to strike the objection from the record while allowing the original assertion to stand. It is a maneuver that fanatics all over the world have learned to use quite well, defending absolutist doctrines under cover of relativism, triumphalism in the name of plurality, and hatred in the name of tolerance. In all cases, it is the bold refusal to correct a model of the world which has long since crumbled under the weight of evidence.
In the Old Testament, when asked his name, God answers, "I Am Who Am." Whatever other myths and stories surrounded their faith, the Jews believed first in Reality, in the truth as best as they could know it. Their dedication to learning has served them well. Whatever your god is, reality will eat it for breakfast.
And reality doesn't care a rat's ass what your opinion is.
The human mind uses heuristics too. We use simple pictures of the world, blunt approximations of reality, which serve us well as long as these simple notions do not have to support a heavy load. Indeed, I suspect that the picture that we all hold of the world consists of a very low resolution image with a few spots of detail. The attention to detail in these pictures vary from person to person. Prejudices result, I suspect, not just because our ideas are wrong in a kind of one-to-one correspondence with the facts, but that they lack the level of detail required to represent their subject matter accurately. Ignorance breeds prejudice by labelling parts of our world as empty spaces with the words "Here there be dragons." It is not just that the spaces are blank, but that we insist that the map is accurate. Out of pride we expend a great deal of effort in defending, not our knowledge, but our ignorance. And as I've said, it's hard work to build a more accurate model. It's easier to just insist that you're right.
The broad swaths of primary color which represent large realms of unknown details are often represented by buzz words and caricatures. Words like liberal, conservative, fascist, communist, Nazi, terrorist, fanatic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, atheist, humanist, and all the other words for social, religious, political and racial classification are typically thrown about with the blithe assumption that everyone knows what they mean. In fact, I suspect that most of the people who use these words actually have little idea of what they mean. In many cases they are employed like the caricatures used in propaganda posters, with no idea of the beliefs or histories that lay behind them. This is quite evident when an outright bigot tosses them out as an insult. It may be far less obvious when someone who accuses others of being a fascist but is himself a fascist in all but name, unaware of the consequences of his own beliefs.
One of the chief tenants of magical thinking is that if you can name a thing, you can control it. This is indeed part of the motivation behind the name calling; you're just 'that', no more, and we know how to handle 'that'. It is also the reason that the name Jehovah was not to be spoken in the Old Testament. Jehovah was not a simple word, but a pointer to an entire system of thought and experience. To bandy the word about in common usage was to presume that everyone understood what in fact very few understood. If knowledge is power, ignorance is a mortal weakness. It is dangerous to believe that you can control what you do not understand. The slave you believe cowed may turn and become your master. The enemy you believe defeated may rise again. And the very evil you most despise may appear, not just in those close to you, but in your own eyes when you look in the mirror.
The danger posed by relativistic arguments, not just in ethical arguments, but in arguments of fact, is that they despise the very effort of educating oneself, of correcting these oversimplified models of the world. The easiest way to prevent any meaninful challenge to our beliefs is to represent all evidence and argument as merely differing opinion, with no objective means of comparison. I find nothing more infuriating than to hear this argument come on the heels of a bald unqualified assertion, used only as a defense when the original assertion is challenged. The relativist speaks the unvarnished truth--until, of course, he is asked to provide proof, and then there is no truth. This legalistic maneuver attempts to strike the objection from the record while allowing the original assertion to stand. It is a maneuver that fanatics all over the world have learned to use quite well, defending absolutist doctrines under cover of relativism, triumphalism in the name of plurality, and hatred in the name of tolerance. In all cases, it is the bold refusal to correct a model of the world which has long since crumbled under the weight of evidence.
In the Old Testament, when asked his name, God answers, "I Am Who Am." Whatever other myths and stories surrounded their faith, the Jews believed first in Reality, in the truth as best as they could know it. Their dedication to learning has served them well. Whatever your god is, reality will eat it for breakfast.
And reality doesn't care a rat's ass what your opinion is.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
Family Values as Kink
Yesterday my wife and I were trying to figure out why some people get turned on by S&M. We just couldn't see the attraction. Then it occurred to me that it has to do with guilt: crime and punishment. If you're naughty you must be punished, but the punishment itself gives you permission to be naughty. The other side of the equation is the dom, who punishes the submissive; the attraction here is power and control. The dom is in fact attempting to control their own desires; they are also motivated by guilt, which they escape by shifting it on to the submissive. The submissive is the naughty one. (In fact I've heard it said that the submissive is actually the one in control in S&M--at least when it's done right, and a lot of doms just play the role for the benefit of the submissive.)
