That title's misleading. I don't actually have anything good to say about patriarchy; I just have the word "patriarchy" on my mind at the moment. It's one of those words that has a pleasing sound to me and a combination of letters that are aesthetically tasteful. None of this has anything to do with the actual meaning of the word. I'm equally as fond of matriarchy. In fact, words with "arch" in them are just awesome. Archetype is another good one!
If you're wondering, some of the other words I appreciate aesthetically are elite, philosophical, cadence, millennium, and most especially abyssal. Abyssal is just awesome, in fact. It's got that sweet, sinister hard consonant "s" sound, along with a classy execution of the "y" in place of a vowel. Delicious. Oh, that's another word I like. Delicious. And sometimes deciduous. Both are great.
Why am I talking about words? Well, that's a good question! That I just asked myself. Because really, even though I know this is written for the public space, I'm writing to myself, in a monologue. Unless it's a dialogue. With myself?
I have a lot on my mind at the moment and sadly, very little of it is conducive towards reflection on "the craft." At the moment, for no particular reason, I'm thinking about zombies, whether or not tonight should be pizza night, if "witchcraft" sounds like it could be a type of cheese, and whether or not the teleological argument in favor of God's existence is compelling or retarded. I started out hating it, but now I'm not so certain. The teleological argument, I mean. I mean, it makes a lot more sense than other arguments I've been learning about, but, I don't know; there was just something about the modal ontological argument that was just so evil and sexy, after I figured out what it actually meant.
I will be totally honest. This collection of random, nonsensical thought matter is something that I'd usually write in a word document, or a private blog post. You aren't normally supposed to see this part of the mental process; it'd be like seeing your dad putting on the fake beard to go play Santa Claus. You're seeing the strings that hold up the whole show, the seams in the great facade. This is the intractable and moist truth that it's not always art and angelic choirs when we sit down to do this writing thing.
Sometimes, you're thinking about Kraft Brand Witch Cheese. Or whatever. And that's not even a thing, not really, it's just one of the random little thoughts that you have in between the usual stuff, the "where am I going to go to lunch" stuff and the "hmm, should I go to the bathroom now or can I hold it?" Which is, incidentally, why I think it would totally suck to be a mind reader. I mean, aside from the fact that you'd know exactly what every single person thought of you (that can't be good for the ego!), you'd be subject to all the little "Director's Cuts" of our mental processes. Which would be horrible, because, I don't know about you, but my brain is very much a maelstrom of oddities and half-remembered song lyrics.
Oh! Maelstrom. One of my very favorite words. I can't believe I didn't think of that one sooner. Seriously, say it out loud, right now. "Mail-strum."
It's sort of like a whirlpool, if you're wondering what it actually means. Edgar Allen Poe wrote a cool short story about it once, too.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The Commonplace Enemy
As an individual who considers himself to be an armchair philosopher (a term that I have may have just made up), I consider the base and lowly commonplace to rank among the very darkest blights that plague our modern existence. Worse, by far, than popped collars and people who talk in the theater.
The commonplace is insidious because it so effectively denies one the opportunity to engage the mind on anything approaching an intellectual scale. A person believes something, because everybody around him seems to believe it, and because he believes it, he decides that it must be true, because if it wasn't true, he wouldn't believe it. Right?
Which is why we still think things like it's aerodynamically impossible for bumblebees to fly (even though they do) and that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Well, some of us believe that, at any rate.
I remember when I was a little bit younger and the current President at the time, one George W. Bush, had just had a speech about how stem cell research was done. Over. Canned. Totally not allowed. Because it was all about protecting the babies, see? Who doesn't love babies?
This led to an argument with a particular aunt (who believes that bees can't fly and the earth is a thousand years old and that stem cells are harvested cold from the bones of the stillborn) about clones.
Particular Aunt: "I'm glad that Our Leader banned stem cell research. Now we don't have to worry about the clones taking over."
Me: "The clones?"
PA: "Yes, child, the clones! Don't you know that's why they kill all the babies, so that they can learn how to make clones!"
