The musings of yesterday evening did not quite sit well with me, even immediately after writing them. While I do think the problem of technology is of vital importance, my feeling is that some of my political conclusions were over-hasty. I was caught up in the rush of radical new ideas and just got carried away. This post is a more critical take on some of the issues raised previously.
When one reaches conclusions that clash dramatically with the sensibilities of most others, it's a good idea to try to understand as well as possible what really underlies these conclusions, and whether they rest on secure foundations. Thus, I want to consider this from at least two perspectives. One is the rational and evidentiary basis of the claims, while the other is more psychological, looking at the factors that motivate the creation of the arguments.
First, it seems yesterday's conclusions depend on a number of presuppositions which I either failed to mention or inadequately argued for. The prediction of rapid progress is premised on the continuation of a trend that so far shows no signs of slackening, but it is far from certain that the conditions which support it will be stable.
While I mentioned the possibility of an apocalyptic disaster which other wiped out or species or at least destroyed a good chunk of it and ended civilization as we know it, I didn't consider other, more minor catastrophes which might serve to delay or reverse scientific progress. For example, the looming specters of global warming and the energy crisis constituted by the depletion of fossil fuels are significant problems which I've been content to lump in with other problems having merely technological solutions. It may be the case that we find new, cleaner sources of energy, or technological fixes to reverse the effects of excessive carbon emissions, but this is far from certain. One could raise other problems as well: instability caused by economic collapses and shifts in the balance of political power, wars over certain limited resources like oil, and so forth.
On top of that, there may be certain things which are just not physically possible to achieve, or that come with such adverse side effects as not to be worth pursuing. One could imagine certain genetic augmentations that disrupt a finely balanced natural system, or the problem of creating software to use all our powerful computing hardware to its fullest capacity, to name just two.
Next, in terms of the basis of the normative claims, it is by no means obvious that greater intelligence necessitates better judgment or wisdom. My inclination is to believe that this would be the case, but it's something of an empirical question, although one that is simultaneously normative since the meaning of better judgment is itself a question of ethical/political judgment. Furthermore, I downplayed the possibilities of other reasons why letting greater-than-human artificial intelligences decide for us might be undesirable. One such instance would be the importance for well being of the sense of being free to decide for oneself, determine the course of one's own life, etc.
Moving on to the second view, I find that psychologically my motivation in the previous post is highly misanthropic, in addition to being highly anti-natural. Now, granted, that I think this hatred of natural processes and of human beings is justified, but there are some serious repercussions to being so motivated. In the least, I need to offer a better justification for this attitude.
For the first time in my quarter-century or so of life, I have broken a bone. It happened I think about a month ago, but I didn't notice any effects of it until I started feeling pain in my right foot about two weeks ago, and it was not confirmed until just today after I had X-rays taken. Suffice it to say that it has reminded me of the frailty of human bodies.
Similarly, although it places me in a camp with some of the most violently ascetic individuals in history, there are many things that annoy me about the kinds of bodies that we have: all the effort that is required to maintain physical hygiene, the inefficiency of many systems, the unpleasant wastes that our bodies produce, the way that we get so easily tired by sustained activity, etc.
My body in particular is not in the greatest of shape, even after I devote considerable time to habits of maintenance. I have never been particularly strong or fast or resilient. Frankly, if not for safety concerns, I think I would be one of the first in line for a prosthetic body if such a thing should be developed. As it stands, I can easily imagine myself voluntarily opting for cybernetic limbs to replace my perfectly healthy ones, once these are safe and indistinguishable from natural limbs.
All of these shortcomings are to be expected by the unintelligent design of blind evolutionary forces. Unfortunately, as imperfect as they are they are still exceedingly complex, having reached solutions to problems of organization that we are not even aware of at the present. I think we will eventually design better bodies, but it may be quite some time. In the interim, the best option may just be to try to optimize the basic design that we do have, and this is a problem for biotech more than anything else.
Furthermore, I was explicit previously in my suggestion that suffering is pointless and worthless, but this is a bit of an overgeneralization. Pain certainly has an evolutionary function, which involves, among other things, learning how to respond to complex environments. What I see as another unfortunate consequence of nature's blind designs is that pain seems to accomplish the task of learning far more readily than does pleasure.
I have seen evolutionary justifications for this empirical fact, such as the far greater cost imposed by death (which must in turn be avoided to the greatest degree possible) versus the relatively small benefit accrued by successfully obtaining food for the day, or by one act of mating, and so forth. The consequence of this is that, on the whole, there is likely a far greater degree of pain than pleasure in the world, and to me this is simply unacceptable. On simple utilitarian grounds alone, it would be incumbent upon us to undertake to redesign natural processes as far as possible, so that we might reverse this pernicious trend with all its adverse consequences (e.g., the possibility of torture).
Lastly, on this note concerning my distaste for "nature" and "human nature", there are the myriad of social and political problems which I see as ultimately unresolvable. My contention is that most of these problems have at least two kinds of solutions, one of which is primarily social and the other of which is medical or otherwise technological.
For example, take the difficulties imposed on the handicapped in virtue of their injuries and defects. The problem here is fundamentally a mismatch between certain individuals and their social environments. To an extent, the environment can be altered: e.g., handicapped bathrooms and ramps are fairly common accommodations that society has made for those bound to wheelchairs.
But, rather than taking all that effort to redesign the environment--including some that are extremely difficult to change, viz., opinions and attitudes--we can attack the problem at an individual level. By screening for genetic defects, and by developing highly effective prosthetics, cures for paralysis, and so forth, we can simply eliminate the handicaps themselves. (And unlike the deplorable eugenics movements of the past, this totally avoids killing people; it simply remedies certain existing conditions and prevents certain genetic combinations from attaining life.)
Not all social problems may be resolvable on this model, but I believe that many of the causes of unhappiness in people can be so resolved, and this would be a major step forward. One can think of it as something like "applied stoicism": I change myself rather than my environment, because I have so little power over the latter.
In short, I like to see this as a problem of figuring out how reason can best overpower negative affects. I've been meaning to write a post to show why Spinoza would agree with me about all this technology stuff (and it's not even that big of a stretch, as I hope to show), but certainly we have a case here of people coming together (thus having more power than individuals alone) and crafting artifices which allow for more direct control of those things which disempower us. To my mind, that's what human enhancement truly is: the augmentation of our freedom.
Returning to the previous perspective (beliefs that underlie my conclusions), it is vital to note that certain conclusions I have reached concerning human freedom and divinity are essential presuppositions for me. I believe, but will not argue for here, that what is taken for free will is simply ignorance of the causes of our desires (for one excellent argument, see the invaluable Appendix to Spinoza's Ethics Part I). I maintain that the choices we are presented with when it comes to technological control are between numerous causes (of which we are ignorant) interacting in highly complex ways producing highly contingent effects, on the one hand, and more direct control based on scientific knowledge.
(As an aside, I use the word "choice" deliberately; I do not deny that we have the freedom to make choices. Rather, I maintain that the basis on which those choices are made consists of desires that are primarily the product of external forces--and to the extent that we can change our desires, this requires the operation of second order desires, whose origin will ultimately be derived from external factors.)
In short, the choice is between chance and ignorance, on the one hand, and control and knowledge on the other. To me, this is really no choice at all; only a fool would choose ignorance. The problem that most people face, and this is a point that B.F. Skinner, of all people, has made remarkably well, is that the external determination is more evident in cases of control (because, of course, we're ignorant in the more complex cases), so it's easier to see this as simply being manipulated. But, as I construe it, we're being determined to action either way; the path of knowledge though allows us to be more determined by our own nature, which is what I think true freedom is.
This should be sufficient for now. Let me to some extent rescind my previous rejection of certain democratic values, and leave them in a sort of questionable area, a matter of doubt requiring further reflection.
3/22/2007
3/21/2007
A 3rd Dimension in 21st Century politics
I've begun reading Ray Kurzweil's most recent book The Singularity is Near. I'm tempted to call the man a visionary; his view of the world is profound and startling. It's got me thinking about some issues I've seen raised elsewhere, and I've come around to some political conclusions that are, to say the least, not mainstream.
In contemporary politics, a 2-dimensional model is sometimes proposed for plotting political views. Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the diversity of views on what constitutes the political spectrum. Many have seen the inadequacy of the left-right model, and have proposed alternatives, one of which is known as the "political compass" model (discussed in detail here), which is fairly representative of 2-axis accounts, so I will briefly discuss it.
The two axes are the social and the economic. On the economic side of things, you find a range of views from hardcore libertarianism and support of laissez-faire capitalism, on the right end, to various forms of communism and socialism, on the left. The range of views on economics is of course more complex than this, but it offers a rough guideline by focusing on the level of interference in an economy by the state or some other collective.
On the social axis, you have views that range from authoritarianism and the worship of tradition, on the right (actually, the top of the compass), to what they call libertarianism (it's probably appropriate to distinguish between economic and social libertarianism, as well as the political group that calls itself libertarian, whose members are often both) with its emphasis on personal freedoms, on the left (the bottom). The relevant characteristic here is a measure of permissibility, how much is left up to individuals to choose for themselves.
I trust these two axes are fairly straightforward. However, there a third dimension is emerging in 21st century politics, and will become extremely prominent very soon. My suggestion is that it warrants its own axis, since it does not map well with either of the other two. I think the easiest way to distinguish the ends are by calling them technoconservatives and technoprogressives, but you also might talk about the range as being from Neo-Luddite to Transhumanist. On either end, you find unlikely allies.
On the technoconservative side, you find environmental activists, religious fundamentalists, leftist academics (much to my chagrin; it makes me wish Brave New World were never written), and groups like the Amish. On the technoprogressive side, you have avowed transhumanists, technophiles of various sorts, avid consumers of gadgets and doodads, and even the occasional social conservative who sees technology as a means of "curing" the gay or as a great way to enforce law and order.
I view our culture as being far more technoconservative than technoprogressive, in spite of all the money we put into scientific and technological research. Yes, there is a sort of contradiction represented by our worship of progress and our insatiable consumer culture, but by and large Americans are weary of new technologies, particularly biotechnology like genetic engineering. Contrast us with nations like Japan, India, or Thailand, and you find far less support of, for instance, germline genetic augmentation, which many westerners are inclined to dismiss as scary "eugenics".
Carl Elliott has documented our tenacious relationship with human enhancement in Better Than Well, a text which I use in my intro philosophy class and one I highly recommend. What you find, Elliott suggests, is a tension in thinking about human identity between notions of authenticity and being true to yourself, and those of self-improvement and being all that you can be. And, in truth, this issue of technology is largely one of identity, although in a different sense than the trendy topic found in academia today.
The fact of the matter is that we will very soon be dealing with beings of our own creation who match and then exceed human capabilities. The extent to which this happens in part depends on how long the Luddites are able to hold off what I see as inevitable (or, inevitable so long as we do not destroy ourselves, which is actually a likely possibility).
But if the technoprogressives win out, we will see robots, genetically enhanced humans, humans who voluntarily integrate themselves with machines (cyborgs, they are often called), but also computerized intelligences without bodies properly speaking, as well as intelligences realized in new forms like molecular computing that call into question the living/non-living distinction, and then all the hybrids of these various types. Imagine the world of the "X-Men" combined with that of "Ghost in the Shell". Add in nanotechnology, and things get even more wacky--and all of this happening all at once.
Very soon, people will have no idea about what is human and who counts as a person deserving of legal and moral rights. In this era, the technoconservatives (or at least the social conservatives among their number) will probably limit humanity to the unenhanced and non-cybernetic. This group, which I like to think of as the Neo-Amish, may constitute a substantial portion of the population in the beginning. But ultimately, they will be unable to compete with their enhanced brethren (and good riddance!).
This picture of the world scares many people. It runs counter to our understanding of the equality of persons; when you talk about improving humans, you are talking about making some better than others. It essentially destroys the traditional human world. I think that it is more than likely--I'd say even 90% certain--that human beings, as we are constituted now, will be extinct by 2100. Either we will have destroyed our species, or we will have moved beyond it.
This is, as I see it, the last century of humanity. Because I far prefer augmenting humanity rather than eliminating it, I strongly support unimpeded technological development in the GNR (genetics, nanotechnology, robotics) fields. Now, some people oppose it for the same reason, since they see it as increasing the likelihood of human extinction, whether by some super-virus, a robot rebellion, or the destruction of life by omnivorous nanobots (the "gray goo" scenario). And to an extent, this is true.
However, I see a far greater threat in the form of the idiots who control our nuclear weapons. One of the problems with unenhanced humanity is constituted by our aggressive and tribal impulses that incline us to hate those different than us and go to great lengths to destroy them. The sooner the enhanced and machine intelligences take over the world, as far as I am concerned, the better. In short, for those of you who know the film, I see "I, Robot" as having an unhappy ending.
Now, this is a radical view politically. It makes me part ways with many democratic ideals. But the more I read about the exponential growth of technologies, the more inevitable it seems. Yes, we may ban a lot of biotech, but the change is coming faster than we can respond to. Ultimately, I think it's the machines who will triumph, because people will view advances in computing and robotics as relatively innocuous, until the robots and other machine intelligences become commonplace.
Before long, recognizing their superiority, the machines and their cybernetic allies will sweep the unenhanced out of power--hopefully nonviolently--and usher in a new era of peace and cooperation. My guess is that this would happen around mid-century. It behooves those of us with any sense to join them.
All this sentimental piffle about the flaws and sufferings that make human beings special should be recognized for the garbage that it is. Nietzsche articulates it perfectly: the one thing we cannot accept is the notion that our suffering is meaningless. Well, folks, like it or not, it mostly is. It's the product of blind chance, of complex natural processes that lack foresight, of the various idiocies that human beings foist upon themselves. A world with as little suffering as possible would be a far better world, and this will (I hope) be the world of the future, in which intelligence wins out over other natural forces.
Most of you who read this, although I know few do, will likely regard me as insane, or at least deluded. I say time will tell. Predicting the future is a difficult business, and I could likely be wrong. However, one thing I am quite confident in is my normative stance: human beings are ultimately unfit to govern themselves. You can arrange societies in only so many ways, some more preferable than others, but like a mosaic made out of dog shit, the substance with which you work will put serious limitations on how beautiful your finished product will be.
In the past, this view was simply used as a means for one group to gain power over another. We are "the well born", "the best men", the ones who speak directly to the gods, etc., etc. But, in the future, this pretense will become a reality. Let there be democracy amongst the enhanced, but most human beings have no idea about what is good for themselves. Certainly, the people are not equipped to recognize who among them would serve as the best leaders--George W. Bush is but one obvious example.
We should be honest with ourselves. Frankly, I see myself as lacking in these respects--certainly I lack the intelligence and wisdom to see how the world ought to be governed but, really, so do all human beings. For too long, we have been at the whims of fortune, but now that we have the possibility to become masters of fate, it is incumbent upon us that we do so.