And then it struck me: this whole 'family values' thing is kink! The outraged moralists are frustrated doms, obsessed with sex, desparate to partake in it. The reason they are so offended by the sexual practices of others is that they just can't stop thinking about it. So they displace the guilt. It's your fault that they're thinking about it--if you would just stop doing it, they could stop thinking of it. In the Muslim world, this is the motivation behind the hijab, the bhurka, and female cirumcision.
So, they want to whip the naughty people, to punish them, for doing the very things the moralists are obsessed with. What we are witnessing is a sexual disfunction elevated to the level of a social and political movement. But it's still just kink.
And then it struck me: this whole 'family values' thing is kink! The outraged moralists are frustrated doms, obsessed with sex, desparate to partake in it. The reason they are so offended by the sexual practices of others is that they just can't stop thinking about it. So they displace the guilt. It's your fault that they're thinking about it--if you would just stop doing it, they could stop thinking of it. In the Muslim world, this is the motivation behind the hijab, the bhurka, and female cirumcision.
So, they want to whip the naughty people, to punish them, for doing the very things the moralists are obsessed with. What we are witnessing is a sexual disfunction elevated to the level of a social and political movement. But it's still just kink.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
The Motivations for Religion
Johann Hari wonders why atheism seems to be failing as a popular movement. His conclusion is that atheism does not offer the comforts of religion, that people cannot bear, as Simone de Beauvoir put it, "the world going silent." Personally, though, I suspect that many of the stricter, more oppressive strains of religions are more of a burden than a comfort. I think there may be simpler reasons for this.
We are pattern seeking creatures. Religion provides a quick, easily grasped picture of the world for those who simply do not have the inclination to search for more nuanced explanations. As the complexity of science and our world increases, mastery of this complexity falls beyond a growing proportion of the population. Furthermore, the choice between scientific rationality and magical thinking is itself a leap of faith at the outset. Both will eventually produce 'evidence' to support themselves--the difference being that science deals in the full spectrum of data while magical thinking deals in selectively choosing what to see and not see. But the choice is originally made a priori. It is itself a decision to accept or ignore evidence, not a decision based on evidence.
Note that I call it magical thinking and not faith. Most of what passes for religious faith now is actually superstition, which has about as much to do with faith as masturbation has to do with true love. Real faith is actually a type of optimism, or at least, determination in the face of long odds; belief without proof in yourself and others, courage in the face of the unknown. This is what great humanitarians practice, and what religion at its best actually calls for. Faith is both a belief in justice and mercy as a force in the world, and the determination to make it so. Religion is neither a neccessary prerequisite nor a guarantor or this.
There is another problem with science for the layman, and that is that we do not live in the world of science. The world of objectivity is an abstraction, at least for us. Nobody lives there. In scientific reports, there is no I. The language is passive. There may be a we in the introduction and conclusion, to provide qualifiers. Objectivity in science is achieved through intersubjectivity; if enough people can verify something, then it is probably true. A single person witnessing a thing is an opinion; a large number of people, witnessing the same thing under carefully controlled circumstances, is a fact, or as near to it as we fallible creatures can get. Scientists try to remove themselves from the equation, knowing that as human beings, they are prone to prejudice and error. This is an act of incredible humility. It is the submission of personal desire and opinion to the yoke of reality. And it requires a lot of training and discipline.
The world of subjectivity is not physically real, but real to us; it is the world we live in. This is the world of stories, of myths, fables, fairy tales, and legends. These evoke truths about human beings and their relationships in society. These are stories about us, accessible to all, without prior training or discipline. They ring true at an asthetic and visceral level so immediate that we may confuse this truth with objective truth. But they also erupt into the world through us. A core myth may unite and move a society as one, and thereby transform our physical reality. The world is not silent, because we have voices and ears, and there are others to hear our stories and tell their own. It is likely that homo sapiens became the dominant hominid species on the planet, not because we were stronger, or even cleverer than neanderthals, but because we formed large support networks and acted in community. For human beings, the human world is at least as important as the material world.
As for the bad record of atheistic movements, the 20th century will not be truly understood until we recognize that Communism and Naziism were both religions. Marx was originally a follower of that great rationalistic mystic Hegel, Stalin was originally a seminary student. In the Soviet dogma, Marx and Lenin became the prophets, and History and dialectical materialism were imbued with volitional purpose, and became God. In Soviet classrooms young children were told that "Lenin is the friend of all little children"; notice the present tense--how could he be anyone's friend when he was stuffed and mounted in Red Square? Hitler constructed a mythology based on a Wagnerian interpretation of Norse mythology, cast the Germans as the chosen people, himself as saviour, the Reich as God, and the Jews as the Devil. Connect the dots and these 'atheist' ideologies will emerge as full blown religions. And this is exactly what Stalin and Hitler intended.