Me: "Uh, I'm pretty sure that's not what stem cell research is about, or even how they get the stem cells. And even if they were trying to clone people, what's the big deal? They'd basically just be identical twins. A clone wouldn't have the same personality as you, since they wouldn't have had all the experiences that made you who you are."
PA: "Clones don't have souls! The Bible says so, Matthew!"
Me: "Really? Which book?"
PA: "..."
It's tempting, I know... it's so very tempting to call such a person ignorant and exult in their stupidity. Except that, elitism aside, these thoughts that pervade the social consciousness are very much a disease, allowing a person to have opinions without actually understanding, or even knowing, what the question was supposed to be!
The truth is that a person who argues the commonplace isn't truly stupid, because a commonplace isn't the same thing as a genuine lack of knowledge. I think most people are cognizant of situations in which they don't actually know what's going on (although pride may force them to act otherwise). But a commonplace is a little bit of knowledge, and there's nothing more dangerous than a person with a bit of knowledge, because it generally gives them all the feelings of being right with little, or maybe even none, of the actual rationality and thought that would go into truly being right.
Put more succinctly: stupid people aren't dangerous. We know they're stupid, so we keep them at a safe distance from the sharp and pointy objects, so they're not a danger to themselves or others.
We don't make the same distinction for the person with a tiny bit of knowledge. Nor are any of us immune from falling under its lazy spell. "All the trappings of an expert who knows what he's talking about... none of the work!"
Like I said. Dangerous.
The commonplace is insidious because it so effectively denies one the opportunity to engage the mind on anything approaching an intellectual scale. A person believes something, because everybody around him seems to believe it, and because he believes it, he decides that it must be true, because if it wasn't true, he wouldn't believe it. Right?
Which is why we still think things like it's aerodynamically impossible for bumblebees to fly (even though they do) and that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Well, some of us believe that, at any rate.
I remember when I was a little bit younger and the current President at the time, one George W. Bush, had just had a speech about how stem cell research was done. Over. Canned. Totally not allowed. Because it was all about protecting the babies, see? Who doesn't love babies?
This led to an argument with a particular aunt (who believes that bees can't fly and the earth is a thousand years old and that stem cells are harvested cold from the bones of the stillborn) about clones.
Particular Aunt: "I'm glad that Our Leader banned stem cell research. Now we don't have to worry about the clones taking over."
Me: "The clones?"
PA: "Yes, child, the clones! Don't you know that's why they kill all the babies, so that they can learn how to make clones!"
Me: "Uh, I'm pretty sure that's not what stem cell research is about, or even how they get the stem cells. And even if they were trying to clone people, what's the big deal? They'd basically just be identical twins. A clone wouldn't have the same personality as you, since they wouldn't have had all the experiences that made you who you are."
PA: "Clones don't have souls! The Bible says so, Matthew!"
Me: "Really? Which book?"
PA: "..."
It's tempting, I know... it's so very tempting to call such a person ignorant and exult in their stupidity. Except that, elitism aside, these thoughts that pervade the social consciousness are very much a disease, allowing a person to have opinions without actually understanding, or even knowing, what the question was supposed to be!
The truth is that a person who argues the commonplace isn't truly stupid, because a commonplace isn't the same thing as a genuine lack of knowledge. I think most people are cognizant of situations in which they don't actually know what's going on (although pride may force them to act otherwise). But a commonplace is a little bit of knowledge, and there's nothing more dangerous than a person with a bit of knowledge, because it generally gives them all the feelings of being right with little, or maybe even none, of the actual rationality and thought that would go into truly being right.
Put more succinctly: stupid people aren't dangerous. We know they're stupid, so we keep them at a safe distance from the sharp and pointy objects, so they're not a danger to themselves or others.
We don't make the same distinction for the person with a tiny bit of knowledge. Nor are any of us immune from falling under its lazy spell. "All the trappings of an expert who knows what he's talking about... none of the work!"
Like I said. Dangerous.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Why Intent Is Everything
I really enjoy philosophy, as you may know.