I find myself with a new purpose, as an academic and a philosopher, which is to sell this vision of the world, to encourage people to put effort into making our radically different future as utopian as possible. More and more are waking up to the importance of the issue, but far too many react to it with revulsion. I hope to change that. In any case, this is really the defining issue of our time. Recognize it.
In contemporary politics, a 2-dimensional model is sometimes proposed for plotting political views. Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the diversity of views on what constitutes the political spectrum. Many have seen the inadequacy of the left-right model, and have proposed alternatives, one of which is known as the "political compass" model (discussed in detail here), which is fairly representative of 2-axis accounts, so I will briefly discuss it.
The two axes are the social and the economic. On the economic side of things, you find a range of views from hardcore libertarianism and support of laissez-faire capitalism, on the right end, to various forms of communism and socialism, on the left. The range of views on economics is of course more complex than this, but it offers a rough guideline by focusing on the level of interference in an economy by the state or some other collective.
On the social axis, you have views that range from authoritarianism and the worship of tradition, on the right (actually, the top of the compass), to what they call libertarianism (it's probably appropriate to distinguish between economic and social libertarianism, as well as the political group that calls itself libertarian, whose members are often both) with its emphasis on personal freedoms, on the left (the bottom). The relevant characteristic here is a measure of permissibility, how much is left up to individuals to choose for themselves.
I trust these two axes are fairly straightforward. However, there a third dimension is emerging in 21st century politics, and will become extremely prominent very soon. My suggestion is that it warrants its own axis, since it does not map well with either of the other two. I think the easiest way to distinguish the ends are by calling them technoconservatives and technoprogressives, but you also might talk about the range as being from Neo-Luddite to Transhumanist. On either end, you find unlikely allies.
On the technoconservative side, you find environmental activists, religious fundamentalists, leftist academics (much to my chagrin; it makes me wish Brave New World were never written), and groups like the Amish. On the technoprogressive side, you have avowed transhumanists, technophiles of various sorts, avid consumers of gadgets and doodads, and even the occasional social conservative who sees technology as a means of "curing" the gay or as a great way to enforce law and order.
I view our culture as being far more technoconservative than technoprogressive, in spite of all the money we put into scientific and technological research. Yes, there is a sort of contradiction represented by our worship of progress and our insatiable consumer culture, but by and large Americans are weary of new technologies, particularly biotechnology like genetic engineering. Contrast us with nations like Japan, India, or Thailand, and you find far less support of, for instance, germline genetic augmentation, which many westerners are inclined to dismiss as scary "eugenics".
Carl Elliott has documented our tenacious relationship with human enhancement in Better Than Well, a text which I use in my intro philosophy class and one I highly recommend. What you find, Elliott suggests, is a tension in thinking about human identity between notions of authenticity and being true to yourself, and those of self-improvement and being all that you can be. And, in truth, this issue of technology is largely one of identity, although in a different sense than the trendy topic found in academia today.
The fact of the matter is that we will very soon be dealing with beings of our own creation who match and then exceed human capabilities. The extent to which this happens in part depends on how long the Luddites are able to hold off what I see as inevitable (or, inevitable so long as we do not destroy ourselves, which is actually a likely possibility).
But if the technoprogressives win out, we will see robots, genetically enhanced humans, humans who voluntarily integrate themselves with machines (cyborgs, they are often called), but also computerized intelligences without bodies properly speaking, as well as intelligences realized in new forms like molecular computing that call into question the living/non-living distinction, and then all the hybrids of these various types. Imagine the world of the "X-Men" combined with that of "Ghost in the Shell". Add in nanotechnology, and things get even more wacky--and all of this happening all at once.
Very soon, people will have no idea about what is human and who counts as a person deserving of legal and moral rights. In this era, the technoconservatives (or at least the social conservatives among their number) will probably limit humanity to the unenhanced and non-cybernetic. This group, which I like to think of as the Neo-Amish, may constitute a substantial portion of the population in the beginning. But ultimately, they will be unable to compete with their enhanced brethren (and good riddance!).
This picture of the world scares many people. It runs counter to our understanding of the equality of persons; when you talk about improving humans, you are talking about making some better than others. It essentially destroys the traditional human world. I think that it is more than likely--I'd say even 90% certain--that human beings, as we are constituted now, will be extinct by 2100. Either we will have destroyed our species, or we will have moved beyond it.
This is, as I see it, the last century of humanity. Because I far prefer augmenting humanity rather than eliminating it, I strongly support unimpeded technological development in the GNR (genetics, nanotechnology, robotics) fields. Now, some people oppose it for the same reason, since they see it as increasing the likelihood of human extinction, whether by some super-virus, a robot rebellion, or the destruction of life by omnivorous nanobots (the "gray goo" scenario). And to an extent, this is true.
However, I see a far greater threat in the form of the idiots who control our nuclear weapons. One of the problems with unenhanced humanity is constituted by our aggressive and tribal impulses that incline us to hate those different than us and go to great lengths to destroy them. The sooner the enhanced and machine intelligences take over the world, as far as I am concerned, the better. In short, for those of you who know the film, I see "I, Robot" as having an unhappy ending.
Now, this is a radical view politically. It makes me part ways with many democratic ideals. But the more I read about the exponential growth of technologies, the more inevitable it seems. Yes, we may ban a lot of biotech, but the change is coming faster than we can respond to. Ultimately, I think it's the machines who will triumph, because people will view advances in computing and robotics as relatively innocuous, until the robots and other machine intelligences become commonplace.
Before long, recognizing their superiority, the machines and their cybernetic allies will sweep the unenhanced out of power--hopefully nonviolently--and usher in a new era of peace and cooperation. My guess is that this would happen around mid-century. It behooves those of us with any sense to join them.
All this sentimental piffle about the flaws and sufferings that make human beings special should be recognized for the garbage that it is. Nietzsche articulates it perfectly: the one thing we cannot accept is the notion that our suffering is meaningless. Well, folks, like it or not, it mostly is. It's the product of blind chance, of complex natural processes that lack foresight, of the various idiocies that human beings foist upon themselves. A world with as little suffering as possible would be a far better world, and this will (I hope) be the world of the future, in which intelligence wins out over other natural forces.
Most of you who read this, although I know few do, will likely regard me as insane, or at least deluded. I say time will tell. Predicting the future is a difficult business, and I could likely be wrong. However, one thing I am quite confident in is my normative stance: human beings are ultimately unfit to govern themselves. You can arrange societies in only so many ways, some more preferable than others, but like a mosaic made out of dog shit, the substance with which you work will put serious limitations on how beautiful your finished product will be.
In the past, this view was simply used as a means for one group to gain power over another. We are "the well born", "the best men", the ones who speak directly to the gods, etc., etc. But, in the future, this pretense will become a reality. Let there be democracy amongst the enhanced, but most human beings have no idea about what is good for themselves. Certainly, the people are not equipped to recognize who among them would serve as the best leaders--George W. Bush is but one obvious example.
We should be honest with ourselves. Frankly, I see myself as lacking in these respects--certainly I lack the intelligence and wisdom to see how the world ought to be governed but, really, so do all human beings. For too long, we have been at the whims of fortune, but now that we have the possibility to become masters of fate, it is incumbent upon us that we do so.
I find myself with a new purpose, as an academic and a philosopher, which is to sell this vision of the world, to encourage people to put effort into making our radically different future as utopian as possible. More and more are waking up to the importance of the issue, but far too many react to it with revulsion. I hope to change that. In any case, this is really the defining issue of our time. Recognize it.
3/10/2007
What's Wrong With American Democracy
Among many other things, this.
Now this might not be such a big deal if it were actually possible to know the character of candidates. In theory, it seems that our leaders ought to be men and women of character. Perhaps this is not the most important quality, but it is worth something.
The problem is that a presidential candidate's "character" is the creation of PR and marketing specialists. If people actually knew George Bush's character (and, according to a poll cited in the above article, a whopping 44% think Bush is honest as of January; I didn't realize such a large percentage of the population was mentally challenged), he never would have come close enough to steal the 2000 election in the first place.
But speaking more generally, look at the types of people who are attracted to politics. Do any of them have the least bit of character? I think we've forgotten one of the fundamental premises of our form of government, as Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly pointed out. Power corrupts, politicians are not to be trusted. This is why we have check and balances, separation of powers and all that.
Now granted that some politicians are bigger crooks than others, but we should never just trust them, regardless of their party affiliation. Since the media has essentially forfeited its role as watchdog, and is selective about which facets of individual character it reveals, we should always be at least initially suspicious of the claims to good character that we hear from the candidates, or bad character from their opponents (recently, it came out that Obama was late in paying some parking tickets at Harvard--is this "character"?).
By what criteria should we judge our candidates? I'm inclined to say not his character, but whether I could have a beer with the guy is what really matters. But seriously, anyone who can honestly say "I voted for/against candidate X because s/he seems like a [insert trait here] person" has essentially abdicated their responsibility as a democratic citizen.
Numerous other qualities, like, say, oh, I don't know, what they plan on doing when elected are more responsible criteria for decision. In truth, though, the entire system of presidential elections almost ensures that no one can make a good decision about whom to vote for, and that that decision is in favor of the lesser of two evils.
In summary: character is a dumb way to decide who should be president, not because it doesn't matter, but because it's nigh impossible to discern who has the least awful character.
For all the policy blueprints churned out by presidential campaigns, there is this indisputable fact: People care less about issues than they do about a candidate's character.
A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll says 55 percent of those surveyed consider honesty, integrity and other values of character the most important qualities they look for in a presidential candidate.
Just one-third look first to candidates' stances on issues; even fewer focus foremost on leadership traits, experience or intelligence.
Now this might not be such a big deal if it were actually possible to know the character of candidates. In theory, it seems that our leaders ought to be men and women of character. Perhaps this is not the most important quality, but it is worth something.
The problem is that a presidential candidate's "character" is the creation of PR and marketing specialists. If people actually knew George Bush's character (and, according to a poll cited in the above article, a whopping 44% think Bush is honest as of January; I didn't realize such a large percentage of the population was mentally challenged), he never would have come close enough to steal the 2000 election in the first place.
But speaking more generally, look at the types of people who are attracted to politics. Do any of them have the least bit of character? I think we've forgotten one of the fundamental premises of our form of government, as Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly pointed out. Power corrupts, politicians are not to be trusted. This is why we have check and balances, separation of powers and all that.
Now granted that some politicians are bigger crooks than others, but we should never just trust them, regardless of their party affiliation. Since the media has essentially forfeited its role as watchdog, and is selective about which facets of individual character it reveals, we should always be at least initially suspicious of the claims to good character that we hear from the candidates, or bad character from their opponents (recently, it came out that Obama was late in paying some parking tickets at Harvard--is this "character"?).
By what criteria should we judge our candidates? I'm inclined to say not his character, but whether I could have a beer with the guy is what really matters. But seriously, anyone who can honestly say "I voted for/against candidate X because s/he seems like a [insert trait here] person" has essentially abdicated their responsibility as a democratic citizen.
Numerous other qualities, like, say, oh, I don't know, what they plan on doing when elected are more responsible criteria for decision. In truth, though, the entire system of presidential elections almost ensures that no one can make a good decision about whom to vote for, and that that decision is in favor of the lesser of two evils.
In summary: character is a dumb way to decide who should be president, not because it doesn't matter, but because it's nigh impossible to discern who has the least awful character.
2/24/2007
Two Aspects of the Left Blogosphere
I've been reading liberal and progressive blogs regularly for a few years now; I even bought and read that Crashing the Gate book from Kos and that other guy (Armstrong, I believe). I've been pleased to see its increasing influence in politics and the political media. And of course, November 2006 brought the first enjoyable election day in all of my adult life.
Nevertheless, while I have jumped all over the place ideologically in the past decade, I have never really been entirely satisfied with the Democratic Party (I've never registered to vote as one, preferring either no affiliation or the Green Party) and what is taken to be liberalism in the US. For quite a while, I considered myself a species of Marxist, until I did some further study in 20th C. Marxism and came to reject the economic determinism that pervades most such accounts. To this day, even though my views are more complex, I would still call myself a leftist.
In any case, one thing I have come to notice is that, even though Democrat-friendly liberals and progressives dominate one hemisphere of the blogging world, there are Marxists, left libertarians, radical feminists, and others who are highly critical of the Democratic party. (I suppose this would be that radical (anti-)American left that we all hear about.) It goes without saying that they see Republicans as worse, but they don't see the Democrats as offering a substantive alternative.
I have come to read these blogs more and more, particularly these two (I've already mentioned Arthur Silber's work before, but this IOZ character is also a joy to read, even if he identifies as a libertarian). Perhaps I'm reading them more because Bush is starting to recede into the background, and I'm worried about what's coming next.
To simplify the situation, you might say there are two major factions in the Internet left, two distinct philosophies of how to effect change. On the one hand, you have what IOZ cleverly dubs "The Donkle", a mainstream, "work within the system" group that subordinates ideological consistency to the needs of a practical political movement.
On the other, there are what Joe Klein snidely refers to as the "illiberal left", those who are unwilling to "sell out" or water down their principles, who are just as eager (if not more so) to criticize Democrats as Republicans, and who reject American Empire, with minimal care as to which wing of the ruling class governs it.
A great example of the conflict of these approaches is an interchange between Steve Gilliard and Max Siwicky that I'm too lazy to link to right now (just check the archives of the News Blog if you're interested). Steve was arguing that his side is actual accomplishing positive things for people as Max and his ilk are busy having ideological discussions. (I don't quite recall Max's precise response to that point, but I will offer something in that vein below).
Now, as an individual enamored of ideas more than actions, I tend to side with the latter. Yet, I am still often torn, because I recognize that this alternative often practically amounts to invigorating and insightful discussions among intelligent people who have absolutely no power to change anything. I am not completely averse to compromise against my principles when it can lead to a palpable good.
This is probably why I vote Democratic. And yet, I see the Democrats, both politicians and voters, as suffering from a few major flaws they share with mainstream independents and Republicans. The easiest way to put it is as a kind of American exceptionalism (and again, Arthur Silber is the man to read for some excellent essays on this theme at "Once Upon a Time...").
If you look at American history since WWII, and even before (see US involvement in WWI, the Spanish-American War and the occupation of the Phillipines, the Mexican-American War, the genocide of the native population and the enslavement of another, etc.), you will see many horrific acts committed often unapologetically, even proudly, guided by this idea that America is a special force for Good in the world, so that it's fine to resort to all sorts of unsavory ends to achieve its ambitions.
Most of this past is ignored, probably because most Americans don't really care about history (or are fine with a watered-down, pro-American mythology). Even ostensibly well-educated and intelligent Democrats tend to view the actions of the latest administration as a unique monstrosity, a sudden abandonment of cherished American principles. Nevermind that, as Chomsky has demonstrated by carefully culling the historical record, every president since at least FDR has probably been guilty of war crimes as a result of covert and not-so-covert military operations (yes, even Carter).
