The Little Red Blog

Ideas Rule the World (We Just Live in It)

“You say you want a revolution? You better free your mind instead…” (The Beatles)

The Academy of Ideas (About us | Academy of Ideas) wants to help you free your mind. As always, the devil is in the details.

As you probably know, “The thirst for knowledge has consumed humanity since the dawn of civilization.” To humanity’s ongoing frustration, though, “until recently there have been numerous “gate-keepers” to the world of knowledge.” Those gatekeepers, who invariably had agendas of their own, included “a centralized educational system, the state and the mass media,” not to mention, for centuries, the Church.  “Whoever controlled these institutions controlled the ideas that spread throughout a population.” No wonder most people throughout history could not have nice things!

Enter, at last, the Academy of Ideas, proclaiming that information, like people, wants to be free: “The advent of the Internet has initiated a revolution like no other. The Internet is smashing all barriers to knowledge by granting individuals across the globe free and easy access to the vast library of ideas built up by humanity. For the first time in history, we can seriously say that knowledge is free – the contemporary gatekeepers do not have the capacity to censor and control information on mass scale.”

Be it an unmitigated boon or a Pandora’s box, the Internet doth bestride our world like a colossus, and we had best get used to it. The good people at the Academy of Ideas are already on board the broadband wagon:

The goal of this website is to further the spread of knowledge. We provide videos and other content examining the ideas put forth by mankind’s greatest philosophers, psychologists, and economists. These great individuals left us with a commodity more valuable than all others. Some people have said that money rules the world, some say politicians, some say weapons – they are all wrong. The truth is that ideas rule the world, they always have and always will. ¹ It is ideas that will, for better or worse, shape the destiny of mankind.”  

Browsing the website, one quickly sees that it has a libertarian, pro-capitalism bent. Consider this excerpt from an Academy of Ideas book review from August 2016:

Existentialism and free market capitalism are not often seen as complimentary. Rather, more often than not, due to the influence of the famous French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, existentialism is associated with communism. But in the fascinating book The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism, author William Irwin attempts to make the case that free-market capitalism, and the political philosophy most often associated with it, libertarianism, fit surprisingly well with the existentialist point of view. 

I have not read Mr. Irwin’s book, but I am immediately skeptical of his thesis. It is my understanding that existentialists are concerned with (among other things) “personal authenticity,” the very antithesis of capitalism’s mass-production strategy, e.g., the manufacture of a million identical t-shirts that all say “I Gotta Be Me”. Libertarians celebrate individual freedom and the right to choose; existentialists say things like, “Man is condemned to be free” (Sartre) and “You are free and that is why you are lost” (Kafka). ²

The reviewer at Academy of Ideas, however, is impressed by Irwin’s argument, as quoted here:

“Capitalism allows us to vote and freely choose in practically all consumer choices. Of course, the temptation is to let our tastes and desires be formed by those around us, but there is nothing necessary about that. And the existentialist, who is keenly aware of, and engaged in, the task of self-definition, will find that capitalism affords her a wide variety of choices that can aid, rather than hinder, her in self-definition. . .With the great freedom of choice that capitalism affords, the existentialist can look at capitalism as an opportunity rather than as an evil. While dealing with consumer culture may be difficult, it is just the kind of challenge the existentialist can relish for its opportunity to exercise responsibility and grow through challenge.”

I believe this argument was and is conclusively refuted in the song “Lost in the Supermarket”: “I’m lost in the supermarket / I can no longer shop happily / I came in here for the special offer / a guaranteed personality.” (The Clash - Lost in the Supermarket (Official Audio) - YouTube) ³

Our reviewer concludes: “In the process of arguing the case for the compatibility of free markets and existentialism, Irwin explores a number of fascinating philosophical and economic topics. He provides great explanations of existentialism and free markets, as well as discussing the knowledge problem, the fictionalist approach to free-will, evolutionary ethics, moral anti-realism (i.e. “the metaphysical view that there are no moral facts”), an analysis of Sartre’s adoption of communism, and how Friedrich Nietzsche’s views fit with free-market capitalism. I highly recommend The Free Market Existentialist as it provides a unique perspective which deserves more consideration among both those who are pro-free markets and those who consider themselves existentialists.

I beg to differ. Capitalism, for all its glorification of choice (“Have it your way!”) is a deterministic system. ⁴ At retail level, it invokes fictions like “The Law of Supply and Demand” and the infamous but omnipotent “Invisible Hand” to justify outcomes that no one has chosen. At the level of finance capitalism, it allows the vagaries of stock-market prices to enrich some and to beggar others regardless of whether the stock prices accurately reflect or predict any real value in the real world. Individual freedom has no role to play in capitalism, other than the trivial choices allowed us between different brands of all but identical products: Colgate and Pepsodent do not represent existential options—they’re both just toothpaste.  