Regarding Roger's observation in the comments on Hari's site, that science is showing that the world is incredibly strange, this is true, and inspires a lot of wonder amongst those who follow science, but frankly, most of the people in Jesusland think a quark is a Ferengi bartender on Star Trek, if they've ever heard the word at all. I'll admit Richard Dawkins is a little shrill, but he is probably moved by the same motivations that inspired the old testament prophets: he sees terrible things in the future if the truth is not heeded. I doubt that the details of advanced science has much to do with inspiring mysticism amongst the general populace, or that it's proponents reach many amongst the religious community.
Personally, I actually like God. God remains a brilliant fiction, a powerful philosophical thought experiment: if a being had absolute power and perfect knowledge, what would that entity be like? He's a great character and a wonderful literary device, and even when I believed in him I never blamed him for the bad things in the world, most of which we cause ourselves. This is the world that we are a part of; we are well adapted to it. We thrive on adversity. Pleasure and pain are the dimensions of life, without which nothing would move. Why would it? Think of the heroin addict with a steady supply, who is so blissed out he starves and rots alive. Good and evil are the dimensions of conscious choice. I didn't stop believing in God because I didn't like him, though I must admit I'm less than impressed with many of the people who claim to believe in him.
But like conspiracy theories and occultism, God fell victim to Occam's Razor. He just became a lot of extra baggage that doesn't really explain anything. Established religions are just conspiracy theories with seniority. I have a friend who is a dedicated conspiracy theorist, and it's fascinating to watch him while in his cups construct his own home-made religion. There is a common plotline to many religions, which is really the same plotline that you find in a lot of popular heroic books and movies. Star Wars uses it. A small minority facing a great evil and near impossible odds is assisted by a Great Power to overcome these odds, and good triumphs in the end. Conspiracy theories and religions portray the struggle as ongoing. It is a good metaphor for the struggles of everyday life, but with one problem; evil is rarely so monolithic, usually composed of the sum of many flaws and weaknesses of ordinary people who may not even be aware that what they are doing is wrong.
The danger lies in believing in a broad, intentional evil, in demonizing the enemy. Because if all the trouble is really being caused by a shadowy group of dedicated evildoers (the Illuminati, the International Banking Conspiracy, the Zionist Conspiracy, etc, etc.) then to destroy the evil, you must destroy them. There's no room for discussion. You are either with the good guys or with the Devil. And what better was to prove that you are right but to throw your voice into the mouth of Oz the Great and Terrible? In order to straighten out the muddled human world of the subjective, there is a great temptation to invoke the ultimate Objective Voice, God himself. As the theme song for one late night preacher put it, "I don't like it... and God don't like it too!"
This is perhaps the darkest motivation behind religion, and particularly behind religious fanaticism: pride. If religions are accessible and ring true at an emotional level, they are also of usually of limited scope and anachronistic. For someone who has settled for this picture of the world, these limits chafe when they are pointed out. We all have a desire to be right, and believers are fond of saying that they learned all they really needed to know from the Holy Book (whatever that book might be)--even when they haven't actually read it! Having found his easy answer, the believer is justified in looking no further. Ignorance is not only permitted, it is glorified as a virtue.
We are pattern seeking creatures. Religion provides a quick, easily grasped picture of the world for those who simply do not have the inclination to search for more nuanced explanations. As the complexity of science and our world increases, mastery of this complexity falls beyond a growing proportion of the population. Furthermore, the choice between scientific rationality and magical thinking is itself a leap of faith at the outset. Both will eventually produce 'evidence' to support themselves--the difference being that science deals in the full spectrum of data while magical thinking deals in selectively choosing what to see and not see. But the choice is originally made a priori. It is itself a decision to accept or ignore evidence, not a decision based on evidence.
Note that I call it magical thinking and not faith. Most of what passes for religious faith now is actually superstition, which has about as much to do with faith as masturbation has to do with true love. Real faith is actually a type of optimism, or at least, determination in the face of long odds; belief without proof in yourself and others, courage in the face of the unknown. This is what great humanitarians practice, and what religion at its best actually calls for. Faith is both a belief in justice and mercy as a force in the world, and the determination to make it so. Religion is neither a neccessary prerequisite nor a guarantor or this.
There is another problem with science for the layman, and that is that we do not live in the world of science. The world of objectivity is an abstraction, at least for us. Nobody lives there. In scientific reports, there is no I. The language is passive. There may be a we in the introduction and conclusion, to provide qualifiers. Objectivity in science is achieved through intersubjectivity; if enough people can verify something, then it is probably true. A single person witnessing a thing is an opinion; a large number of people, witnessing the same thing under carefully controlled circumstances, is a fact, or as near to it as we fallible creatures can get. Scientists try to remove themselves from the equation, knowing that as human beings, they are prone to prejudice and error. This is an act of incredible humility. It is the submission of personal desire and opinion to the yoke of reality. And it requires a lot of training and discipline.