I've said this before, and it's by no means an original insight, but here goes again. What distinguishes Bush from previous administrations is his administration's incompetence and lack of subtlety (isn't it ironic that an administration can be well-known for its secrecy?). They brazenly condone torture, indefinite extralegal detention, aggressive warfare, and a slew of other things which other administrations have kept on the DL.
Of course, I will acknowledge that this is a serious problem. If we openly condone and engage in these practices we have truly become monsters (although I will grant that there's also the possibility that by bringing them out into the open, they actually stand a chance of being changed--some variant of the heightening the contradictions argument). But let's not pretend that these are radical, totally unprecedented things.
I'd like to say more on this subject, but I've got too much other work to do. In closing, I'll say that while a continue to read excellent authors like Glenn Greenwald and Digby, I am less and less compelled by the Left Lite. If we were to seriously adopt a simple principle of consistency between evaluating the actions of our nation and those of others (what I deem to be the central point that the radical left-wing nut Chomsky argues), we would be having very different political conversations these days. Then I might be inclined to read more mainstream political sources.
Nevertheless, while I have jumped all over the place ideologically in the past decade, I have never really been entirely satisfied with the Democratic Party (I've never registered to vote as one, preferring either no affiliation or the Green Party) and what is taken to be liberalism in the US. For quite a while, I considered myself a species of Marxist, until I did some further study in 20th C. Marxism and came to reject the economic determinism that pervades most such accounts. To this day, even though my views are more complex, I would still call myself a leftist.
In any case, one thing I have come to notice is that, even though Democrat-friendly liberals and progressives dominate one hemisphere of the blogging world, there are Marxists, left libertarians, radical feminists, and others who are highly critical of the Democratic party. (I suppose this would be that radical (anti-)American left that we all hear about.) It goes without saying that they see Republicans as worse, but they don't see the Democrats as offering a substantive alternative.
I have come to read these blogs more and more, particularly these two (I've already mentioned Arthur Silber's work before, but this IOZ character is also a joy to read, even if he identifies as a libertarian). Perhaps I'm reading them more because Bush is starting to recede into the background, and I'm worried about what's coming next.
To simplify the situation, you might say there are two major factions in the Internet left, two distinct philosophies of how to effect change. On the one hand, you have what IOZ cleverly dubs "The Donkle", a mainstream, "work within the system" group that subordinates ideological consistency to the needs of a practical political movement.
On the other, there are what Joe Klein snidely refers to as the "illiberal left", those who are unwilling to "sell out" or water down their principles, who are just as eager (if not more so) to criticize Democrats as Republicans, and who reject American Empire, with minimal care as to which wing of the ruling class governs it.
A great example of the conflict of these approaches is an interchange between Steve Gilliard and Max Siwicky that I'm too lazy to link to right now (just check the archives of the News Blog if you're interested). Steve was arguing that his side is actual accomplishing positive things for people as Max and his ilk are busy having ideological discussions. (I don't quite recall Max's precise response to that point, but I will offer something in that vein below).
Now, as an individual enamored of ideas more than actions, I tend to side with the latter. Yet, I am still often torn, because I recognize that this alternative often practically amounts to invigorating and insightful discussions among intelligent people who have absolutely no power to change anything. I am not completely averse to compromise against my principles when it can lead to a palpable good.
This is probably why I vote Democratic. And yet, I see the Democrats, both politicians and voters, as suffering from a few major flaws they share with mainstream independents and Republicans. The easiest way to put it is as a kind of American exceptionalism (and again, Arthur Silber is the man to read for some excellent essays on this theme at "Once Upon a Time...").
If you look at American history since WWII, and even before (see US involvement in WWI, the Spanish-American War and the occupation of the Phillipines, the Mexican-American War, the genocide of the native population and the enslavement of another, etc.), you will see many horrific acts committed often unapologetically, even proudly, guided by this idea that America is a special force for Good in the world, so that it's fine to resort to all sorts of unsavory ends to achieve its ambitions.
Most of this past is ignored, probably because most Americans don't really care about history (or are fine with a watered-down, pro-American mythology). Even ostensibly well-educated and intelligent Democrats tend to view the actions of the latest administration as a unique monstrosity, a sudden abandonment of cherished American principles. Nevermind that, as Chomsky has demonstrated by carefully culling the historical record, every president since at least FDR has probably been guilty of war crimes as a result of covert and not-so-covert military operations (yes, even Carter).
I've said this before, and it's by no means an original insight, but here goes again. What distinguishes Bush from previous administrations is his administration's incompetence and lack of subtlety (isn't it ironic that an administration can be well-known for its secrecy?). They brazenly condone torture, indefinite extralegal detention, aggressive warfare, and a slew of other things which other administrations have kept on the DL.
Of course, I will acknowledge that this is a serious problem. If we openly condone and engage in these practices we have truly become monsters (although I will grant that there's also the possibility that by bringing them out into the open, they actually stand a chance of being changed--some variant of the heightening the contradictions argument). But let's not pretend that these are radical, totally unprecedented things.
I'd like to say more on this subject, but I've got too much other work to do. In closing, I'll say that while a continue to read excellent authors like Glenn Greenwald and Digby, I am less and less compelled by the Left Lite. If we were to seriously adopt a simple principle of consistency between evaluating the actions of our nation and those of others (what I deem to be the central point that the radical left-wing nut Chomsky argues), we would be having very different political conversations these days. Then I might be inclined to read more mainstream political sources.
1/28/2007
Why the Medicalization of Everyday Life is Good
(I've posted this at another journal of mine, but I'm reposting it here.)
It is a common claim that Americans take too many drugs, that we are society that is overmedicated. Conditions like attention deficit disorder and depression are said to be overdiagnosed and drugs like Prozac and Ritalin overprescribed. In short, so it is said, we make the mistake of taking ordinary differences in mental and physical abilities as genuine diseases to be treated medically, instead of problems of character that require more complex solutions.
Not only are all of these claims false, but I will argue the opposite: the medicalization of ordinary life is ultimately a positive development.
It never ceases to amaze me that, in a society that develops and benefits from so much of the technological progress of recent decades, opposition to future technologies runs at such a high level. From stem cell research to genetically modifed crops, Americans (as well as many Western Europeans) incessantly cry "it's unnatural!" and invoke the specters of Brave New World and Frankenstein. (Brave New World is perhaps my least favorite book for this very reason.)
This is not the case everywhere, particularly in Southeast Asia, where increasingly more of the breakthroughs in biotechnology are coming from. According to Ramez Naam, author of the superlative More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Human Enhancement, while a meager 20% of Americans advocate genetic engineering, 63% of Indians and an astounding 83% of Thais do. All the more reason why nations like China and India will overtake the West in the coming century (and why I may have to move to Asia).
What is interesting is that many Americans oppose augmenting human nature through genetic and cybernetic technologies, but have no issue with medical research to treat and cure diseases. The fact of the matter is, however, that research to treat a disease almost invariably can be used to enhance a normal condition.
Let me give but one example to illustrate. Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is commonly treated by the drugs Ritalin and Adderall. However, when "normal" indivduals take these drugs, their ability to pay attention and focus also improves.
Why is this? Part of it is the nature of the disease. Attention, like many human traits, is distibuted among the population along a normal distribution, or bell curve. Thus, most of the population falls near the average, with smaller percentages the further away in either direction.
ADHD, instead of being a condition with distinctive symptoms that one either has or does not (one example of this would be schizophrenia), is defined in a way that will include everyone below a certain point in that distribution. In other words, all it means to have ADHD is to be, say, in the bottom 20% (I'm not sure of the precise number) with regard to attention. This would be like saying that the dumbest fifth of the population suffers from "Intellect Deficit Disorder".
To extend the example of our hypothetical "Intellect Deficit Disorder", giving Ritalin only to those diagnosed with ADHD would be like giving a drug that increased intelligence only to those diagnosed with IDD. Such a thing would be absurd; if anyone could benefit from it, why shouldn't it be accessible to all? Many mental disorders, like depression and social anxiety, fall in the same category as ADHD.
Thus far, I have been giving an argument that would seem to oppose the point I'm trying to make. This is because I see "medicalization" as the means to fostering a wider acceptance of the use of medical treatments to improve human abilities. The more people who are diagnosed with these conditions, the more who take drugs, and the better off society is as a whole.
Why? Well consider what these drugs do. Prozac and other Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) can work on both the depressed and the healthy (although the effects are not quite the same for everybody) to increase their happiness. The happiness that comes from an SSRI is not the mindless contentedness of Huxley's idiotic "soma" but a kind of increased energy to get things done and a better resilience to the setbacks that everybody faces from day to day. Not only are the conditions for an individual improved, but our economic productivity as a society increases. (This doesn't necessarily entail an overworked population, the value of which is questionable, because if an individual finishes her work sooner, there's no reason why some of her increased productive energy couldn't be devoted to leisure pursuits, should she so choose.)
The major objection here, would be the negative side effects of drugs, for instance, Prozac's sexual side effects. However, as our understanding of biology improves, increasingly selective drugs are developed that produce fewer adverse side effects. There are more antidepressants on the market today that have fewer or no sexual effects; I'm on two myself and experience no discernible impediments.
Thus, I will be honest; I'm being a bit disingenuous with the title of this post. Medicalization in itself is not the good thing, but rather, the acceptance of technological enhancements to human functioning. Quite frankly, the objections to human enhancement are silly (in part because the distinction between pathology and normality is often completely arbitrary) and basically come down to two: one is that it is "unnatural", the other is that unintended side effects could produce negative, even fatal, results.
The first is merely a prejudice, which I won't bother taking the time to refute here (I've done it elsewhere); the second is largely mitigated by the extensive process of animal and human testing that precedes the approval of any treatment for public consumption. This may not answer every objection, but is sufficient for the purposes of this post.
In short, I ultimately think that it should be up to individuals to decide what treatments or enhancements they want for themselves, and in the case of children, families rather than governments should decide. For this reason, I oppose disastrous and wasteful policies like the so-called "War on Drugs", as well as the efforts of radical rightwing organizations to impede the release of drugs that fail to satisfy their rigid and narrow constraints of what is acceptable behavior for human beings.
And really, like I've said, should the US become even more of a society of Luddites and bioconservatives, we will be all the more quickly and easily surpassed by those who lack our prejudices. The development of these technologies ultimately cannot be stopped, and in the future, like all the progresses of humanity in the modern era, history shall recognize those who opposed them as the truly short-sighted ones.
It is a common claim that Americans take too many drugs, that we are society that is overmedicated. Conditions like attention deficit disorder and depression are said to be overdiagnosed and drugs like Prozac and Ritalin overprescribed. In short, so it is said, we make the mistake of taking ordinary differences in mental and physical abilities as genuine diseases to be treated medically, instead of problems of character that require more complex solutions.
Not only are all of these claims false, but I will argue the opposite: the medicalization of ordinary life is ultimately a positive development.
It never ceases to amaze me that, in a society that develops and benefits from so much of the technological progress of recent decades, opposition to future technologies runs at such a high level. From stem cell research to genetically modifed crops, Americans (as well as many Western Europeans) incessantly cry "it's unnatural!" and invoke the specters of Brave New World and Frankenstein. (Brave New World is perhaps my least favorite book for this very reason.)
This is not the case everywhere, particularly in Southeast Asia, where increasingly more of the breakthroughs in biotechnology are coming from. According to Ramez Naam, author of the superlative More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Human Enhancement, while a meager 20% of Americans advocate genetic engineering, 63% of Indians and an astounding 83% of Thais do. All the more reason why nations like China and India will overtake the West in the coming century (and why I may have to move to Asia).
What is interesting is that many Americans oppose augmenting human nature through genetic and cybernetic technologies, but have no issue with medical research to treat and cure diseases. The fact of the matter is, however, that research to treat a disease almost invariably can be used to enhance a normal condition.
Let me give but one example to illustrate. Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is commonly treated by the drugs Ritalin and Adderall. However, when "normal" indivduals take these drugs, their ability to pay attention and focus also improves.
Why is this? Part of it is the nature of the disease. Attention, like many human traits, is distibuted among the population along a normal distribution, or bell curve. Thus, most of the population falls near the average, with smaller percentages the further away in either direction.
ADHD, instead of being a condition with distinctive symptoms that one either has or does not (one example of this would be schizophrenia), is defined in a way that will include everyone below a certain point in that distribution. In other words, all it means to have ADHD is to be, say, in the bottom 20% (I'm not sure of the precise number) with regard to attention. This would be like saying that the dumbest fifth of the population suffers from "Intellect Deficit Disorder".
To extend the example of our hypothetical "Intellect Deficit Disorder", giving Ritalin only to those diagnosed with ADHD would be like giving a drug that increased intelligence only to those diagnosed with IDD. Such a thing would be absurd; if anyone could benefit from it, why shouldn't it be accessible to all? Many mental disorders, like depression and social anxiety, fall in the same category as ADHD.
Thus far, I have been giving an argument that would seem to oppose the point I'm trying to make. This is because I see "medicalization" as the means to fostering a wider acceptance of the use of medical treatments to improve human abilities. The more people who are diagnosed with these conditions, the more who take drugs, and the better off society is as a whole.
Why? Well consider what these drugs do. Prozac and other Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) can work on both the depressed and the healthy (although the effects are not quite the same for everybody) to increase their happiness. The happiness that comes from an SSRI is not the mindless contentedness of Huxley's idiotic "soma" but a kind of increased energy to get things done and a better resilience to the setbacks that everybody faces from day to day. Not only are the conditions for an individual improved, but our economic productivity as a society increases. (This doesn't necessarily entail an overworked population, the value of which is questionable, because if an individual finishes her work sooner, there's no reason why some of her increased productive energy couldn't be devoted to leisure pursuits, should she so choose.)
The major objection here, would be the negative side effects of drugs, for instance, Prozac's sexual side effects. However, as our understanding of biology improves, increasingly selective drugs are developed that produce fewer adverse side effects. There are more antidepressants on the market today that have fewer or no sexual effects; I'm on two myself and experience no discernible impediments.
Thus, I will be honest; I'm being a bit disingenuous with the title of this post. Medicalization in itself is not the good thing, but rather, the acceptance of technological enhancements to human functioning. Quite frankly, the objections to human enhancement are silly (in part because the distinction between pathology and normality is often completely arbitrary) and basically come down to two: one is that it is "unnatural", the other is that unintended side effects could produce negative, even fatal, results.
The first is merely a prejudice, which I won't bother taking the time to refute here (I've done it elsewhere); the second is largely mitigated by the extensive process of animal and human testing that precedes the approval of any treatment for public consumption. This may not answer every objection, but is sufficient for the purposes of this post.
In short, I ultimately think that it should be up to individuals to decide what treatments or enhancements they want for themselves, and in the case of children, families rather than governments should decide. For this reason, I oppose disastrous and wasteful policies like the so-called "War on Drugs", as well as the efforts of radical rightwing organizations to impede the release of drugs that fail to satisfy their rigid and narrow constraints of what is acceptable behavior for human beings.