The slogan of Academy of Ideas is “Free Minds for a Free Society,” which strikes me as admirable, albeit open to interpretation. The site’s content focuses on philosophy and psychology, with articles on the likes of Nietzsche, Ernst Becker, Kierkegaard, Jung, Maslow, Rollo May, and more. It also has a “Bookstore” page which is simply a list (and a good one) of recommended books and which by itself makes the website worth a look--despite the fact that it seems not to have added any new content since 2018.  

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About us | Academy of Ideas

The Free Market Existentialist: Capitalism without Consumerism (academyofideas.com)

¹ “The truth is that ideas rule the world” is itself an idea, and one favored mostly by “intellectuals”; but David Hume, an intellectual himself, said, “Reason is and must always be the slave of the passions.” Someone else (I cannot locate the source) said, “It is not ideas that rule the world but passions.” The question remains unresolved, but my money is on passions.

² Another difference is that libertarians more often hang out in upscale bars, existentialists in dives and in Left Bank cafes. Existentialists are basically beatniks with better vocabularies.   

³ Is it just me, or does "Lost in the Supermarket"--the chorus in particular--bear an uncanny melodic resemblance to Petula Clark's "Don't Sleep in the Subway"? The linking of the Clash to Ms. Clark is counterintuitive, to say the least, but the music industry makes strange bedfellows, or so I am told.

⁴ Capitalism is also utilitarian—successful products are by definition those which produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number; and it is pragmatic, revising the pragmatists’ maxim “Truth is whatever works” into Madison Avenue’s “Truth is whatever sells.”

From the "Areo" Archives

In the way that one does these days, I recently stumbled across a website called Areo (not to be confused with Oreo). Here is its mission statement:

Areo is an opinion and analysis digital magazine focused on current affairs — in particular: humanism, culture, politics, human rights, science, and free expression.

Named after Milton’s speech in defence of freedom of speech, Areopagitica, Aereo publishes thoughtful essays from a variety of perspectives compatible with broadly liberal and humanist values. It places particular priority on evidence and reason-centered pieces. Our contributors are intellectually, professionally and ideologically diverse and include liberals, conservatives, socialists, libertarians, atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and more. As much as possible, Areo aims to avoid polarizing tribalistic stances and prioritizes intellectual balance, charity, honesty and rigor. We believe in the unfettered freedom to explore, think, and challenge ideas and concepts, and we’re intent on taking part in the conversations that will shape our tomorrow.

Areo offers some interesting fare. For example, in “How French Intellectuals Ruined the West,” Helen Pluckrose explains Postmodernism’s baneful influence:

Postmodernism presents a threat not only to liberal democracy but to modernity itself. That may sound like a bold or even hyperbolic claim, but the reality is that the cluster of ideas and values at the root of postmodernism have broken the bounds of academia and gained great cultural power in western society. The irrational and identitarian “symptoms” of postmodernism are easily recognizable and much criticized, but the ethos underlying them is not well understood. This is partly because postmodernists rarely explain themselves clearly and partly because of the inherent contradictions and inconsistencies of a way of thought which denies a stable reality or reliable knowledge to exist. However, there are consistent ideas at the root of postmodernism and understanding them is essential if we intend to counter them. They underlie the problems we see today in Social Justice Activism, undermine the credibility of the Left and threaten to return us to an irrational and tribal “pre-modern” culture.

Given that neither I nor almost anyone I know have read a word of Michael Foucault, Jacques Derrida, or Jean-Francois Lyotard, it’s amazing that we have all been infected, apparently, with their relativism, their deconstructionism, and their seemingly absurd denials of the obvious:

[David Detmer] describes a bewildering conversation with postmodern philosopher, Laurie Calhoun: “When I had occasion to ask her whether or not it was a fact that giraffes are taller than ants, she replied that it was not a fact, but rather an article of religious faith in our culture.”

I’m hoping that a fuller account of the conversation would make Ms. Calhoun’s remark less risible.

In any case, Ms. Pluckrose finds in Postmodernism the root of both left-wing identity politics and right-wing “alternative facts”. I suspect she overstates the dangers of the former and misunderstands the sources of the latter, but her arguments are well marshalled and her conclusion ought not to be dismissed:

Our current crisis is not one of Left versus Right but of consistency, reason, humility and universal liberalism versus inconsistency, irrationalism, zealous certainty and tribal authoritarianism…Those of us who value liberal democracy and the fruits of the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution and modernity itself must provide a better option.

https://areomagazine.com/2017/03/27/how-french-intellectuals-ruined-the-west-postmodernism-and-its-impact-explained/

Also at Areo, Stephen Messenger asserts that many of our political conflicts result from our misunderstanding of human nature (by “human nature,” Messenger means human nature as described by people with whom he agrees):

The understanding of the social animal by the social animal is quite poor. Our failure to understand ourselves and each other leaves us grasping to imagine how it’s possible that other people can think so differently from ourselves. We’re left with almost no logical alternative but to conclude that they must be dysfunctional in some way. We’re far too quick to attribute views different from our own to low IQ, backwardness, bigotry, or a slew of phobias. Our ignorance of who and what we humans are and how we operate is one of the greatest single factors contributing to partisan divisiveness.