The world of subjectivity is not physically real, but real to us; it is the world we live in. This is the world of stories, of myths, fables, fairy tales, and legends. These evoke truths about human beings and their relationships in society. These are stories about us, accessible to all, without prior training or discipline. They ring true at an asthetic and visceral level so immediate that we may confuse this truth with objective truth. But they also erupt into the world through us. A core myth may unite and move a society as one, and thereby transform our physical reality. The world is not silent, because we have voices and ears, and there are others to hear our stories and tell their own. It is likely that homo sapiens became the dominant hominid species on the planet, not because we were stronger, or even cleverer than neanderthals, but because we formed large support networks and acted in community. For human beings, the human world is at least as important as the material world.
As for the bad record of atheistic movements, the 20th century will not be truly understood until we recognize that Communism and Naziism were both religions. Marx was originally a follower of that great rationalistic mystic Hegel, Stalin was originally a seminary student. In the Soviet dogma, Marx and Lenin became the prophets, and History and dialectical materialism were imbued with volitional purpose, and became God. In Soviet classrooms young children were told that "Lenin is the friend of all little children"; notice the present tense--how could he be anyone's friend when he was stuffed and mounted in Red Square? Hitler constructed a mythology based on a Wagnerian interpretation of Norse mythology, cast the Germans as the chosen people, himself as saviour, the Reich as God, and the Jews as the Devil. Connect the dots and these 'atheist' ideologies will emerge as full blown religions. And this is exactly what Stalin and Hitler intended.
Regarding Roger's observation in the comments on Hari's site, that science is showing that the world is incredibly strange, this is true, and inspires a lot of wonder amongst those who follow science, but frankly, most of the people in Jesusland think a quark is a Ferengi bartender on Star Trek, if they've ever heard the word at all. I'll admit Richard Dawkins is a little shrill, but he is probably moved by the same motivations that inspired the old testament prophets: he sees terrible things in the future if the truth is not heeded. I doubt that the details of advanced science has much to do with inspiring mysticism amongst the general populace, or that it's proponents reach many amongst the religious community.
Personally, I actually like God. God remains a brilliant fiction, a powerful philosophical thought experiment: if a being had absolute power and perfect knowledge, what would that entity be like? He's a great character and a wonderful literary device, and even when I believed in him I never blamed him for the bad things in the world, most of which we cause ourselves. This is the world that we are a part of; we are well adapted to it. We thrive on adversity. Pleasure and pain are the dimensions of life, without which nothing would move. Why would it? Think of the heroin addict with a steady supply, who is so blissed out he starves and rots alive. Good and evil are the dimensions of conscious choice. I didn't stop believing in God because I didn't like him, though I must admit I'm less than impressed with many of the people who claim to believe in him.
But like conspiracy theories and occultism, God fell victim to Occam's Razor. He just became a lot of extra baggage that doesn't really explain anything. Established religions are just conspiracy theories with seniority. I have a friend who is a dedicated conspiracy theorist, and it's fascinating to watch him while in his cups construct his own home-made religion. There is a common plotline to many religions, which is really the same plotline that you find in a lot of popular heroic books and movies. Star Wars uses it. A small minority facing a great evil and near impossible odds is assisted by a Great Power to overcome these odds, and good triumphs in the end. Conspiracy theories and religions portray the struggle as ongoing. It is a good metaphor for the struggles of everyday life, but with one problem; evil is rarely so monolithic, usually composed of the sum of many flaws and weaknesses of ordinary people who may not even be aware that what they are doing is wrong.
The danger lies in believing in a broad, intentional evil, in demonizing the enemy. Because if all the trouble is really being caused by a shadowy group of dedicated evildoers (the Illuminati, the International Banking Conspiracy, the Zionist Conspiracy, etc, etc.) then to destroy the evil, you must destroy them. There's no room for discussion. You are either with the good guys or with the Devil. And what better was to prove that you are right but to throw your voice into the mouth of Oz the Great and Terrible? In order to straighten out the muddled human world of the subjective, there is a great temptation to invoke the ultimate Objective Voice, God himself. As the theme song for one late night preacher put it, "I don't like it... and God don't like it too!"