There is a particular thought experiment involving utilitarianism that I was introduced to a few years ago that's been kicking around in my brain this afternoon, since my discussion group decided (for whatever reason) to spend the entire class talking about it, even though we're not even on utilitarianism. But whatever. Thought experiments are fun, and, as I said, I've heard this case before and had a lot of time to formulate my arguments.
There are two scenarios, each one a slight variation of the other (although those variations actually introduce a pretty significant implication, as you'll see in a moment).
Imagine that you're standing on a bridge over a railroad track. There is a very large man standing next to you. As you look down, you notice that, a ways down the track from your position, there are five people tied to the track. And there's a train coming; in a few short moments, it will pass under your bridge and then proceed to plow right into the helpless victims. This, of course, will kill them all. For the purposes of this argument, however, you know that the large man standing next to you is massive enough that, should you push him from the bridge onto the track, it would be enough to slow the train and save the five people. The large man, however, will die as a result. The question, then, is whether or not you are morally obligated to push the man onto the track.
In the second scenario, you are standing at an intersection of the railroad track, where it splits off in two directions. On one track, there are five people tied to it, while the other track has only a single helpless victim tied to the rails. Once again, there is a train hurtling towards you. The track is currently set to plow through the five people, but, once again, you can intervene if you so chose, as there's a switch-box beside you. If you flip the switch, it will change the course of the train so that it only kills the one person. Again, what is the morally correct course of action?
My own personal thoughts vary between these cases. In the first instance, I would not push the large man onto the track, even though to do so would mean saving five people. The reason for this is that, yes, while I would be saving people, I would also be deliberately choosing to kill the large man, as his death would be the direct and intended result of my actions. I would very much be violating his right to life as a self-aware individual. Even though people would die through my inaction, it would not be murder in that I did not choose directly to kill them. Rather, their deaths would be an admittedly horrible, but unintended consequence.
In the second case, I would choose to throw the switch and divert the train onto the track with the one victim. The reason for this is because my expressed intention is to save people, which is what I am doing when I flip the switch. As a result of my actions, the one person will die, but it is not my expressed desire to kill him, as it would have been had I pushed the large man off the bridge.
To sum it up, in the first case: I decide to murder the large man. As a result, more people are saved.
In the second case, I decide to save as many people as I can. As a result, one person still dies.
Do you agree with my thinking about why intention is, at least in these cases, more important that the actual actions that occurred? I'm interested to hear any thoughts on this little experiment.
There is a particular thought experiment involving utilitarianism that I was introduced to a few years ago that's been kicking around in my brain this afternoon, since my discussion group decided (for whatever reason) to spend the entire class talking about it, even though we're not even on utilitarianism. But whatever. Thought experiments are fun, and, as I said, I've heard this case before and had a lot of time to formulate my arguments.
There are two scenarios, each one a slight variation of the other (although those variations actually introduce a pretty significant implication, as you'll see in a moment).
Imagine that you're standing on a bridge over a railroad track. There is a very large man standing next to you. As you look down, you notice that, a ways down the track from your position, there are five people tied to the track. And there's a train coming; in a few short moments, it will pass under your bridge and then proceed to plow right into the helpless victims. This, of course, will kill them all. For the purposes of this argument, however, you know that the large man standing next to you is massive enough that, should you push him from the bridge onto the track, it would be enough to slow the train and save the five people. The large man, however, will die as a result. The question, then, is whether or not you are morally obligated to push the man onto the track.
In the second scenario, you are standing at an intersection of the railroad track, where it splits off in two directions. On one track, there are five people tied to it, while the other track has only a single helpless victim tied to the rails. Once again, there is a train hurtling towards you. The track is currently set to plow through the five people, but, once again, you can intervene if you so chose, as there's a switch-box beside you. If you flip the switch, it will change the course of the train so that it only kills the one person. Again, what is the morally correct course of action?