And really, like I've said, should the US become even more of a society of Luddites and bioconservatives, we will be all the more quickly and easily surpassed by those who lack our prejudices. The development of these technologies ultimately cannot be stopped, and in the future, like all the progresses of humanity in the modern era, history shall recognize those who opposed them as the truly short-sighted ones.
1/25/2007
...and then what?
(I really should be getting onto other things, but I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about something interesting from yesterday.)
The Doomsday Clock was recently moved forward 2 minutes to 11:55. Most people probably don't pay much heed to it--of those who are even aware of its existence, it's probably just to keep their sanity.
In some ways, it's amazing that human civilization has continued since the discovery of nuclear weapons and their mass proliferation. Now, we face other threats like global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels which will likely only make things worse.
I suspect global warming in itself would not be sufficient to wipe out human civilization, but insofar as it will be a spur to other problems--famines, mass migrations, wars over resources, etc.--it will create a more unstable world in which nuclear warfare becomes more probable. Other new weapons technologies pose additional dangers.
In any case, I think it's only a matter of time before humanity either destroys itself or descends into a new Dark Ages. We can only hope this doesn't happen during our lifetime.
I've been fortunate this semester to sit in on a class entitled "Boundaries of the Human in the Age of Robots and Clones," dealing with the implications of future technologies, especially human enhancement and robotics. I've written on such topics before--anyone who knows me is well aware that this is an interest of mine, even if they don't take it seriously.
The other day, the professor leading the class mentioned a roboticist at the university here with whom he has conversed before. When meeting with a previous version of this class, the roboticist was asked what inspires him to do the work that he does. He began by making a statement similar to that I opened this entry with, namely that he's pessimistic about the future of humankind, and thought it a huge shame especially because of the likely scarcity of intelligent life in the universe.
Right now, some roboticists have taken a lesson from biology and are designing robots from the bottom up, creating simpler robots and gradually making them more complex (top-down design has produced very limited results). Right now, we may have robots about as smart as insects. The roboticist's hope is that his life's work will move this along, perhaps producing robots as complex as some simple mammal. Future roboticists, given enough time, may produce something like Commander Data from Star Trek, or perhaps yet greater things.
In short, he sees himself as helping to design a successor species to humanity, one that may survive our destruction and perpetuate the existence of intelligent life, perhaps eventually spreading itself to other parts of the universe. His motives are no different than those of the blue collar worker who spends his life working hard so that his children might go to college and do better than he.
Personally, I have little interest in children--also something I've written about. This is why I'm more interested in human biological (and cybernetic) enhancement, including things like increasing our lifespan. Perhaps it's selfish, but I want to be among those modifying themselves and becoming a part of "post-humanity".
"Human nature" may not be concrete or easily ascertainable, but I think history shows that people never learn from history (perhaps Western Europe's rejection of warring amongst itself is an exception, but such examples are few and far between). We are messing with powers far beyond our understanding or ability to control.
Thus, as I see it, our only hope is to change human nature itself, so that we might be more capable of handling this problems. Wisdom may not be encoded in our genes, but there is certainly a large genetic component to traits like intelligence and empathy. Yes, research into human enhancement (genetic or otherwise) might only exacerbate our current problems, but I don't see any other choice.
Perhaps it's perverse, but this is the only reason for hope I've been able to discover in a world that stands but 5 minutes from destruction.
The Doomsday Clock was recently moved forward 2 minutes to 11:55. Most people probably don't pay much heed to it--of those who are even aware of its existence, it's probably just to keep their sanity.
In some ways, it's amazing that human civilization has continued since the discovery of nuclear weapons and their mass proliferation. Now, we face other threats like global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels which will likely only make things worse.
I suspect global warming in itself would not be sufficient to wipe out human civilization, but insofar as it will be a spur to other problems--famines, mass migrations, wars over resources, etc.--it will create a more unstable world in which nuclear warfare becomes more probable. Other new weapons technologies pose additional dangers.
In any case, I think it's only a matter of time before humanity either destroys itself or descends into a new Dark Ages. We can only hope this doesn't happen during our lifetime.
I've been fortunate this semester to sit in on a class entitled "Boundaries of the Human in the Age of Robots and Clones," dealing with the implications of future technologies, especially human enhancement and robotics. I've written on such topics before--anyone who knows me is well aware that this is an interest of mine, even if they don't take it seriously.
The other day, the professor leading the class mentioned a roboticist at the university here with whom he has conversed before. When meeting with a previous version of this class, the roboticist was asked what inspires him to do the work that he does. He began by making a statement similar to that I opened this entry with, namely that he's pessimistic about the future of humankind, and thought it a huge shame especially because of the likely scarcity of intelligent life in the universe.
Right now, some roboticists have taken a lesson from biology and are designing robots from the bottom up, creating simpler robots and gradually making them more complex (top-down design has produced very limited results). Right now, we may have robots about as smart as insects. The roboticist's hope is that his life's work will move this along, perhaps producing robots as complex as some simple mammal. Future roboticists, given enough time, may produce something like Commander Data from Star Trek, or perhaps yet greater things.
In short, he sees himself as helping to design a successor species to humanity, one that may survive our destruction and perpetuate the existence of intelligent life, perhaps eventually spreading itself to other parts of the universe. His motives are no different than those of the blue collar worker who spends his life working hard so that his children might go to college and do better than he.
Personally, I have little interest in children--also something I've written about. This is why I'm more interested in human biological (and cybernetic) enhancement, including things like increasing our lifespan. Perhaps it's selfish, but I want to be among those modifying themselves and becoming a part of "post-humanity".
"Human nature" may not be concrete or easily ascertainable, but I think history shows that people never learn from history (perhaps Western Europe's rejection of warring amongst itself is an exception, but such examples are few and far between). We are messing with powers far beyond our understanding or ability to control.
Thus, as I see it, our only hope is to change human nature itself, so that we might be more capable of handling this problems. Wisdom may not be encoded in our genes, but there is certainly a large genetic component to traits like intelligence and empathy. Yes, research into human enhancement (genetic or otherwise) might only exacerbate our current problems, but I don't see any other choice.
Perhaps it's perverse, but this is the only reason for hope I've been able to discover in a world that stands but 5 minutes from destruction.
1/15/2007
Leiter on Vanderbilt
I will not comment on this in detail, because I am leaving a public record, and it would be inexpedient to say what I really feel. Nevertheless, some of you will probably find this NYT article on Leiter's Gourmet Report along with Leiter's response, rather interesting.
Here is an excerpt from the latter:
Leiter is good enough to malign both my alma mater and my current institution. I must say, though, had I not gone to a school like Penn State, I probably would have never gotten into philosophy. Analytic philosophers have a distinct talent for sapping the life out of even the most exciting topics (see, e.g., an anthology on the Philosophy of Sex that I used a year and a half ago).
Of course, it's unfair to impugn the group as a whole. There are quite a few distinctly analytic philosophers doing interesting work today, not to mention the fact that good historians of philosophy--the ones who read original texts closely and charitably and who know the relevant historical background well enough to avoid anachronistic interpretations--can just as easily come from either "branch" of contemporary philosophy.
I could say more, but I will stop myself before I say anything potentially incriminating.
Here is an excerpt from the latter:
...[W]hat is more appalling is the nonsense about Penn State, Stony Brook, and Vanderbilt. First of all, they don't have good departments, they have weak departments overall (with honorable exceptions etc. etc. etc.), whether you're interested in philosophy of language or ancient philosophy or Continental philosophy. Second, it is simply false that "they do not participate in the ratings." Each of them have been included in the ratings, and each time they fared quite poorly overall, even if they each have some areas of strength.
But most breathtaking is John Stuhr's idiotic comment that Rutgers "doesn't emphasize what we do," where "we" means Vanderbilt. It is true that Rutgers doesn't much emphasize history of philosophy or Continental philosophy (that's why NYU is #1, and Rutgers #2), but how could that explain why Vanderbilt has never been close to the top 50 and barely rates in any historical areas? The difference between Rutgers and Vanderbilt isn't "emphasis": it's that Vanderbilt has a weak faculty, even in most of the areas it purports to "emphasize" like post-Kantian Continental philosophy. (Rutgers, by the way, is obviously much stronger in the history of ancient and early modern philosophy than Vanderbilt; only in American pragmatism does Vanderbilt have an edge.) One would need only ask the dozens of philosophers specializing in those areas who completed the PGR surveys, after all.
Leiter is good enough to malign both my alma mater and my current institution. I must say, though, had I not gone to a school like Penn State, I probably would have never gotten into philosophy. Analytic philosophers have a distinct talent for sapping the life out of even the most exciting topics (see, e.g., an anthology on the Philosophy of Sex that I used a year and a half ago).
Of course, it's unfair to impugn the group as a whole. There are quite a few distinctly analytic philosophers doing interesting work today, not to mention the fact that good historians of philosophy--the ones who read original texts closely and charitably and who know the relevant historical background well enough to avoid anachronistic interpretations--can just as easily come from either "branch" of contemporary philosophy.
I could say more, but I will stop myself before I say anything potentially incriminating.
12/23/2006
The Virtue of Cowardice
I have long accepted the fact that I am a coward. I would never consider dying or killing for my country, or for any purported noble cause. Yet, I have never been ashamed of that. I have never really seen the value in sacrificing for such things. However, I have also never been able to adequately articulate this vision, and was literally accused of moral weakness once when I tried to defend it.
Thus, when I watched The Americanization of Emily, a film which I was led to by the fascinating blogger Arthur Silber, it instantly became one of my favorites by doing something I could not. This movie launches an unrelenting shock and awe campaign on the futility of warfare and the idiocy of heroism, as Silber compellingly argues here (see also here and here).
I strongly encourage you to read at least the first of Silber's essays, although it may be better to do so after watching the film. If you at all trust my opinion on these matters, watch this movie. It is brilliant, absolutely marvelous, and incredible considering the time it was produced, in 1964, not even a decade after the "noble" war which serves as its setting. It is likely unlike any war film you have ever seen.
(Incidentally, those of you familiar with James' essay "The Moral Equivalent of War" might find it an apt accompaniment. I'm considering showing this film to my class in the spring along with James' essay.)
I offer this one tidbit to stoke your interest, and to give you a sense of why cowardice should be nothing to be afraid of:
Thus, when I watched The Americanization of Emily, a film which I was led to by the fascinating blogger Arthur Silber, it instantly became one of my favorites by doing something I could not. This movie launches an unrelenting shock and awe campaign on the futility of warfare and the idiocy of heroism, as Silber compellingly argues here (see also here and here).
I strongly encourage you to read at least the first of Silber's essays, although it may be better to do so after watching the film. If you at all trust my opinion on these matters, watch this movie. It is brilliant, absolutely marvelous, and incredible considering the time it was produced, in 1964, not even a decade after the "noble" war which serves as its setting. It is likely unlike any war film you have ever seen.
(Incidentally, those of you familiar with James' essay "The Moral Equivalent of War" might find it an apt accompaniment. I'm considering showing this film to my class in the spring along with James' essay.)
I offer this one tidbit to stoke your interest, and to give you a sense of why cowardice should be nothing to be afraid of:
War isn’t hell at all. It’s man at his best; the highest morality he's capable of ... it’s not war that’s insane, you see. It’s the morality of it. It’s not greed or ambition that makes war: it’s goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny. Always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we’ve managed to butcher some ten million humans in the interest of humanity. Next war it seems we’ll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It’s not war that’s unnatural to us – it’s virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers. So, I preach cowardice. Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.
12/12/2006
Speaking of Non-belief...
This is quite fascinating and, in my view, a good sign (h/t Digby):
I've studied this issue a bit myself, and the numbers I've seen for belief in God have always been in the 80s or even 90s for the US. I wonder how much of this disparity has to do with the whole "social desirability bias" and how much with actual declining belief. (Or, how much is error in this particular poll? For instance, internet access tends to be less evenly distributed in this country than telephones, so this could bias the sample towards those who are better educated and better off financially.)
That more than a quarter do not believe (11% believing there is no God, 16% unsure) makes me pleased.
But why? Why does it please me that belief in God is declining? (I ask this question to myself, as much as anyone else who might wonder at my motivations.)
Well, one reason would not be specific to me: we like people to believe as we do, especially when we are confident about something.
But honestly, there's a lot of evidence that people who are religious believers are happier than those who are not. Jonathan Haidt suggests that this is a result of feeling connected to something larger than the self, whether it be a religious community or something metaphysical (or both).
He may be right. Beliefs aside, there are few secular organizations that are as tightly knit as (many) religious communities are.
In any case, given that at least some of this happiness is attributable to beliefs, in a sense I am pleased about something that results in less happiness in the world.
Peter Singer was on The Colbert Report last night, and it got me thinking about problems with utilitarianism (a view for which I have a lot of sympathy). The thing that I don't like about utilitarianism is that it puts all moral worth on something passive, something that is undergone rather than done, viz. suffering.
Yes, they claim to be concerned with happiness, but as pleasure, not as something active like eudaimonia or laetitia (joy) in Spinoza's sense. In any case, all people like Singer ever talk about is suffering anyway.
Returning to the issue at hand, I'm inclined to think that belief is not a matter of choice (contrary to the popular interpretation of James' "Will to Believe"). On some issues one does have options but, for most issues most of the time, things just seem true or false to most people.
I'll grant that wishful thinking plays a large role in determining belief--so that people believe what they want to believe--but this seldom operates consciously. In any case, even if they believe what they want and even if they recognize this to some extent, they still don't have much control over what they want in the first place. (They are aware of their desires but never even dream of the causes of those desires, etc.)
I think the challenge for modern human beings is to find happiness in a world in which we realize that we are unquestionably finite. We are not the center of the universe, there is not some higher power watching over us, we have no eternal aspects to ourselves; we are animals as much as any other species.
This doesn't mean happiness is impossible. We have to realize that this is not an all or nothing game. Yes, it would be nice to live longer than we do (although I don't know that I'd go so far as to say forever), but given our limitations, we can still make the most of things.
This may be a diminished happiness, but at least it's one that doesn't depend on questionable beliefs that will be doubtful for any honest, intelligent person. (OK, that's an unfair jab at believers. I think they can be honest and intelligent in their own ways.)
Anyway, it's nice to know I'm not the only one ineligible for public office in this state.
Multinational surveys have often reported that Americans are much more likely to believe in God than people in most other developed countries, particularly in Europe. However, a new Harris Poll finds that 42 percent of all U.S. adults say they are not "absolutely certain" there is a God, including 15 percent who are "somewhat certain," 11 percent who think there is probably no God and 16 percent who are not sure.
These are the results of a Harris Poll conducted online by Harris Interactive® between October 4 and 10, 2006 with a nationwide sample of 2,010 U.S. adults.
Important difference between online surveys and surveys conducted by telephone interviewers
Over the last few years, several different surveys have found that more people admit to potentially embarrassing beliefs or behaviors when answering online surveys (without interviewers) than admit to these behaviors when talking to interviewers in telephone surveys. They are also three times more likely to say that their sexual orientation is gay, lesbian or bi-sexual. Researchers call this unwillingness to give honest answers to some questions in telephone surveys a "social desirability bias."