This is perhaps the darkest motivation behind religion, and particularly behind religious fanaticism: pride. If religions are accessible and ring true at an emotional level, they are also of usually of limited scope and anachronistic. For someone who has settled for this picture of the world, these limits chafe when they are pointed out. We all have a desire to be right, and believers are fond of saying that they learned all they really needed to know from the Holy Book (whatever that book might be)--even when they haven't actually read it! Having found his easy answer, the believer is justified in looking no further. Ignorance is not only permitted, it is glorified as a virtue.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Notes on The Return of the King
I just got the extended version of The Return of the King today (I have all three extended versions now.) It's beautifully done. But of course, having read the book so many times, I have a couple of issues with it.
Movies are different from books, and frankly, I'm glad Jackson didn't try to stick slavishly to the original--what's the point of making a movie if you're not going to try to add something new to it. Overall he did a fantastic job. My main complaint, though, was that he missed something in the transformation of Frodo that was, to me, one of the most subtle themes in the book, and one that many seemed to miss.
Tolkien follows Frodo's perspective right up until Shelob's lair, but then shifts to Sam's perspective, never again entering Frodo's mind. This is consistent with his treatment of Sauron: we never see the monster. Sauron is a rumour, a shadow, the sum of all fears, a being who may not even have a physical form. He is a living nightmare. With no form of his own, he takes on any and all forms that fear may give him.
Frodo is a good man in the deepest pit of hell, having an intimate conversation with the devil which he cannot refuse and cannot escape. He already knows what to expect, because Gandalf has warned him, and he has seen what the ring does to others. And he has Gollum before him, he can see with his own eyes where he is heading. The ring has already played the obvious tricks on him, at Bree, Weathertop, and with Bilbo in Rivendell. Now it is approaching full strength, and the assault is far more subtle, and vicious. His humanity is being consumed, his mind eaten away, his body bent and broken by a burden of metaphysical weight. His is not the saintliness of quiet repose. He is gentle because he is becoming a beast. He is kind because murder is creeping into his heart. And he clings desparately to his humanity, because he is becoming a monster. He knows all this. Gollum was at least spared the knowledge of his fall, but Frodo knows what is happening to him, and this makes it far worse. Frodo's hell, and his experience of it, is, like Sauron, beyond description, and Tolkien wisely does not attempt to describe it.
In the movie, the writers treated the desire for the ring as an addiction. This is but a single layer amongst dozens. The ring is not just an addiction, it is also desire, greed, control, power, status, ego, technology, arrogance, elitism, the means that becomes an end. But most of all, it is Pride. If Sauron is the sum of all fears, then the ring is the sum of all vices and sins. So to have Frodo order Sam to go home at the urging of Gollum is a terrible breach of character. Sam is his only link to home and his humanity; Frodo would not dare part with him. Frodo is no fool, he is not duped by Gollum. Frodo has shackled him with the ring, by forcing him to swear by it. But the ring, through Gollum, has found an improbable loophole that Frodo is not aware of, a threat that will take no interest in the ring. Frodo's only mistake is giddy relief at reaching the end of Shelob's lair, in thinking the danger has passed when it hasn't.
This is not the only time that Frodo uses the ring for its intended purpose. When Gollum attacks him on Mount Doom, Frodo clutches the ring and transforms again before Sams eyes. Frodo commands Gollum: "Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom." It is by this curse that Gollum's fate is sealed. Jackson said that he didn't want Frodo to lie passively while Gollum simply stumbled over the edge, so he had them struggle for the ring, causing Gollum to fall. But Frodo is not passive. He has already doomed Gollum, but it is not murder. It happens only through Gollum's own choice. Fair warning has been given, and Frodo need only wait for the wheels he has already set in motion to lead to the inevitable. Even as the ring masters him, he masters it, and tricks it into its own destruction. For that brief moment, he is peer to the likes of Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, and Sauron. This is another reason that his mind is closed to us. He has joined the ranks of the Great and the Wise.
I have heard J.K. Rowling criticized for disregarding the numinosity of magic. But Rowling is a master of cheeky absurdity, a head on collision between modern popular culture and myth. The numinous appears sparingly, usually in the flash points of Harry's struggle with Voldemort. Tolkien is all numinosity, a struggle of powers and principalities which may not even have physical forms, a world stalked by moods and metaphors. Much of the magic can only be seen through the eyes of the beholder. No camera would capture it. Sam in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, seen through the camera lens, is just a frightened hobbit, clutching something at his chest, climbing the stairs. But through the eyes of the orcs who meet him, he is a towering figure of shadow, holding a sword glittering with the light of the Elves, and holding "a cowing menace to the slaves of Mordor." The ring is just a ring until it is picked up; it acts only through those who come in contact with it. By being less physical, Tolkien's magic is, paradoxically, more real. It is the very sort of magic that we encounter in everyday life, though it requires watchful eyes to see it.