My own personal thoughts vary between these cases. In the first instance, I would not push the large man onto the track, even though to do so would mean saving five people. The reason for this is that, yes, while I would be saving people, I would also be deliberately choosing to kill the large man, as his death would be the direct and intended result of my actions. I would very much be violating his right to life as a self-aware individual. Even though people would die through my inaction, it would not be murder in that I did not choose directly to kill them. Rather, their deaths would be an admittedly horrible, but unintended consequence.
In the second case, I would choose to throw the switch and divert the train onto the track with the one victim. The reason for this is because my expressed intention is to save people, which is what I am doing when I flip the switch. As a result of my actions, the one person will die, but it is not my expressed desire to kill him, as it would have been had I pushed the large man off the bridge.
To sum it up, in the first case: I decide to murder the large man. As a result, more people are saved.
In the second case, I decide to save as many people as I can. As a result, one person still dies.
Do you agree with my thinking about why intention is, at least in these cases, more important that the actual actions that occurred? I'm interested to hear any thoughts on this little experiment.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Changing Minds
I don't pretend to know the secrets of the universe. or, really, the secrets of anything. But I have learned one thing, over the years, of how to persuade. How to change another person's mind, for better or for worse. How to win them over to my way of thinking.
No, there's no particular trick or social engineering game at work. It doesn't always work, either. What's weird is that, prior to all this recent talk on rhetoric and its true nature, I would have called what I do "diplomacy" rather than argument. Even if diplomacy implies that I'm trying to talk somebody into disarming their nuclear missiles, rather than trying to get them to give up meat. Not that I would do the latter. I'm not out to evangelize.
Where was I? Oh, yes, my secret trick.
The problem with argument and with debate, I've found, is... well, hold on, let me qualify what I mean. I don't think that there is a problem with either concept; what's problematic, what's broken is the way we regard both things. It's our perception that's damaged, that needs to be fixed.
When we try to argue our point against another person's, and I see this all of the time in political discussions of any kind, the problem seems to stem for the fact that people like labels. They like to be Republican. Or Democrat. Or Socialist. Or Nihilist. Whatever.
Labels are corrosively convenient. Slap a label and you know what to say in any argument! You don't need to take the time to figure out exactly why you hate the gays, or why you think babies don't qualify as people (yeah, it happens on all sides). You just form an identity and you run with it, and apply the label to all beliefs.
Which means that when somebody criticizes one of your ideas, because you started at the top with the big "I am a ____" declaration, you feel like you're the one being attacked. This wouldn't happen if you'd taken the time to reason out each point and considered it to a satisfactory conclusion, and that's just the truth, plain and simple. In one scenario, a person who argues a point with you basically is saying: "I disagree with your opinion on this issue." In the other, the same person is saying, "I disagree with you and everything that you believe in, and you're stupid."
I'm a vegetarian. You can imagine the implications about what that means about who I am as a person and how I might react to certain issues. And the reality is that some of those assumptions are probably wrong, because the initial reaction is to equate a vegetarian to a set of pre-determined beliefs without considering all possible outcomes.
When I was first introduced to vegetarianism, I wasn't initially enthusiastic. After all, animals are delicious. And not every point that somebody made about why vegetarianism is a good idea resonated with me. For example, I'm not particularly vocal about animal rights. While I do think that factory farming is an abomination, and I think that we do have some obligation to reduce suffering in the world, there are more pressing problems that I consider "more important," especially since they more directly relate to my own species. So, the activist who told me that eating meat is morally equivalent to racism didn't really endear me to the idea.
What turned me onto the idea of abstaining from meat was the philosophical considerations, how food defined our species for thousands of years. It literally shaped the entire course of our development throughout history. It is a critical aspect of who we are, and yet, most of us don't think about what we eat, except in the "oh, this probably has too many calories, I shouldn't" way. And that was an interesting point to me, the fact that we engage in a form of self-deception when it comes to eating meat, and it was from that point that I eventually came to adopt my current way of thinking.