In other words: while we common folk attribute disagreements to other people’s ignorance, Messenger attributes our doing so to our ignorance. I’m not entirely certain that’s an advance.

It’s hard to disagree with Messenger’s basic contention: the better we understand human nature, the better politics (and culture) we can design. It seems a bit foolhardy, however, for Messenger to suggest that either “human nature” itself or the authorities he cites are uncontroversial.  Is "social engineering" futile just because some people say it is? What is the relative significance of nature, on the one hand, and nurture, on the other? How should we structure our hierarchy of moral values? Where do those values come from? 

Areo, for what it’s worth, seems to have a right-of-center vibe; or maybe it’s just the articles I happened to look at. In his essay, Messenger quotes the likes of Charles Murray and Thomas Sowell, which is not disqualifying but which does tend to suggest a conservative point of view. That said, I haven’t seen anything at Areo that I would dismiss as propaganda or mere talking points.

https://areomagazine.com/2018/05/12/understanding-human-nature-is-the-best-way-of-fixing-our-political-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-26266

Saturday Bafflements

 

The Baffler is one of my go-to websites for a Left-wing take on events, a take generally delivered with panache, brio, and other zesty spices.

 

Example the first: Ben Ehrenreich scolds us for being “in thrall to the fetish of progress: the belief that history has a direction and a purpose, and that humankind is ascending a steady if circuitous route to greater perfection.”

 

The point is, we keep getting blind-sided by history, which we thought we had figured out or even managed to transcend. As Ehrenreich says (citing Walter Benjamin), we are captives of “an unexamined faith in a highly irrational notion, one that blinds us to facts and conditions that would otherwise be obvious—and that, against all evidence opposing it, continues to inform the shape of our thoughts and the contours of our political discourse.”

Ehrenreich traces our progress “fetish” only back as far as the year 1750; for anyone interested in its more ancient lineage, I recommend Robert Nisbet’s THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF PROGRESS, a book with which I always seem to be making progress but which I never get around to finishing.

 

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/after-the-storm-ehrenreich 

 

Example the second, showing The Baffler to be in a thematic frame of mind: along with Ben Ehrenreich’s essay, it also offers one by the invaluable George Scialabba. In “Nothing Before Us,” Scialabba weighs “the case for progress in an age of anxiety”. He does so by reviewing three recent books (from the perennially optimistic Gregg Easterbrook, the sanguine futurist Yuval Noah Harari, and the Cassandra-esque Chris Hedges) that purport to evaluate our current state of affairs and to predict our future.

 

For my money, the most interesting part of the essay is about Chris Hedges, about whom Scialabba writes:

 

I doubt Chris Hedges has ever been invited to give a TED talk. If he has, then someone was fired for it, I’m pretty sure. Hedges is as angry and eloquent as Harari is wry and cool. America: The Farewell Tour is a chronicle of decay, a tableau of anomie, a portrait of blight. As in his other books, Hedges goes out and finds forlorn or downtrodden people, reports what they say, and takes their plight as the text for a political sermon. In this book, the cast of characters includes gamblers, addicts, antifa protesters, survivalists, prisoners, and the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

 

Scialabba notes that the America observed by Chris Hedges seems not at all to resemble the America glowingly approved by Gregg Easterbrook or predicted by Yuval Noah Harari, which leads him to conclude:

 

So are things getting better or worse? Both, evidently—different things for different people in different places. And which way of answering the question is best: compiling statistics, or conjuring science-fictional utopian/dystopian scenarios, or in-depth reporting on living, suffering individuals? All three. There will be real, often bitter political disagreements among proponents of each approach. But the large, indeed dominant, presence in contemporary American politics of plutocrats, irrationalists, and authoritarians, with their own repellent visions of the future, should compel the rest of us to listen to one another.

 

I find that summation, from an observer as acute as George Scialabba, as disappointingly mundane as it is anti-climactic: Is America's glass half full or half empty? It's both! Let's just keep talking about it! 

 

 https://thebaffler.com/salvos/nothing-before-us-scialabba

 

Finally, The Baffler example the third—not about progress, but about the “emergence of the online right in the past year or two” accompanied by “a whole host of related aesthetic quirks, among them a genuine obsession with terrible, borderline nonsensical charts,” which development is definitely not progress.