It is therefore no surprise that in this online survey, more people say they are not absolutely certain there is a God than have given similar replies in other surveys conducted by telephone.
...
Are believers declining?
Three years ago, in an identical survey, 79 percent of adults said they believed in God and 66 percent said they were absolutely certain that there is a God. In this new survey, those numbers have declined to 73 percent and 58 percent respectively.
I've studied this issue a bit myself, and the numbers I've seen for belief in God have always been in the 80s or even 90s for the US. I wonder how much of this disparity has to do with the whole "social desirability bias" and how much with actual declining belief. (Or, how much is error in this particular poll? For instance, internet access tends to be less evenly distributed in this country than telephones, so this could bias the sample towards those who are better educated and better off financially.)
That more than a quarter do not believe (11% believing there is no God, 16% unsure) makes me pleased.
But why? Why does it please me that belief in God is declining? (I ask this question to myself, as much as anyone else who might wonder at my motivations.)
Well, one reason would not be specific to me: we like people to believe as we do, especially when we are confident about something.
But honestly, there's a lot of evidence that people who are religious believers are happier than those who are not. Jonathan Haidt suggests that this is a result of feeling connected to something larger than the self, whether it be a religious community or something metaphysical (or both).
He may be right. Beliefs aside, there are few secular organizations that are as tightly knit as (many) religious communities are.
In any case, given that at least some of this happiness is attributable to beliefs, in a sense I am pleased about something that results in less happiness in the world.
Peter Singer was on The Colbert Report last night, and it got me thinking about problems with utilitarianism (a view for which I have a lot of sympathy). The thing that I don't like about utilitarianism is that it puts all moral worth on something passive, something that is undergone rather than done, viz. suffering.
Yes, they claim to be concerned with happiness, but as pleasure, not as something active like eudaimonia or laetitia (joy) in Spinoza's sense. In any case, all people like Singer ever talk about is suffering anyway.
Returning to the issue at hand, I'm inclined to think that belief is not a matter of choice (contrary to the popular interpretation of James' "Will to Believe"). On some issues one does have options but, for most issues most of the time, things just seem true or false to most people.
I'll grant that wishful thinking plays a large role in determining belief--so that people believe what they want to believe--but this seldom operates consciously. In any case, even if they believe what they want and even if they recognize this to some extent, they still don't have much control over what they want in the first place. (They are aware of their desires but never even dream of the causes of those desires, etc.)
I think the challenge for modern human beings is to find happiness in a world in which we realize that we are unquestionably finite. We are not the center of the universe, there is not some higher power watching over us, we have no eternal aspects to ourselves; we are animals as much as any other species.
This doesn't mean happiness is impossible. We have to realize that this is not an all or nothing game. Yes, it would be nice to live longer than we do (although I don't know that I'd go so far as to say forever), but given our limitations, we can still make the most of things.
This may be a diminished happiness, but at least it's one that doesn't depend on questionable beliefs that will be doubtful for any honest, intelligent person. (OK, that's an unfair jab at believers. I think they can be honest and intelligent in their own ways.)
Anyway, it's nice to know I'm not the only one ineligible for public office in this state.
12/10/2006
Fun Fact
I'm not allowed to hold public office in Tennessee!
Article IX, Section 2 of the state's constitution reads (h/t Incongruous):
"No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."
Apparently my home state, Pennsylvania, is among six other states with a similar clause (in its case, Article 1, Section 4), although technically it just implies that it is not the case that atheists are not disqualified:
"No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth."
Isn't that fun? More reason why I have no intention of ever living in Tennessee or Pennsylvania again!
Article IX, Section 2 of the state's constitution reads (h/t Incongruous):
"No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."
Apparently my home state, Pennsylvania, is among six other states with a similar clause (in its case, Article 1, Section 4), although technically it just implies that it is not the case that atheists are not disqualified:
"No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth."
Isn't that fun? More reason why I have no intention of ever living in Tennessee or Pennsylvania again!
11/30/2006
Iraq
As the civil war rages on, my mind turns more and more to thoughts of Iraq. Of late, I've taken more of an interest in educating myself about the conflict.
I pride myself on having opposed the invasion and occupation from the beginning, not from some sense of political expediency, but for moral reasons. As is well known by any student of history or veteran of combat--and of course the Bush administration has a dearth of both--war is hell and should be avoided when at all possible. Death, destruction, and suffering on a massive scale are all but guaranteed in war; if we resort to it, we'd better do so for a damn good reason and in a way that minimizes its negative results.
Two recent articles, one from the NY Review of Books and the other from the Boston Review, are excellent resources for understanding the current situation and its development. They complement each other quite nicely, since the former shows the massive ineptitude in managing the occupation from the US side, while the latter is an excellent account of what Iraqis have experienced in the transition from standing united against the American occupation to pandemic sectarian strife.
Both are quite long, but well worth the time spent. It's sad that there's so little that we as individuals can do to end this thing; it seems like the only person who has the power to do so (at least in terms of US involvement) wouldn't change his mind even if Jesus Christ himself descended from the heavens and slapped him upside the head.
Nevertheless, one thing we can do as citizens is inform ourselves and try to learn how we got into this mess. This is especially important since a number of those still in power want to go for the threepeat of failed US interventions in the middle east by targeting Iran. We must do everything in our power to prevent such recklessness--what better way to start than through knowledge?
I pride myself on having opposed the invasion and occupation from the beginning, not from some sense of political expediency, but for moral reasons. As is well known by any student of history or veteran of combat--and of course the Bush administration has a dearth of both--war is hell and should be avoided when at all possible. Death, destruction, and suffering on a massive scale are all but guaranteed in war; if we resort to it, we'd better do so for a damn good reason and in a way that minimizes its negative results.
Two recent articles, one from the NY Review of Books and the other from the Boston Review, are excellent resources for understanding the current situation and its development. They complement each other quite nicely, since the former shows the massive ineptitude in managing the occupation from the US side, while the latter is an excellent account of what Iraqis have experienced in the transition from standing united against the American occupation to pandemic sectarian strife.
Both are quite long, but well worth the time spent. It's sad that there's so little that we as individuals can do to end this thing; it seems like the only person who has the power to do so (at least in terms of US involvement) wouldn't change his mind even if Jesus Christ himself descended from the heavens and slapped him upside the head.
Nevertheless, one thing we can do as citizens is inform ourselves and try to learn how we got into this mess. This is especially important since a number of those still in power want to go for the threepeat of failed US interventions in the middle east by targeting Iran. We must do everything in our power to prevent such recklessness--what better way to start than through knowledge?
11/19/2006
A Simple Argument
After watching Chomsky's film last night, I started to wonder why he is viewed as such a radical figure. What he's arguing is rather simple actually. (Because of this, I will employ the charged language of "good" and "evil" in a somewhat simplistic manner, as a kind of shorthand.) I see it as something like the following.
1. We should hold ourselves to the same standards we hold others.
This is a straightforward premise that almost everyone would grant on an individual level, but which some Americans might take issue with, making the claim that, since America is a force of good in the world, it's perfectly alright if we engage in some acts of evil for the sake of a greater good. Before moving on, I will try to refute this point.
First, two facts about our psychology: a) humans have an overwhelming tendency to view themselves, the groups that they belong to, and the people that they like as good; b) humans have a strong tendency to view individuals and groups that they dislike as bad or evil. I think the tendency in (a) is stronger than that of (b).
Concerning (a): Everyone, with very few exceptions, views themselves as good and no one thinks of themselves as evil. This includes Nazis, Soviets, Islamic terrorists, you name it. (The handful of exceptions would be silly people like Satan worshippers and perhaps psychopaths and serial killers who are honest with themselves.)
Vast amounts of evidence support this claim; take any purportedly "evil" group in history and look at their literature. Whether they're killing in God's name, for the sake of their glorious nation, or to spread freedom and democracy, they tell themselves some kind of story to justify what they're doing.
In short, to label a group as simply and purely evil is to totally misunderstand human psychology and, in fact, to repeat the error of many of these groups--this is why the rhetoric on both sides of the "War on Terror" is eerily similar. If a group is actually evil, it's not because they embrace the dark side but because what they think of as a good comes with evil, but often forseeable, consequences.
Now these two tendencies are not impossible to break free from, but it requires a great degree of self-honesty and the use of reason. You simply cannot take for granted that the side you're on consists of "the good guys". Everyone thinks they're on that side.
The world is a complicated place. Evil comes in degrees, and often as the consequence of noble intentions. Whether we are, in the end, a force of good in the world is determined by our actions. So, in order to make such a judgment well, it is essential that we hold ourselves to the same standards as everyone else.
2. Citizens of a democratic society are at least partially responsible for the actions of their government.
We live in a relatively free country and even though it is hard for an individual to make an impact by herself, people can come together in groups and bring about changes and reforms. The very least they can do is try. Cynicism and detachment do not absolve anyone of blame. I could say more on this point, but this is not the time or place for it.
I think these are really the only 2 premises that you need to grant. There may be some others, such as that responsibility requires becoming informed about the consequences of your actions, but I don't think I need to argue for these. Here are some of the conclusions that follow from these two:
3. It is our responsibility to figure out what wrongs our government is committing, to make them public, and to take steps to stop them.
This is clearly a driving force for Chomsky; he has said that what motivates his efforts is a matter of conscience, doing what he can to live with himself. This is why he looks at our foreign affairs and brings to light the crimes that our country has perpetrated on other parts of the world.
4. America is a good nation only if it avoids employing evil means to achieve its ends.
Realizing that every group of people sees itself as acting for noble ends, what really differentiates groups (if we apply a consistent standard) are the means they employ to achieve their ends. Really, the distinction between means and ends is fuzzy, so it is vital not to gloss over the tactics that we use to achieve our goals (Dewey is excellent on this point).
5. War, a human activity which invariably leads to widespread suffering and death, should only come in self-defense and as a last resort.
Okay, this may be a bit of a stretch, but here's how I think it follows. War is never an end in itself (or at least, most would grant that it never should be), but a means to some other end. However, given that judging the means we employ is essential to evaluating the character of our country, we should be extremely cautious about engaging in activities which are known evils, such as war.
6. The rule of law and consistent principles must always guide our conduct, even in extreme circumstances, and with people we detest.
Chomsky took a lot of flak for supporting the freedom of speech of a Holocaust-denier, but I think he made the right choice. Similarly, I concur with Glenn Greenwald on his recent post condemning Germany for trying to prosecute Donald Rumsfeld and others for war crimes that in no way involve Germany. I truly believe that Rumsfeld (along with Bush, Cheney, et alia) are guilty of war crimes, but this is not the way to prosecute them (read the whole thing for more on this).
This is also why our government should not suspend habeas corpus for so-called enemy combatants, or engage in torture, or spy illegally on its own citizens. Again, it is easy to view our ends as necessary (what is more vital than a nation's preserving itself?), so we must always proceed cautiously and, for all intents and purposes, act as though suspending the rule of law or violating international law are never justified.
I say "never" because in this way, on those occasions when there really are emergencies and extreme measures must be taken, we will always condemn them and strive to return to the conditions of normalcy, not letting ourselves slide along a slippery slope to totalitarianism or military dictatorship.
Really, this is all I think that Chomsky and many other leftist intellectuals are trying to do. Of course we have other goals (like ensuring more equitable distribution in the world, preserving our environment, and so forth) which might come into conflict, but this is one that I think almost everyone agrees on.
This is very much not a case of anti-Americanism (which Chomsky rightfully denounces as the kind of rhetoric one would expect from a fascist state), but precisely the opposite. Chomsky and others like him are true patriots who want us to be consistent and to live up to the values and standards that we profess (and judge others by). Is that so unreasonable or radical?
1. We should hold ourselves to the same standards we hold others.
This is a straightforward premise that almost everyone would grant on an individual level, but which some Americans might take issue with, making the claim that, since America is a force of good in the world, it's perfectly alright if we engage in some acts of evil for the sake of a greater good. Before moving on, I will try to refute this point.
First, two facts about our psychology: a) humans have an overwhelming tendency to view themselves, the groups that they belong to, and the people that they like as good; b) humans have a strong tendency to view individuals and groups that they dislike as bad or evil. I think the tendency in (a) is stronger than that of (b).
Concerning (a): Everyone, with very few exceptions, views themselves as good and no one thinks of themselves as evil. This includes Nazis, Soviets, Islamic terrorists, you name it. (The handful of exceptions would be silly people like Satan worshippers and perhaps psychopaths and serial killers who are honest with themselves.)
Vast amounts of evidence support this claim; take any purportedly "evil" group in history and look at their literature. Whether they're killing in God's name, for the sake of their glorious nation, or to spread freedom and democracy, they tell themselves some kind of story to justify what they're doing.
In short, to label a group as simply and purely evil is to totally misunderstand human psychology and, in fact, to repeat the error of many of these groups--this is why the rhetoric on both sides of the "War on Terror" is eerily similar. If a group is actually evil, it's not because they embrace the dark side but because what they think of as a good comes with evil, but often forseeable, consequences.
Now these two tendencies are not impossible to break free from, but it requires a great degree of self-honesty and the use of reason. You simply cannot take for granted that the side you're on consists of "the good guys". Everyone thinks they're on that side.
The world is a complicated place. Evil comes in degrees, and often as the consequence of noble intentions. Whether we are, in the end, a force of good in the world is determined by our actions. So, in order to make such a judgment well, it is essential that we hold ourselves to the same standards as everyone else.
2. Citizens of a democratic society are at least partially responsible for the actions of their government.
We live in a relatively free country and even though it is hard for an individual to make an impact by herself, people can come together in groups and bring about changes and reforms. The very least they can do is try. Cynicism and detachment do not absolve anyone of blame. I could say more on this point, but this is not the time or place for it.
I think these are really the only 2 premises that you need to grant. There may be some others, such as that responsibility requires becoming informed about the consequences of your actions, but I don't think I need to argue for these. Here are some of the conclusions that follow from these two:
3. It is our responsibility to figure out what wrongs our government is committing, to make them public, and to take steps to stop them.
This is clearly a driving force for Chomsky; he has said that what motivates his efforts is a matter of conscience, doing what he can to live with himself. This is why he looks at our foreign affairs and brings to light the crimes that our country has perpetrated on other parts of the world.
4. America is a good nation only if it avoids employing evil means to achieve its ends.
Realizing that every group of people sees itself as acting for noble ends, what really differentiates groups (if we apply a consistent standard) are the means they employ to achieve their ends. Really, the distinction between means and ends is fuzzy, so it is vital not to gloss over the tactics that we use to achieve our goals (Dewey is excellent on this point).
5. War, a human activity which invariably leads to widespread suffering and death, should only come in self-defense and as a last resort.