Thus, we have a Dark Lord that we never see, wraiths who are invisible, a balrog with wings of shadow. This is not just evil as the absence of good, but holes to be filled with dread. We have the twisted, the corrupted, the description of evil, but we also have these empty spaces, marked: "more of the same, but much worse." Everyone has different nightmares. These figures will accomodate all of them.
Rather than show Frodo acting foolishly, it might have been better to show the world through his eyes, the steady accumulation of horror, delusion, and nightmare that assaults him as he draws near Mordor, with measured reaction on his face to guage their intensity. We see Sam turned into a grasping monster, the sky turn to blood, the stones turn to bones. Then, when he enters Mordor, the door slams shut. We see him only from the outside now, through Sams eyes. And Frodo's desparately controlled reactions grow more intense, the horror wild in his eyes, the inward stare so overwhelming that he cannot see to place his own feet, and stumbles constantly. He thrashes in his sleep, shrinks from Sam, flinches at shadows and claws at empty air. And it is left to our imagination, knowing the horrors he faced before so stoically, to wonder what they must be like now.
The Lord of the Rings is not perfect, and what works in a book will often not work in a movie. But Tolkien had ruminated on the themes of The Lord of the Rings for almost forty years, and took seventeen years to write it. It has the depth of mythology. The fox/hedgehog distinction--that some people pursue a number of idea while others fixate on one big idea--is far too simplistic. Mythology contains a world of ideas in a dense, almost holographic format. 'Foxes' may harp on a single idea but disguise it in many different forms. Analytic and synthetic would be a better distinction. Synthetics gather ideas like a snowball growing as it rolls down the hill, but many of them may be so deeply buried that even the author has forgotten them. These still resonate, though. There is a narrative truth in good stories, which appeal to aesthetic rather than logical appreciation. It may take as many years to tease these ideas out of a work as it took to put them in. You tamper with these works at your own risk, and you may break them if you leave out something essential. None of these essentials are clearly marked, and are open to interpretation. You may not even know what you've missed, even if you have a vague feeling of dissatisfaction.
Still, Jackson has made the definitive version. It's no wonder that all the people who worked on it damn near worked themselves to death. This is more than a movie, it's a piece of history. And behind all of this effort stood more than professional pride. The love of the book drove them to it. Nothing less would do.
Movies are different from books, and frankly, I'm glad Jackson didn't try to stick slavishly to the original--what's the point of making a movie if you're not going to try to add something new to it. Overall he did a fantastic job. My main complaint, though, was that he missed something in the transformation of Frodo that was, to me, one of the most subtle themes in the book, and one that many seemed to miss.
Tolkien follows Frodo's perspective right up until Shelob's lair, but then shifts to Sam's perspective, never again entering Frodo's mind. This is consistent with his treatment of Sauron: we never see the monster. Sauron is a rumour, a shadow, the sum of all fears, a being who may not even have a physical form. He is a living nightmare. With no form of his own, he takes on any and all forms that fear may give him.
Frodo is a good man in the deepest pit of hell, having an intimate conversation with the devil which he cannot refuse and cannot escape. He already knows what to expect, because Gandalf has warned him, and he has seen what the ring does to others. And he has Gollum before him, he can see with his own eyes where he is heading. The ring has already played the obvious tricks on him, at Bree, Weathertop, and with Bilbo in Rivendell. Now it is approaching full strength, and the assault is far more subtle, and vicious. His humanity is being consumed, his mind eaten away, his body bent and broken by a burden of metaphysical weight. His is not the saintliness of quiet repose. He is gentle because he is becoming a beast. He is kind because murder is creeping into his heart. And he clings desparately to his humanity, because he is becoming a monster. He knows all this. Gollum was at least spared the knowledge of his fall, but Frodo knows what is happening to him, and this makes it far worse. Frodo's hell, and his experience of it, is, like Sauron, beyond description, and Tolkien wisely does not attempt to describe it.
In the movie, the writers treated the desire for the ring as an addiction. This is but a single layer amongst dozens. The ring is not just an addiction, it is also desire, greed, control, power, status, ego, technology, arrogance, elitism, the means that becomes an end. But most of all, it is Pride. If Sauron is the sum of all fears, then the ring is the sum of all vices and sins. So to have Frodo order Sam to go home at the urging of Gollum is a terrible breach of character. Sam is his only link to home and his humanity; Frodo would not dare part with him. Frodo is no fool, he is not duped by Gollum. Frodo has shackled him with the ring, by forcing him to swear by it. But the ring, through Gollum, has found an improbable loophole that Frodo is not aware of, a threat that will take no interest in the ring. Frodo's only mistake is giddy relief at reaching the end of Shelob's lair, in thinking the danger has passed when it hasn't.