My point is that I came to the label of vegetarian from an idea. And even though I will call myself a vegetarian, I don't think it defines me as a person, even if other people are quick to make that assumption. And this means that when somebody attacks vegetarianism, I don't feel like I'm being personally attacked, even in some cases when they're deliberately trying to attack me. My entire identity and self-worth doesn't hinge on this one idea that I feel has applications to my life.
Maybe if more people started thinking that way, we could move away from the age of screaming matches and hurt feelings. Except for the fact that, as we've all come to agree, such theatrics "put butts in the seats," to use a sports cliche. So, maybe we need to change more than just our thinking, but I still hold to the belief that changing how we relate to our ideas wouldn't be a bad place to start.
No, there's no particular trick or social engineering game at work. It doesn't always work, either. What's weird is that, prior to all this recent talk on rhetoric and its true nature, I would have called what I do "diplomacy" rather than argument. Even if diplomacy implies that I'm trying to talk somebody into disarming their nuclear missiles, rather than trying to get them to give up meat. Not that I would do the latter. I'm not out to evangelize.
Where was I? Oh, yes, my secret trick.
The problem with argument and with debate, I've found, is... well, hold on, let me qualify what I mean. I don't think that there is a problem with either concept; what's problematic, what's broken is the way we regard both things. It's our perception that's damaged, that needs to be fixed.
When we try to argue our point against another person's, and I see this all of the time in political discussions of any kind, the problem seems to stem for the fact that people like labels. They like to be Republican. Or Democrat. Or Socialist. Or Nihilist. Whatever.
Labels are corrosively convenient. Slap a label and you know what to say in any argument! You don't need to take the time to figure out exactly why you hate the gays, or why you think babies don't qualify as people (yeah, it happens on all sides). You just form an identity and you run with it, and apply the label to all beliefs.
Which means that when somebody criticizes one of your ideas, because you started at the top with the big "I am a ____" declaration, you feel like you're the one being attacked. This wouldn't happen if you'd taken the time to reason out each point and considered it to a satisfactory conclusion, and that's just the truth, plain and simple. In one scenario, a person who argues a point with you basically is saying: "I disagree with your opinion on this issue." In the other, the same person is saying, "I disagree with you and everything that you believe in, and you're stupid."
I'm a vegetarian. You can imagine the implications about what that means about who I am as a person and how I might react to certain issues. And the reality is that some of those assumptions are probably wrong, because the initial reaction is to equate a vegetarian to a set of pre-determined beliefs without considering all possible outcomes.
When I was first introduced to vegetarianism, I wasn't initially enthusiastic. After all, animals are delicious. And not every point that somebody made about why vegetarianism is a good idea resonated with me. For example, I'm not particularly vocal about animal rights. While I do think that factory farming is an abomination, and I think that we do have some obligation to reduce suffering in the world, there are more pressing problems that I consider "more important," especially since they more directly relate to my own species. So, the activist who told me that eating meat is morally equivalent to racism didn't really endear me to the idea.
What turned me onto the idea of abstaining from meat was the philosophical considerations, how food defined our species for thousands of years. It literally shaped the entire course of our development throughout history. It is a critical aspect of who we are, and yet, most of us don't think about what we eat, except in the "oh, this probably has too many calories, I shouldn't" way. And that was an interesting point to me, the fact that we engage in a form of self-deception when it comes to eating meat, and it was from that point that I eventually came to adopt my current way of thinking.
My point is that I came to the label of vegetarian from an idea. And even though I will call myself a vegetarian, I don't think it defines me as a person, even if other people are quick to make that assumption. And this means that when somebody attacks vegetarianism, I don't feel like I'm being personally attacked, even in some cases when they're deliberately trying to attack me. My entire identity and self-worth doesn't hinge on this one idea that I feel has applications to my life.
Maybe if more people started thinking that way, we could move away from the age of screaming matches and hurt feelings. Except for the fact that, as we've all come to agree, such theatrics "put butts in the seats," to use a sports cliche. So, maybe we need to change more than just our thinking, but I still hold to the belief that changing how we relate to our ideas wouldn't be a bad place to start.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
More Thoughts on Politics
Yesterday, I complained about how irritated I was with the general state of political discussion, how the insipid stupidity of the pundit commentary has soured the entire arena. After viewing the President's speech, however, I've begun to change my views somewhat both on the nature of political discourse, and what I feel the problem is with the general nature of rhetoric in this area.