Okay, this may be a bit of a stretch, but here's how I think it follows. War is never an end in itself (or at least, most would grant that it never should be), but a means to some other end. However, given that judging the means we employ is essential to evaluating the character of our country, we should be extremely cautious about engaging in activities which are known evils, such as war.
6. The rule of law and consistent principles must always guide our conduct, even in extreme circumstances, and with people we detest.
Chomsky took a lot of flak for supporting the freedom of speech of a Holocaust-denier, but I think he made the right choice. Similarly, I concur with Glenn Greenwald on his recent post condemning Germany for trying to prosecute Donald Rumsfeld and others for war crimes that in no way involve Germany. I truly believe that Rumsfeld (along with Bush, Cheney, et alia) are guilty of war crimes, but this is not the way to prosecute them (read the whole thing for more on this).
This is also why our government should not suspend habeas corpus for so-called enemy combatants, or engage in torture, or spy illegally on its own citizens. Again, it is easy to view our ends as necessary (what is more vital than a nation's preserving itself?), so we must always proceed cautiously and, for all intents and purposes, act as though suspending the rule of law or violating international law are never justified.
I say "never" because in this way, on those occasions when there really are emergencies and extreme measures must be taken, we will always condemn them and strive to return to the conditions of normalcy, not letting ourselves slide along a slippery slope to totalitarianism or military dictatorship.
Really, this is all I think that Chomsky and many other leftist intellectuals are trying to do. Of course we have other goals (like ensuring more equitable distribution in the world, preserving our environment, and so forth) which might come into conflict, but this is one that I think almost everyone agrees on.
This is very much not a case of anti-Americanism (which Chomsky rightfully denounces as the kind of rhetoric one would expect from a fascist state), but precisely the opposite. Chomsky and others like him are true patriots who want us to be consistent and to live up to the values and standards that we profess (and judge others by). Is that so unreasonable or radical?
Elitism & Democracy
While reading Glenn Greenwald's always excellent blog, I was led to this little gem of a piece regarding the power of the press corps. Here's an excerpt (emphases in original):
I particularly enjoyed seeing (in the special features on the DVD) a debate between Chomsky and Michel Foucault (the subject of one of my seminars this semester) which was, interestingly enough, filmed in Holland, the very homeland of my good friend Benedict Spinoza who, although writing in a very different political context, says some remarkable things about the relationship between the reasonable few and the ignorant multitudes.
Spinoza, I think, evinces an ambivalence about the masses (one which I share), but despite some reservations about the danger that "the mob" poses, ultimately sides with democracy. Some choice quotations illustrate this.
In his earliest work, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza describes a personal journey that led him to strive for a particular goal, that he sees as the end of a good life (my emphases in bold):
Here, in this noteworthy passage, we see encapsulated the driving motivation in Spinoza's life, which led him to speak and write what he felt was the truth, despite the very real danger of doing so (there was at least one attempt made on his life). Ultimately, it is a kind of democratic motive, as can further be seen in his Political Treatise or in the Ethics, insofar as the kind of life that it prescribes is presumably open to all people, not just the wise or educated ones.
On the other hand, Spinoza does have a tendency to talk about the shortcomings of "the vulgar" and the prejudices they are subject to. In a somewhat Hobbesian vein he says something like the following:
In any case, I think the lesson to be taken from this is as follows. It's easy to think that the masses are dumb and need to be kept in line when you're in the power elite that manufactures public opinion and influences political decisions that have potentially global repercussions. You don't need to be a neoconservative Straussian to be a part of the DC establishment (politicians, journalists, lobbyists, etc.) that actively views itself as elite.
Similarly, it's easy to be an intellectual at a prestigious university and go on about the stupidity of the masses and how easily duped they are, and so on. I have been known to, on occasion, espouse such views, and in my day-to-day life, I am something of an elitist: I associate almost entirely with a select group of people who are educated, intelligent, articulate, and so forth. Indeed, I often feel disconnected from more common people--I have enough trouble as it is dealing with my students, most of whom are a long way from having a working class background.
Now clearly, while we possess some degree of power, it pales in comparison to that of the various politicos who dominate what is taken to be "public discourse" in America. We are viewed, perhaps, as nuisances and rabble-rousers, conspiracy theorists and totalitarian leftist professors; we are marginalized and disrespected by an "anti-intellectual" culture.
But elitism is no fun if you're not part of the elite. Maybe we think we should be, but who doesn't think such a thing? This is one reason why I'm glad to come from a more or less middle class background; if you grow up with affluence you start to think that you deserve it (look at our current president: he hasn't earned any of the numerous privileges he's been afforded in life; he wouldn't have a single one of them if his name weren't George Bush). And so, I recognize my elitist tendencies as a kind of prejudice.
Now I understand a need for stability, but nobody wants to be treated like they're unfit to make decisions for themselves. This is one reason why control in ostensibly democratic countries is so insidious: it's masked by the incessant refrain of "personal freedom" and "individual choice". As Foucault might say, we are constituted as subjects in such a way that we internalize these relations of power, so that we don't have to have them imposed on us by violent force, except in rare circumstances. In postindustrial society, we're far past the use of mere threats to keep people in line.
But there is hope. The fact of the matter is, that we can have discussions of this sort, that someone like Noam Chomsky can star in films and give lectures all over the country and write books that people can read and so forth, is an indication that the system can't fully suppress resistances to it. Many American institutions function to isolate individuals from one another (look at the prolonged attack on organized labor), but dissenters can come together: at universities, on the internets, through books, TV shows, and films.
Really, this is what I see as one of my major roles as an educator (and why I find Spinoza's TdIE formulation so compelling). I foster dissent and encourage ways of looking at the world that fall outside of the narrow ideological spectrum that Americans are supposed to occupy. And this is why I work hard to stay informed about the world, reading alternative media and leftist blogs and writing my own observations (even if only three people read them).
As Chomsky rightly points out, it's too much to ask of an individual to sort through all the information available to get at buried truths. This can happen only in communities in which many individuals take up a small section as their own, learn what they can, and then share the results with others in the community and outside of it. This is perhaps what Foucault meant by the notion of "specific" or "local intellectual".
In response to this piece, a commenter using the moniker "mk" submitted this:But the point is the powerhouse media and their politician lovemates truly do feel there are things normal, grubby Americans simply can't handle. Moreover, it has nothing to do with political parties. Everything I've seen in my life confirms that, with few exceptions, they feel this way across the (extremely narrow) political spectrum.
If you're not part of their little charmed circle, believe me, all your worst suspicions about them are true. They do think you're stupid. They do lie to you. They do hate and fear you. Most importantly, they think you can't be trusted with the things they know—because if you did know them, you'd go nuts and break America. They are Thomas Jefferson's aristocrats:
Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves. Call them, therefore, Liberals and Serviles, Jacobins and Ultras, Whigs and Tories, Republicans and Federalists, Aristocrats and Democrats, or by whatever name you please, they are the same parties still, and pursue the same object. The last appellation of Aristocrats and Democrats is the true one expressing the essence of all.Interestingly, in my endless years of school, this Jefferson quote was never once part of the assigned reading.
This is exactly what Herman and Chomsky analyze in their propaganda model in "Manufacturing Consent". The latter phrase comes from the Wilson-era liberal intellectual (and Creel Commission member), Walter Lippmann. He promoted this manufacture of public consent - it was then openly acknowledged as propaganda - byAs it so happens, I just watched a documentary (made in 1992) on Chomsky called "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media," which I had received from Netflix at about the time I stumbled across this interesting piece. It's a fascinating film which I highly recommend if you want to learn more about this reality of American life.
recommending what the "responsible men" (always including the author himself) should do to ensure that the "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders" (the public) don't interfere with the decisions of the responsible men for the public good (by definition).
A full exegesis can be found in this piece from Deterring Democracy, from which the following is excerpted:
"The public must be put in its place," Walter Lippmann wrote, so that we may "live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd," whose "function" is to be "interested spectators of action," not participants. And if the state lacks the force to coerce and the voice of the people can be heard, it is necessary to ensure that that voice says the right thing, as respected intellectuals have been advising for many years.
I particularly enjoyed seeing (in the special features on the DVD) a debate between Chomsky and Michel Foucault (the subject of one of my seminars this semester) which was, interestingly enough, filmed in Holland, the very homeland of my good friend Benedict Spinoza who, although writing in a very different political context, says some remarkable things about the relationship between the reasonable few and the ignorant multitudes.
Spinoza, I think, evinces an ambivalence about the masses (one which I share), but despite some reservations about the danger that "the mob" poses, ultimately sides with democracy. Some choice quotations illustrate this.
In his earliest work, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, Spinoza describes a personal journey that led him to strive for a particular goal, that he sees as the end of a good life (my emphases in bold):
[M]an conceives a human nature much stronger and more enduring than his own, and at the same time sees that nothing prevents his acquiring such a nature, he is spurred to seek means that will lead him to such a perfection. Whatever can be a means to his attaining it is called a true good; but the highest good is to arrive--together with other individuals if possible--at the enjoyment of such a nature. What that nature is we shall show in its proper place: that it is the knowledge of the union that the mind has with the whole of Nature.
This, then, is the end I aim at: to acquire such a nature, and to strive that many acquire it with me. That is, it is part of my happiness to take pains that many others may understand as I understand, so that their intellect and desire agree entirely with my intellect and desire. To do this it is necessary, first to understand as much of Nature as suffices for acquiring such a nature; next, to form a society of the kind that is desirable, so that as many as possible may attain it as easily and surely as possible.
Third, attention must be paid to Moral Philosophy and to Instruction concerning the Education of children. Because Health is no small means to achieving this end, fourthly, the whole of Medicine must be worked out. And because many difficult things are rendered easy by ingenuity, and we can gain much time and convenience in this life, fifthly, Mechanics is in no way to be despised. [TdIE paragraphs 13-16]
Here, in this noteworthy passage, we see encapsulated the driving motivation in Spinoza's life, which led him to speak and write what he felt was the truth, despite the very real danger of doing so (there was at least one attempt made on his life). Ultimately, it is a kind of democratic motive, as can further be seen in his Political Treatise or in the Ethics, insofar as the kind of life that it prescribes is presumably open to all people, not just the wise or educated ones.
On the other hand, Spinoza does have a tendency to talk about the shortcomings of "the vulgar" and the prejudices they are subject to. In a somewhat Hobbesian vein he says something like the following:
Everyone exists by the highest right of nature, and consequently everyone, by the highest right of nature, does those things that follow from the necessity of his own nature....Perhaps we could say that he is just being realistic here, and certainly his conclusions about the form that the State should take is quite a departure from Hobbes.
If men lived according to the guidance of reason, everyone would possess this right of his (by P35C1) without any injury to anyone else. But because they are subject to the affects (by P4C), which far surpass man's power, or virtue (by P6), they are often drawn in different directions (by P33) and are contrary to one another (by P34), while they require one another's aid (by P35S).
In order, therefore, that men may be able to live harmoniously and be of assistance to one another, it is necessary for them to give up their natural right and to make one another confident that they will do nothing which could harm others.... No affect can be restrained except by an affect stronger than and contrary to the affect to be restrained, and everyone refrains from doing harm out of timidity regarding a greater harm.
By this law, therefore, Society can be maintained, provided it appropriates to itself the right everyone has of avenging himself, and of judging concerning good and evil. In this way Society has the power to prescribe a common rule of life, to make laws, and to maintain them--not by reason, which cannot restrain the affects (by P17S), but by threats. [E IVP37S2]
In any case, I think the lesson to be taken from this is as follows. It's easy to think that the masses are dumb and need to be kept in line when you're in the power elite that manufactures public opinion and influences political decisions that have potentially global repercussions. You don't need to be a neoconservative Straussian to be a part of the DC establishment (politicians, journalists, lobbyists, etc.) that actively views itself as elite.
Similarly, it's easy to be an intellectual at a prestigious university and go on about the stupidity of the masses and how easily duped they are, and so on. I have been known to, on occasion, espouse such views, and in my day-to-day life, I am something of an elitist: I associate almost entirely with a select group of people who are educated, intelligent, articulate, and so forth. Indeed, I often feel disconnected from more common people--I have enough trouble as it is dealing with my students, most of whom are a long way from having a working class background.
Now clearly, while we possess some degree of power, it pales in comparison to that of the various politicos who dominate what is taken to be "public discourse" in America. We are viewed, perhaps, as nuisances and rabble-rousers, conspiracy theorists and totalitarian leftist professors; we are marginalized and disrespected by an "anti-intellectual" culture.
But elitism is no fun if you're not part of the elite. Maybe we think we should be, but who doesn't think such a thing? This is one reason why I'm glad to come from a more or less middle class background; if you grow up with affluence you start to think that you deserve it (look at our current president: he hasn't earned any of the numerous privileges he's been afforded in life; he wouldn't have a single one of them if his name weren't George Bush). And so, I recognize my elitist tendencies as a kind of prejudice.
Now I understand a need for stability, but nobody wants to be treated like they're unfit to make decisions for themselves. This is one reason why control in ostensibly democratic countries is so insidious: it's masked by the incessant refrain of "personal freedom" and "individual choice". As Foucault might say, we are constituted as subjects in such a way that we internalize these relations of power, so that we don't have to have them imposed on us by violent force, except in rare circumstances. In postindustrial society, we're far past the use of mere threats to keep people in line.
But there is hope. The fact of the matter is, that we can have discussions of this sort, that someone like Noam Chomsky can star in films and give lectures all over the country and write books that people can read and so forth, is an indication that the system can't fully suppress resistances to it. Many American institutions function to isolate individuals from one another (look at the prolonged attack on organized labor), but dissenters can come together: at universities, on the internets, through books, TV shows, and films.
Really, this is what I see as one of my major roles as an educator (and why I find Spinoza's TdIE formulation so compelling). I foster dissent and encourage ways of looking at the world that fall outside of the narrow ideological spectrum that Americans are supposed to occupy. And this is why I work hard to stay informed about the world, reading alternative media and leftist blogs and writing my own observations (even if only three people read them).
As Chomsky rightly points out, it's too much to ask of an individual to sort through all the information available to get at buried truths. This can happen only in communities in which many individuals take up a small section as their own, learn what they can, and then share the results with others in the community and outside of it. This is perhaps what Foucault meant by the notion of "specific" or "local intellectual".
11/14/2006
Kids and whatnot
On another topic I have no business thinking about, this is a fascinating article on the virtues of adult couples who never have children (h/t Digby). While such a decision is not remotely possible in my near future, I had long assumed that if I never became a father I would regret it (thus putting more pressure on me to find a nice girl and get married). But, as it turns out (emphasis mine):
As a male devoid of nurturing instincts and annoyed by young children, this makes me quite pleased, especially since apparently about a quarter of American women don't have children. Chances are, too, that the more educated she is, the less likely she'll want to be a mother. And I couldn't imagine marrying someone who didn't want to pursue a career of her own; in the very least she'd have to be a college graduate, if not a fellow academic.