This is not the only time that Frodo uses the ring for its intended purpose. When Gollum attacks him on Mount Doom, Frodo clutches the ring and transforms again before Sams eyes. Frodo commands Gollum: "Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom." It is by this curse that Gollum's fate is sealed. Jackson said that he didn't want Frodo to lie passively while Gollum simply stumbled over the edge, so he had them struggle for the ring, causing Gollum to fall. But Frodo is not passive. He has already doomed Gollum, but it is not murder. It happens only through Gollum's own choice. Fair warning has been given, and Frodo need only wait for the wheels he has already set in motion to lead to the inevitable. Even as the ring masters him, he masters it, and tricks it into its own destruction. For that brief moment, he is peer to the likes of Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, and Sauron. This is another reason that his mind is closed to us. He has joined the ranks of the Great and the Wise.
I have heard J.K. Rowling criticized for disregarding the numinosity of magic. But Rowling is a master of cheeky absurdity, a head on collision between modern popular culture and myth. The numinous appears sparingly, usually in the flash points of Harry's struggle with Voldemort. Tolkien is all numinosity, a struggle of powers and principalities which may not even have physical forms, a world stalked by moods and metaphors. Much of the magic can only be seen through the eyes of the beholder. No camera would capture it. Sam in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, seen through the camera lens, is just a frightened hobbit, clutching something at his chest, climbing the stairs. But through the eyes of the orcs who meet him, he is a towering figure of shadow, holding a sword glittering with the light of the Elves, and holding "a cowing menace to the slaves of Mordor." The ring is just a ring until it is picked up; it acts only through those who come in contact with it. By being less physical, Tolkien's magic is, paradoxically, more real. It is the very sort of magic that we encounter in everyday life, though it requires watchful eyes to see it.
Thus, we have a Dark Lord that we never see, wraiths who are invisible, a balrog with wings of shadow. This is not just evil as the absence of good, but holes to be filled with dread. We have the twisted, the corrupted, the description of evil, but we also have these empty spaces, marked: "more of the same, but much worse." Everyone has different nightmares. These figures will accomodate all of them.
Rather than show Frodo acting foolishly, it might have been better to show the world through his eyes, the steady accumulation of horror, delusion, and nightmare that assaults him as he draws near Mordor, with measured reaction on his face to guage their intensity. We see Sam turned into a grasping monster, the sky turn to blood, the stones turn to bones. Then, when he enters Mordor, the door slams shut. We see him only from the outside now, through Sams eyes. And Frodo's desparately controlled reactions grow more intense, the horror wild in his eyes, the inward stare so overwhelming that he cannot see to place his own feet, and stumbles constantly. He thrashes in his sleep, shrinks from Sam, flinches at shadows and claws at empty air. And it is left to our imagination, knowing the horrors he faced before so stoically, to wonder what they must be like now.
The Lord of the Rings is not perfect, and what works in a book will often not work in a movie. But Tolkien had ruminated on the themes of The Lord of the Rings for almost forty years, and took seventeen years to write it. It has the depth of mythology. The fox/hedgehog distinction--that some people pursue a number of idea while others fixate on one big idea--is far too simplistic. Mythology contains a world of ideas in a dense, almost holographic format. 'Foxes' may harp on a single idea but disguise it in many different forms. Analytic and synthetic would be a better distinction. Synthetics gather ideas like a snowball growing as it rolls down the hill, but many of them may be so deeply buried that even the author has forgotten them. These still resonate, though. There is a narrative truth in good stories, which appeal to aesthetic rather than logical appreciation. It may take as many years to tease these ideas out of a work as it took to put them in. You tamper with these works at your own risk, and you may break them if you leave out something essential. None of these essentials are clearly marked, and are open to interpretation. You may not even know what you've missed, even if you have a vague feeling of dissatisfaction.
Still, Jackson has made the definitive version. It's no wonder that all the people who worked on it damn near worked themselves to death. This is more than a movie, it's a piece of history. And behind all of this effort stood more than professional pride. The love of the book drove them to it. Nothing less would do.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Mortality
Someone pointed out that the theme of The Lord of the Rings is death. Tolkien throws mortality into stark relief through the presence of immortals. Galadriel, who is older than the sun itself, and Elrond, younger but still immortal, preserve their way of life through the power of the Elven Rings. But these rings also hold the threat of their destruction, because they are bound to the One Ring. Faced with this choice, they surrender their way of life, and their civilization fades from Middle Earth. In order to save life itself, they submit to mortality. Though they do not die, they are forced to return to the Undying Lands. Their life in Middle Earth ends.