It was refreshing to see that rhetoric has not devolved into a screaming match, that oration can still be considered alive in today's political arena. This, I feel, is a positive thing, because there's something enjoyable about well-woven rhetoric. Now, certainly one could argue that such is the point of an inspirational speech, which means that if you feel good or inspired after listening to it, then the speaker (the President, in this case) has "got you." Or something.
I would argue that there is a profound difference between this rhetoric and the raging exhibited by the common pundit. For one thing, I feel that the rhetoric, regardless of your political affiliation, can be appreciated by anyone who considers him or herself to be a student of language and communication, which, as English students, we all should be. You don't have to agree with the President to see the skill he puts into his oration, because there is skill, there, and whether or not you subscribe to an "us vs. them" mentality, it should be possible to admire the opponent on the opposite side. I have a little bit of experience in debate, and it was always a nice moment when you could say to an opponent, "you know, I disagree with you, but you conveyed your point well enough."
I think the reason that this higher level of discussion does not filter down to the masses is because ranting and raging have a much lower common denominator. Good rhetoric is difficult. It takes still to craft and it requires intelligence on behalf of the audience to really "get it." Compare that to screaming matches on any cable news show, or column, or blog, and tell me which rhetoric serves an actual purpose.
"You know what’s really frightening? You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it’s true. You’ve got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote."
Or:
"And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future."
There's nothing beneficial in the ranting. It's just verbal garbage, meant to whip its audience into a frenzy because that's what gets attention. Because it's passive to absorb; you read it, you agree with it, or you disagree with it, and either way, no critical thinking has gone into forming your opinion. Because such language does not require you to think for yourself, it only asks that you pay attention, because if you go that far, the speaker already has achieved the goal. It's parasitic.
Such things are an abuse of what it means to wield language; this is recklessness and idiocy on a scale so great that I consider it criminal. Language was an art, once. It still can be.
It was refreshing to see that rhetoric has not devolved into a screaming match, that oration can still be considered alive in today's political arena. This, I feel, is a positive thing, because there's something enjoyable about well-woven rhetoric. Now, certainly one could argue that such is the point of an inspirational speech, which means that if you feel good or inspired after listening to it, then the speaker (the President, in this case) has "got you." Or something.
I would argue that there is a profound difference between this rhetoric and the raging exhibited by the common pundit. For one thing, I feel that the rhetoric, regardless of your political affiliation, can be appreciated by anyone who considers him or herself to be a student of language and communication, which, as English students, we all should be. You don't have to agree with the President to see the skill he puts into his oration, because there is skill, there, and whether or not you subscribe to an "us vs. them" mentality, it should be possible to admire the opponent on the opposite side. I have a little bit of experience in debate, and it was always a nice moment when you could say to an opponent, "you know, I disagree with you, but you conveyed your point well enough."
I think the reason that this higher level of discussion does not filter down to the masses is because ranting and raging have a much lower common denominator. Good rhetoric is difficult. It takes still to craft and it requires intelligence on behalf of the audience to really "get it." Compare that to screaming matches on any cable news show, or column, or blog, and tell me which rhetoric serves an actual purpose.
"You know what’s really frightening? You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary, but it’s true. You’ve got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night and they can vote."
Or:
"And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future."
There's nothing beneficial in the ranting. It's just verbal garbage, meant to whip its audience into a frenzy because that's what gets attention. Because it's passive to absorb; you read it, you agree with it, or you disagree with it, and either way, no critical thinking has gone into forming your opinion. Because such language does not require you to think for yourself, it only asks that you pay attention, because if you go that far, the speaker already has achieved the goal. It's parasitic.
Such things are an abuse of what it means to wield language; this is recklessness and idiocy on a scale so great that I consider it criminal. Language was an art, once. It still can be.
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