Since I've recently been thinking about marriage as a relationship that would be best if it were in the model of Aristotelian (or Nietzschean) friendship, I see having children as only an impediment to establishing a close bond of emotional intimacy with another person--that article certainly suggests as much. Now that we live in an age in which choosing not to have children is a very real option, I'd be happy to take it.
Of course, the real question for me is not one concerning parenting, but rather one of its conditions of possibility, viz., finding a partner. Many of my idols in the history of philosophy were lifelong bachelors, most notably Spinoza and Nietzsche. I honestly believe that I, better than anyone else I know, could get by and perhaps even flourish in such an existence, as long as I had a few close friendships.
As it stands, however, it seems that married people are on average happier than the unwed, so it remains something I strive for (especially since I'm no stranger to occasional pangs of loneliness). Of course, I should be clear here that what concerns me is not the institution of marriage itself, in its legal form (essentially a contract with certain economic advantages for the parties involved) or its religious aspects (I find the notion of "soulmates" to be especially irritating) or whatever other guise it may take, but rather a kind of lifelong companionship--again, friendship in the Aristotelian sense.
Nonetheless, for the time being, I resolve to make the most of my single life, and am now firmly resolved not to have children. That could change, of course, given the very different circumstances that the future will bring, but for the time being it seems to me to be an irrational course of action, given the other projects I hope to pursue in life (establishing close bonds with others, serving as an educator to other people's children, living comfortably and with minimal stress, etc.).
Hanson agrees that even if mothers say they don't regret having children, as a group they're not more satisfied with their lives than nonmothers. For all the truth about the innate physiological rewards of mothering, he says, "The happy people are the ones who wanted kids and had them or didn't want kids and didn't have them."
This is true even in old age, a time when many assume the childless will suffer alone while their peers are comforted by grandchildren. Tanya Koropeckyj-Cox, a sociology professor at the University of Florida who researches aging, recently completed a study based on surveys of 3,800 men and women between the ages of 50 and 84. "For years we have heard warnings that if you don't have children, you will regret it later," she said in a press release. "But beliefs about childlessness leading to a lonely old age are simply not supported by our study." In a previous report published in 1998, Koropeckyj-Cox concluded that there is "no significant differences in loneliness and depression between parents and childless adults."
Besides, what some parents gain in intimacy with their children, they lose in intimacy with their partners....
Cain reprints one of those 1975 letters sent to Ann Landers in her book: "I am 40, and my husband is 45. We have twin children under 8 years of age. I was an attractive, fulfilled career woman before I had these kids. Now I'm an overly exhausted nervous wreck who misses her job and sees very little of her husband. He's got a 'friend,' I'm sure, and I don't blame him. Our children took all the romance out of our marriage. I'm too tired for sex, conversation or anything."
Such alienation is less likely when people don't have children. "Statistics show childless couples are happier," Cain says. "Their lives are self-directed, they have a better chance of intimacy, and they do not have the stresses, financial and emotional, of parenthood."
As a male devoid of nurturing instincts and annoyed by young children, this makes me quite pleased, especially since apparently about a quarter of American women don't have children. Chances are, too, that the more educated she is, the less likely she'll want to be a mother. And I couldn't imagine marrying someone who didn't want to pursue a career of her own; in the very least she'd have to be a college graduate, if not a fellow academic.
Since I've recently been thinking about marriage as a relationship that would be best if it were in the model of Aristotelian (or Nietzschean) friendship, I see having children as only an impediment to establishing a close bond of emotional intimacy with another person--that article certainly suggests as much. Now that we live in an age in which choosing not to have children is a very real option, I'd be happy to take it.
Of course, the real question for me is not one concerning parenting, but rather one of its conditions of possibility, viz., finding a partner. Many of my idols in the history of philosophy were lifelong bachelors, most notably Spinoza and Nietzsche. I honestly believe that I, better than anyone else I know, could get by and perhaps even flourish in such an existence, as long as I had a few close friendships.
As it stands, however, it seems that married people are on average happier than the unwed, so it remains something I strive for (especially since I'm no stranger to occasional pangs of loneliness). Of course, I should be clear here that what concerns me is not the institution of marriage itself, in its legal form (essentially a contract with certain economic advantages for the parties involved) or its religious aspects (I find the notion of "soulmates" to be especially irritating) or whatever other guise it may take, but rather a kind of lifelong companionship--again, friendship in the Aristotelian sense.
Nonetheless, for the time being, I resolve to make the most of my single life, and am now firmly resolved not to have children. That could change, of course, given the very different circumstances that the future will bring, but for the time being it seems to me to be an irrational course of action, given the other projects I hope to pursue in life (establishing close bonds with others, serving as an educator to other people's children, living comfortably and with minimal stress, etc.).
11/12/2006
Hope
I won't bother rehashing all the clichés and conventional wisdom about the results of our recent election, but I did want to take a moment to reflect on its importance.
A number of the progressive bloggers who I read regularly see this as the beginning of the end for the conservative movement, which has been in ascendancy for just about as long as I've been alive. This is not to say that we'll see a return of the Democratic domination of the New Deal, but that Americans have perhaps had enough of the extremism of movement conservatism.
I don't know if this is true, but I hope it is. If nothing else, that is what this election has given me (and hence the title of this post). If it is, then perhaps the progressive values that many Americans hold (as Noam Chomsky has often pointed out, surveys conducted by PIPA and other organizations indicate popular endorsement of positions favoring universal healthcare, environmental conservation, progressive taxation, etc. [I should fill in some links here, but right now I'm trying to keep this short]) may be able to come to fruition.
Indeed, it is good to feel hopeful. If there's one thing I wish I could change about the students I've had the wonderful pleasure of teaching, it's the almost pervasive cynicism that dominates their worldviews. I've written about this before, how nihilism, apathy, and anomie seem to be in fashion these days. Glenn Greenwald recently showed how this kind of cynicism is pervasive among political pundits, as well (first link on my sidebar).
Of course, I myself have never been able to shake off cynicism completely. As someone who does not believe in necessary progress in history, I harbor no illusions about what the future may hold (well, leaving aside my perhaps unwarranted optimism for technological advancement). I doubt that I'll ever fully eliminate my cynical side--especially since it's a cornerstone of my sense of humor--but at least it has always had to contend against a vibrant idealism which is certainly not willing to cede ground after this week.
Yet, there is still much that needs to be done if reason and progressive values are to win the day. In the next 2 years, I suspect the best that can be done is to hold Bush in check, investigate the hell out of his crooked administration and their allies in corporate America, and maybe increase the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. Election reform would be nice, but we'd never implement truly democratic measures like instant runoff voting and totally public campaign financing.
Taking a larger picture view of things, I really wonder about the future of this country. Some of the non-liberal leftists who I read are keen to point out that the Democrats are really only the slight more benevolent faction of the ruling class, that they are nearly as business-friendly, war-friendly, and people-unfriendly as the GOP. Of course, as is evidenced by the stolen election of 2000, small differences can have huge consequences.
I agree that the current duopoly in American politics leaves much to be desired, but why should the solution require new political parties? In Italy, there are hundreds of parties, and yet they end up having to form 2 major coalitions anyway. The Democrats, like the GOP, offer a big tent: leaving aside demographic differences, Democrats vary widely from state to state (contrast Tester of Montana, Webb of Virginia, Biden of Delaware, and Feingold of Wisconsin, for instance).
Sometimes I feel like the far left is too wedded to cynicism and pessimism to ever view anything as progress; every intellectual knows that criticism is far more profound-seeming than praise. Nevertheless, the Democratic party represents our best hope for positive change in the US. In fact, a number of more populist, netroots-supported candidates were elected on Tuesday, and this trend is likely to continue as the blogosphere becomes a more formidable media force.
For the first time in a while, I feel like I want to live in this country in the longterm. I've often dreamt of finishing my Ph.D. and then jetting off to Toronto or Amsterdam or Tokyo, but now I'm not so sure. Of course I'd like to travel more, but emigration doesn't seem as necessary and inevitable to me as it once did.
I suspect it won't be too long before American unilateral dominance in the world is eliminated by the rising powers of a united Europe, China, and India, among others, but I think this could be a good thing for our country (and the world!). If nothing else, we can thank Bush for accelerating that process.
Let me close with a sentiment from Spinoza: "So let the satirists laugh as much as they like at human affairs, let the theologians curse them, let melancholics praise as much as they can a life that is uncultivated and wild.... Men still find from experience that by helping one another they can provide themselves much more easily with the things they require, and that only by joining forces can they avoid the dangers which threaten on all sides..."
A number of the progressive bloggers who I read regularly see this as the beginning of the end for the conservative movement, which has been in ascendancy for just about as long as I've been alive. This is not to say that we'll see a return of the Democratic domination of the New Deal, but that Americans have perhaps had enough of the extremism of movement conservatism.
I don't know if this is true, but I hope it is. If nothing else, that is what this election has given me (and hence the title of this post). If it is, then perhaps the progressive values that many Americans hold (as Noam Chomsky has often pointed out, surveys conducted by PIPA and other organizations indicate popular endorsement of positions favoring universal healthcare, environmental conservation, progressive taxation, etc. [I should fill in some links here, but right now I'm trying to keep this short]) may be able to come to fruition.
Indeed, it is good to feel hopeful. If there's one thing I wish I could change about the students I've had the wonderful pleasure of teaching, it's the almost pervasive cynicism that dominates their worldviews. I've written about this before, how nihilism, apathy, and anomie seem to be in fashion these days. Glenn Greenwald recently showed how this kind of cynicism is pervasive among political pundits, as well (first link on my sidebar).
Of course, I myself have never been able to shake off cynicism completely. As someone who does not believe in necessary progress in history, I harbor no illusions about what the future may hold (well, leaving aside my perhaps unwarranted optimism for technological advancement). I doubt that I'll ever fully eliminate my cynical side--especially since it's a cornerstone of my sense of humor--but at least it has always had to contend against a vibrant idealism which is certainly not willing to cede ground after this week.
Yet, there is still much that needs to be done if reason and progressive values are to win the day. In the next 2 years, I suspect the best that can be done is to hold Bush in check, investigate the hell out of his crooked administration and their allies in corporate America, and maybe increase the minimum wage for the first time in a decade. Election reform would be nice, but we'd never implement truly democratic measures like instant runoff voting and totally public campaign financing.
Taking a larger picture view of things, I really wonder about the future of this country. Some of the non-liberal leftists who I read are keen to point out that the Democrats are really only the slight more benevolent faction of the ruling class, that they are nearly as business-friendly, war-friendly, and people-unfriendly as the GOP. Of course, as is evidenced by the stolen election of 2000, small differences can have huge consequences.
I agree that the current duopoly in American politics leaves much to be desired, but why should the solution require new political parties? In Italy, there are hundreds of parties, and yet they end up having to form 2 major coalitions anyway. The Democrats, like the GOP, offer a big tent: leaving aside demographic differences, Democrats vary widely from state to state (contrast Tester of Montana, Webb of Virginia, Biden of Delaware, and Feingold of Wisconsin, for instance).
Sometimes I feel like the far left is too wedded to cynicism and pessimism to ever view anything as progress; every intellectual knows that criticism is far more profound-seeming than praise. Nevertheless, the Democratic party represents our best hope for positive change in the US. In fact, a number of more populist, netroots-supported candidates were elected on Tuesday, and this trend is likely to continue as the blogosphere becomes a more formidable media force.
For the first time in a while, I feel like I want to live in this country in the longterm. I've often dreamt of finishing my Ph.D. and then jetting off to Toronto or Amsterdam or Tokyo, but now I'm not so sure. Of course I'd like to travel more, but emigration doesn't seem as necessary and inevitable to me as it once did.
I suspect it won't be too long before American unilateral dominance in the world is eliminated by the rising powers of a united Europe, China, and India, among others, but I think this could be a good thing for our country (and the world!). If nothing else, we can thank Bush for accelerating that process.
Let me close with a sentiment from Spinoza: "So let the satirists laugh as much as they like at human affairs, let the theologians curse them, let melancholics praise as much as they can a life that is uncultivated and wild.... Men still find from experience that by helping one another they can provide themselves much more easily with the things they require, and that only by joining forces can they avoid the dangers which threaten on all sides..."
9/20/2006
Control
I recently told my students that I have been myself for about a decade. I don't believe in real essences or in any strong sense of personal identity, and despite the fact that I had a relatively stable and very much non-dysfunctional upbringing, I don't much care for my childhood or the kind of person I was then.
Ten years ago, I was a sophomore in high school. That year, I would take two classes that I now realize probably had a formative effect on who I am now as an intellectual.
One was a class in biology, in which I learned about genes and evolution among other things (that year I would win an "Outstanding Biology Student" and receive as a prize an advanced textbook on genetics which I requested but would never read). For a number of years when I was in high school, I thought I would go into the sciences. That year, I would begin reading Stephen Hawking's popular works on astrophysics.
The other class was the closest I ever came in high school to a philosophy class, a European history class that was at least half intellectual history. Although I never read him until several years later, I learned about Marx and his theory of history, and about the various utopian socialist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. (I also read some Ayn Rand this year--my teacher went on the record as saying his favorite book was Atlas Shrugged--but luckily, I never got into objectivism.)
Later in the year, in a third class, English, I would write a paper that I now look at as having some significance, a kind of first stab at political philosophy, embodying a strain of thought that has at least remained an undercurrent in my adult reflections.
In this paper--whose location, if it still exists, currently escapes me, but if I remember it rightly--I argued for a kind of ideal society, in which economic planning was merged with robotics and genetic engineering to produce a true utopia. It was rather simple--and simplistic: the robots did all the nasty jobs, and people who were genetically modified to be less hateful and more cooperative lived in peace in a planned economy where people worked, not for the sake of money, but because they wanted to. My English teacher must have thought I was a budding totalitarian.
In 10 years, biotechnology, robotics, and information and computing sciences have come a long way. Joined with nanotechnology, a field in its infancy but which has the promise of being just as influential, we are coming ever closer to a time when technology could once again radically alter the character of our lives. I still watch these fields for development with keen interest, and am relatively optimistic about what they can do for humanity.
When I finally got around to reading Marx for myself, I was taken by him, and was probably a Marxist for several years--that is, until I grew more enamored of Spinoza, and also read the critiques of "Post-Marxist" thinkers like Chantal Mouffe, who disabused me of economic determinism and other key Marxist doctrines. And while I called myself a "communist" or "socialist" for many years in the last decade, I would no longer embrace such a title. Maybe now I'm a green or a left communitarian or a social democrat, but I'm not as enthusiastic about labels as I once was.
Anyway, I hope the reason for this autobiographical indulgence will soon be made manifest, but let me get on to the meat of this post.
This week, my class is studying freedom and determinism. Among the topics we're considering is behaviorism; we're reading, among other pieces, B.F. Skinner's "Freedom and the Control of Men". Although I no longer have many positivist sympathies (that was a later episode, in my early college years after I rejected theism), I still have a soft spot for behaviorism, which is probably why I agree with my friend Ben more often than I should.