Tolkien has hit on something essential here; the tragedy, and necessity, of mortality. Immortality brings a certain inflexibility, an attachment to old ways whose time has past. If these ways are preserved for too long, they become brittle, and snap with disastrous consequences. Death is necessary for renewal. Change is a continuous process of death and rebirth, and change is the only constant.
Against change we raise the bulwark of tradition, of continuity that defies change. "The King is dead; Long live the King!" In the very same breath, we accept change and deny it. We fear change and attempt to tame it; we measure and keep time, even serve it, in the hope of controlling it, parcelling it, make it march to a drum of our making. We form into social groups whose identites precede and survive us. By investing ourselves in these, we hope to participate in their immortality. Our most cherished institutions are housed in buildings whose architecture is reminiscent of ancient or medieval architecture. Banks are constructed to resemble classical architecture to provide the impression that they will weather time and economic vicissitudes. In rituals and ceremony we enact 'magic time', in which we occupy the same moment as generations who have practiced them before and generations to come who will perform them after us.
And yet, life itself is in revolt, by tearing down the old order through death and replacing it with a new order. Mortality is not a biological necessity. There are species that do not age, birds that can live for hundreds of years, crocodiles and turtles that simply continue to grow for decades or even centuries. But for a species as complex and adaptive as humans, immortality could prove disastrous. Each generation arises to question anew the assumptions of the old, sometimes only to reaffirm them, sometimes to modfy or throw them out altogether. It has been argued that scientific revolutions are generational, that it requires the old guard to die out in order for newer, better ideas to take hold. The same is true for ideas of social justice. Old prejudices linger, sometimes unspoken, but nevertheless entrenched and making themselves felt indirectly. And sometimes people will take full flight into a real or imagined past, clinging to ways and traditions disastrous in a modern world, hoping to deny time altogether. Usually this is done in the name of God, eternal, unchanging, and the Lord of Heaven, a realm untouched by time.
And yet, if you believe God is the Architect of this world, you must concede that He is the ultimate Rebel, who might answer, like Marlon Brando's character in The Wild One when asked what he is against: "What have you got?" To return to Tolkien, and one of Gollum's riddles to Bilbo:
This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers
Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!
The answer is Time. How likely is it that the Creator of time and the Architect of perpetual change would inhabit a realm as still and stagnant as a tomb, or desire anything like it on earth?
Tolkien has hit on something essential here; the tragedy, and necessity, of mortality. Immortality brings a certain inflexibility, an attachment to old ways whose time has past. If these ways are preserved for too long, they become brittle, and snap with disastrous consequences. Death is necessary for renewal. Change is a continuous process of death and rebirth, and change is the only constant.
Against change we raise the bulwark of tradition, of continuity that defies change. "The King is dead; Long live the King!" In the very same breath, we accept change and deny it. We fear change and attempt to tame it; we measure and keep time, even serve it, in the hope of controlling it, parcelling it, make it march to a drum of our making. We form into social groups whose identites precede and survive us. By investing ourselves in these, we hope to participate in their immortality. Our most cherished institutions are housed in buildings whose architecture is reminiscent of ancient or medieval architecture. Banks are constructed to resemble classical architecture to provide the impression that they will weather time and economic vicissitudes. In rituals and ceremony we enact 'magic time', in which we occupy the same moment as generations who have practiced them before and generations to come who will perform them after us.
And yet, life itself is in revolt, by tearing down the old order through death and replacing it with a new order. Mortality is not a biological necessity. There are species that do not age, birds that can live for hundreds of years, crocodiles and turtles that simply continue to grow for decades or even centuries. But for a species as complex and adaptive as humans, immortality could prove disastrous. Each generation arises to question anew the assumptions of the old, sometimes only to reaffirm them, sometimes to modfy or throw them out altogether. It has been argued that scientific revolutions are generational, that it requires the old guard to die out in order for newer, better ideas to take hold. The same is true for ideas of social justice. Old prejudices linger, sometimes unspoken, but nevertheless entrenched and making themselves felt indirectly. And sometimes people will take full flight into a real or imagined past, clinging to ways and traditions disastrous in a modern world, hoping to deny time altogether. Usually this is done in the name of God, eternal, unchanging, and the Lord of Heaven, a realm untouched by time.
And yet, if you believe God is the Architect of this world, you must concede that He is the ultimate Rebel, who might answer, like Marlon Brando's character in The Wild One when asked what he is against: "What have you got?" To return to Tolkien, and one of Gollum's riddles to Bilbo:
This thing all things devours
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers
Gnaws iron, bites steel,
Grinds hard stones to meal,
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down!
The answer is Time. How likely is it that the Creator of time and the Architect of perpetual change would inhabit a realm as still and stagnant as a tomb, or desire anything like it on earth?
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