Skinner is not someone who's good to read if you're worried that you have a secret affinity for totalitarianism. Here's an example of what I mean:
In truth, I find this utterly seductive. The argument is that so much of what is taken for "freedom" is chance, accident, perhaps even chaos. But if we have other options, why leave something so important as human life up to chance?
This leads me to ask the great unasked question of our time: What's so great about freedom? Why is freedom something that is valued in itself? What happens if freedom actually leads to suffering and unhappiness?
This is a question that has taken on a new light for me as I read people like Jonathan Haidt, who argues for an ethic of happiness, in which freedom is merely means to an end. Too much freedom, as it turns out, is actually a source of anxiety for people (I like to bring up the example of the tooth paste aisle; this is a place where choice is a burden more than anything else). What matters, more often than not, is simply the appearance of freedom, a kind of surface freedom where much of the choice has already been done for you.
Think of freedom, for a moment, as getting what you want. This is simple, I know, but this is a not insignificant part of human happiness. As Stoics, Buddhists, and others have recognized, there's more than one way of maximizing your number of satisfied desires. Desire different things, things which are more easily attainable ("...if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with..."). As Epictetus puts it, want things to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well.
On a social scale, as in, say, Skinner's Walden Two, this is accomplished by a behavioral science that creates in people desires that are attainable. Right now, I think one of the major problems we face in our consumerist society is that desires are generated in us, both against our will and against our best interest and almost always without our knowledge, incessantly. This is what fuels our economy, but it's a source of major unhappiness. And, as it turns out, when we get the things that we want--things we are manipulated into wanting--we usually aren't too thrilled, instead asking, "OK, now what do I want?"
Most people don't ask where their desires come from. As Spinoza so aptly put it three and a half centuries ago, "men think themselves free, because they are conscious of their volitions and their appetite, and do not think, even in their dreams, of the causes by which they are disposed to wanting and willing, because they are ignorant of [those causes]".
What, then, is so bad about a society in which we are explicitly engineered to having attainable desires? This is why Frazier, the fictional founder of Skinner's Walden Two, is able to say that it's "the freest place on earth". The difference between that controlled society and ours is that our desires are still caused in us by outside forces--they are not of our choice by any stretch of the imagination--but the forces in our world are chaotic, and often acting in their own self-interest and against our own.
As I said, this has a very visceral appeal to me. And this is why I bring up my intellectual autobiography. For whatever reason--and I am by no means alone in this--I find control very appealing. I like minimizing risk and reasoning through possibilities, trying to account for contingencies and ordering the world very neatly.
This is evident in so much of my life. I have never taken advantage of my freedoms in the ways so many of my friends have. I've hardly traveled anywhere, I've done fewer drugs, I've had fewer romantic partners, and on and on. In general I feel like I've experienced less, like I've gotten less out of life. When I've tried to change these things, I've run into obstacles, perhaps most predominantly my own fear of risk. I constantly crave the comforts of home, even though I live a rather isolated existence that often doesn't seem to have too much going for it, except familiarity.
Thus, it is not surprising that I find a controlled society appealing. My foremost value is personal happiness, and I see freedom as merely a means to the end. I think many people feel the same way, but are too caught up in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy to realize it.
Nevertheless, I recognize a major problem here. Part of the appeal of a controlled society is the opportunity to be a Frazier, to be the person behind the scenes, working the magic. There is a kind of freedom that I value, if not in itself then at least because it constitutes a major component of my happiness: intellectual freedom.
Spinoza, my greatest role model, is a paragon of intellectual freedom, who literally risked his life by refusing to shut up and stop questioning the irrationalities predominant in his day (and still in ours). Even after he was offered a stipend to stop expressing his controversial views by his Jewish community and even after someone tried to stab him to death, he still would not back down. If not for courageous individuals like him, academic freedom would probably remain a pipedream.
And this brings us to the great dilemma of who watches the watchers? If it were as easy as it seems in Plato's Republic to separate the golden from the bronze, if the unwise could tell who the wise were (in other words, if the unwise were themselves wise enough to realize how unwise they were), then maybe democracy wouldn't be our only feasible option, "the worst form of government... except for all the other ones".
Moreover, even if we created superhuman intelligence, either through bioengineering or supercomputing or some conglomerate, there's no guarantee that we'd create a font of wisdom. Certainly people would be averse to surrendering their freedoms to it, even if it made objectively "better" choices. But perhaps this will change, as we cede more and more of our life decisions to computers. Who knows if it will be an improvement? There still remains a question of who's doing the programming.
And so, while I find control emotionally appealing, and while I still see technology as more of a boon than a hindrance, I remain a (small-d) democrat. One of the ironies of Plato's Republic is that the kind of controlled society it advocates probably wouldn't allow for the existence of people like its creator.
Nevertheless, I remain open to other possibilities, and still value freedom only as a means to human happiness and well-being. It concerns me that our individualistic society is not a happy one, compared to those that are more socially cohesive (but less "free"). Many of the ends that we pursue are self-defeating. Our prejudice against regulation and in favor of license is at least partly self-destructive. (This is why I can read Foucault, and see all these hidden power structures and systems of domination and sometimes say, "So what?")
Punishment and discipline and control are not bad in themselves, but only insofar as they harm our health or happiness. I think if we recognized this, we could still be democrats, but we might have a more reasonable and realistic attitude about what human life on a mass scale requires. The prejudice of free will remains one of the most harmful in the world.
Ten years ago, I was a sophomore in high school. That year, I would take two classes that I now realize probably had a formative effect on who I am now as an intellectual.
One was a class in biology, in which I learned about genes and evolution among other things (that year I would win an "Outstanding Biology Student" and receive as a prize an advanced textbook on genetics which I requested but would never read). For a number of years when I was in high school, I thought I would go into the sciences. That year, I would begin reading Stephen Hawking's popular works on astrophysics.
The other class was the closest I ever came in high school to a philosophy class, a European history class that was at least half intellectual history. Although I never read him until several years later, I learned about Marx and his theory of history, and about the various utopian socialist movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. (I also read some Ayn Rand this year--my teacher went on the record as saying his favorite book was Atlas Shrugged--but luckily, I never got into objectivism.)
Later in the year, in a third class, English, I would write a paper that I now look at as having some significance, a kind of first stab at political philosophy, embodying a strain of thought that has at least remained an undercurrent in my adult reflections.
In this paper--whose location, if it still exists, currently escapes me, but if I remember it rightly--I argued for a kind of ideal society, in which economic planning was merged with robotics and genetic engineering to produce a true utopia. It was rather simple--and simplistic: the robots did all the nasty jobs, and people who were genetically modified to be less hateful and more cooperative lived in peace in a planned economy where people worked, not for the sake of money, but because they wanted to. My English teacher must have thought I was a budding totalitarian.
In 10 years, biotechnology, robotics, and information and computing sciences have come a long way. Joined with nanotechnology, a field in its infancy but which has the promise of being just as influential, we are coming ever closer to a time when technology could once again radically alter the character of our lives. I still watch these fields for development with keen interest, and am relatively optimistic about what they can do for humanity.
When I finally got around to reading Marx for myself, I was taken by him, and was probably a Marxist for several years--that is, until I grew more enamored of Spinoza, and also read the critiques of "Post-Marxist" thinkers like Chantal Mouffe, who disabused me of economic determinism and other key Marxist doctrines. And while I called myself a "communist" or "socialist" for many years in the last decade, I would no longer embrace such a title. Maybe now I'm a green or a left communitarian or a social democrat, but I'm not as enthusiastic about labels as I once was.
Anyway, I hope the reason for this autobiographical indulgence will soon be made manifest, but let me get on to the meat of this post.
This week, my class is studying freedom and determinism. Among the topics we're considering is behaviorism; we're reading, among other pieces, B.F. Skinner's "Freedom and the Control of Men". Although I no longer have many positivist sympathies (that was a later episode, in my early college years after I rejected theism), I still have a soft spot for behaviorism, which is probably why I agree with my friend Ben more often than I should.
Skinner is not someone who's good to read if you're worried that you have a secret affinity for totalitarianism. Here's an example of what I mean:
The methods of education, moral discourse, and persuasion are acceptable not because they recognize the freedom of the individual or his right to dissent, but because they make only partial contributions to the control of his behavior. The freedom they recognize is freedom from a more coercive form of control. The dissent which they tolerate is the possible effect of other determiners of action. Since these sanctioned methods are frequently ineffective, we have been able to convince ourselves that they do not represent control at all. When they show too much strength to permit disguise, we give them other names and suppress them as energetically as we suppress the use of force. Education grown too powerful is rejected as propaganda or "brainwashing" while really effective persuasion is described as "undue influence," "demagoguery," "seduction," and so on.
If we are not to rely solely upon accident for the innovations which give rise to cultural evolution, we must accept the fact that some kind of control of human behavior is inevitable. We cannot use good sense in human affairs unless someone engages in the design and construction of environmental conditions which affect the behavior of men. Environmental changes have always been the condition for the improvement of cultural patterns, and we can hardly use the more effective methods of science without making changes on a grander scale. We are all controlled by the world in which we live, and part of that world has been and will be constructed by men. The question is this: Are we to be controlled by accident, by tyrants, or by ourselves in effective cultural design?
The danger of the misuse of power is possibly greater than ever. It is not allayed by disguising the facts. We cannot make wise decisions if we continue to pretend that human behavior is not controlled, or if we refuse to engage in control when valuable results might be forthcoming. Such measures weaken only ourselves, leaving the strength of science to others....
Science has turned up dangerous processes and materials before. To use the facts and techniques of a science of man to the fullest extent without making some monstrous mistake will be difficult and obviously perilous. It is no time for self-deception, emotional indulgence, or the assumption of attitudes which are no longer useful. Man is facing a difficult test. He must keep his head now, or he must start again--a long way back.
In truth, I find this utterly seductive. The argument is that so much of what is taken for "freedom" is chance, accident, perhaps even chaos. But if we have other options, why leave something so important as human life up to chance?
This leads me to ask the great unasked question of our time: What's so great about freedom? Why is freedom something that is valued in itself? What happens if freedom actually leads to suffering and unhappiness?
This is a question that has taken on a new light for me as I read people like Jonathan Haidt, who argues for an ethic of happiness, in which freedom is merely means to an end. Too much freedom, as it turns out, is actually a source of anxiety for people (I like to bring up the example of the tooth paste aisle; this is a place where choice is a burden more than anything else). What matters, more often than not, is simply the appearance of freedom, a kind of surface freedom where much of the choice has already been done for you.
Think of freedom, for a moment, as getting what you want. This is simple, I know, but this is a not insignificant part of human happiness. As Stoics, Buddhists, and others have recognized, there's more than one way of maximizing your number of satisfied desires. Desire different things, things which are more easily attainable ("...if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with..."). As Epictetus puts it, want things to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well.
On a social scale, as in, say, Skinner's Walden Two, this is accomplished by a behavioral science that creates in people desires that are attainable. Right now, I think one of the major problems we face in our consumerist society is that desires are generated in us, both against our will and against our best interest and almost always without our knowledge, incessantly. This is what fuels our economy, but it's a source of major unhappiness. And, as it turns out, when we get the things that we want--things we are manipulated into wanting--we usually aren't too thrilled, instead asking, "OK, now what do I want?"
Most people don't ask where their desires come from. As Spinoza so aptly put it three and a half centuries ago, "men think themselves free, because they are conscious of their volitions and their appetite, and do not think, even in their dreams, of the causes by which they are disposed to wanting and willing, because they are ignorant of [those causes]".
What, then, is so bad about a society in which we are explicitly engineered to having attainable desires? This is why Frazier, the fictional founder of Skinner's Walden Two, is able to say that it's "the freest place on earth". The difference between that controlled society and ours is that our desires are still caused in us by outside forces--they are not of our choice by any stretch of the imagination--but the forces in our world are chaotic, and often acting in their own self-interest and against our own.
As I said, this has a very visceral appeal to me. And this is why I bring up my intellectual autobiography. For whatever reason--and I am by no means alone in this--I find control very appealing. I like minimizing risk and reasoning through possibilities, trying to account for contingencies and ordering the world very neatly.
This is evident in so much of my life. I have never taken advantage of my freedoms in the ways so many of my friends have. I've hardly traveled anywhere, I've done fewer drugs, I've had fewer romantic partners, and on and on. In general I feel like I've experienced less, like I've gotten less out of life. When I've tried to change these things, I've run into obstacles, perhaps most predominantly my own fear of risk. I constantly crave the comforts of home, even though I live a rather isolated existence that often doesn't seem to have too much going for it, except familiarity.
Thus, it is not surprising that I find a controlled society appealing. My foremost value is personal happiness, and I see freedom as merely a means to the end. I think many people feel the same way, but are too caught up in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy to realize it.
Nevertheless, I recognize a major problem here. Part of the appeal of a controlled society is the opportunity to be a Frazier, to be the person behind the scenes, working the magic. There is a kind of freedom that I value, if not in itself then at least because it constitutes a major component of my happiness: intellectual freedom.
Spinoza, my greatest role model, is a paragon of intellectual freedom, who literally risked his life by refusing to shut up and stop questioning the irrationalities predominant in his day (and still in ours). Even after he was offered a stipend to stop expressing his controversial views by his Jewish community and even after someone tried to stab him to death, he still would not back down. If not for courageous individuals like him, academic freedom would probably remain a pipedream.
And this brings us to the great dilemma of who watches the watchers? If it were as easy as it seems in Plato's Republic to separate the golden from the bronze, if the unwise could tell who the wise were (in other words, if the unwise were themselves wise enough to realize how unwise they were), then maybe democracy wouldn't be our only feasible option, "the worst form of government... except for all the other ones".
Moreover, even if we created superhuman intelligence, either through bioengineering or supercomputing or some conglomerate, there's no guarantee that we'd create a font of wisdom. Certainly people would be averse to surrendering their freedoms to it, even if it made objectively "better" choices. But perhaps this will change, as we cede more and more of our life decisions to computers. Who knows if it will be an improvement? There still remains a question of who's doing the programming.
And so, while I find control emotionally appealing, and while I still see technology as more of a boon than a hindrance, I remain a (small-d) democrat. One of the ironies of Plato's Republic is that the kind of controlled society it advocates probably wouldn't allow for the existence of people like its creator.
Nevertheless, I remain open to other possibilities, and still value freedom only as a means to human happiness and well-being. It concerns me that our individualistic society is not a happy one, compared to those that are more socially cohesive (but less "free"). Many of the ends that we pursue are self-defeating. Our prejudice against regulation and in favor of license is at least partly self-destructive. (This is why I can read Foucault, and see all these hidden power structures and systems of domination and sometimes say, "So what?")
Punishment and discipline and control are not bad in themselves, but only insofar as they harm our health or happiness. I think if we recognized this, we could still be democrats, but we might have a more reasonable and realistic attitude about what human life on a mass scale requires. The prejudice of free will remains one of the most harmful in the world.
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