 

In “Eat Your Chart Out,” Jon Greenaway provides and critiques some illustrative examples of bad charting (my favorite is Scott Adams’ “Brain Re-Wiring" chart, which achieves Glenn Beck levels of stupidity):

 

What we see in these terrible graphics, these bizarre memes and these willfully obtuse charts is the vanishing of a shared political vision, replaced by a completely imagined political reality...as a result, the real political and material reality that we all share is abolished. In its place, as we see daily on the online right, is the jury-rigged shareable meme that both imposes order on a (now completely imagined) political universe and becomes accepted as being the actual, true state of things.

 

Hyper-reality expressed in easily compressible jpeg form becomes the ground for politics. This is the way that we can start to understand not just why these charts and graphs and infographics exist, but more fundamentally, what they do. The intellectual work done by these charts is to abruptly impose a degree of order onto a world that often seems to resist right-wing and conspiratorial political analysis.

 

Having skewered the political Right, Greenaway closes by skewering the rest of us:

 

The bold thinkers of the online right have no monopoly on these atrophies of critical thinking—though they have absolutely perfected the form. Indeed, you can find much the same raging chart idolatry in another group that’s managed to turn politics into a kind of abstracted fantasy—the centrist Democrat. The wonkish liberal crowd loves information, and devoutly fetishizes facts and smart graphs that can reduce the complexities of political reality into banal platitudinous data points. In this narrow compass of wonkery, matters like survival under the pressures of late capitalism can become cleverly nullified through the correct combination of tax credits and means testing.

 

Greenaway’s analysis might help resolve the dilemma George Scialabba faced in his essay: should one give more weight to charts and statistics (the Gregg Easterbrook method), to futuristic projections and edgy thought experiments (the Yuval Noah Harari method), or to the real lives of real people (the Chris Hedges method)? Scialabba opted for “all of the above,” but I prefer Greenaway’s conclusion:

 

One of the ways that left-wing thought is most helpful is its insistence on materialism, on examining the world as it is. This stubborn empiricism entails not only the rejection of the conspiratorial nonsense of the online right who think that reading novels makes you an empathetic Democrat, but also the refutation of the idealistic metaphysical dreams of centrist liberals who imagine a perfectly rational consumer as the universal subject.

Materialism requires a willingness to think about the real conditions of the world honestly and critically—to see the world as it is, and not as we would wish it to be. With that in mind, it’s worth remembering that the world depicted in these terrible charts, and the people whom the online right seek to describe as omnipotent political actors are phantasms—fantasies of argument that are designed to do nothing more than reshape what we think we know about the world into something else entirely.

 

What’s vital then, is not to try to understand these baffling visuals, but instead to understand the world around us, its contingency, flaws, and fragilities—together with the ways that political analysis, connected to the material reality of the world we share can herald a new way of living, for all people.

 

Amen. Charts aren't us; or, as Alfred Korzybski said, "The map is not the territory." Cartographers have their uses; but in the end, understanding the world requires exploration, engagement, and getting our hands dirty.

 

https://thebaffler.com/latest/eat-your-chart-out-greenaway

Big Think

If you have been asking yourself, “Where can I go to get my daily microdose of genius?” ask no more; the website Big Think promises you just that. The site’s brief articles and videos cover a wide range of topics, from science to sex to religion to politics and more. Big Think’s roster of experts includes former U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan; former Congressperson Stever Israel; journalist Ronan Farrow; actress Parker Posey; and a bevy of people of whom you have probably never heard but who know more about stuff than you or I do. 

What logical fallacy is common to creationists and conspiracy theorists? That would be the “teleological fallacy,” and here’s how it leads us astray:  https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/one-logical-fallacy-unites-creationists-and-conspiracy-theorists  

What’s driving America’s “loneliness epidemic” and what can we do about it? Philip Perry knows: https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/theres-a-loneliness-epidemic-in-the-us-and-its-getting-worse  

Do you think of yourself as an incurable pessimist? Derek Beres says there is hope for you: https://bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/is-there-a-cure-for-pessimism  

How have we managed to survive this long without coffee-delivering drones? Apparently, IBM is working on that dilemma: https://bigthink.com/brandon-weber/the-end-is-nigh-ibm-files-patent-for-coffee-delivering-mood-sensing-drones  

Finally, noted actor, comedian, author, and woodworker Nick Offerman shares his thoughts on happiness: https://bigthink.com/videos/nick-offerman-what-is-happiness  

I don’t know about you, but I feel smarter already just from browsing the Big Think archives. 

https://bigthink.com/  

Sunday Afternoon Blinks

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has been "Educating for Liberty" since 1953, when it was founded by Frank Chodorov "to revive the American ideals of individual freedom and personal responsibility by implanting the idea in the minds of the coming generations.” The reviving and implanting continue today as ISI offers its version of "intellectual conservatism" on a variety of issues; many of its articles are written by college students. ¹ Please do not let the word "conservative" dissuade you; ISI authors have perfectly intelligent things to say and perfectly reasonable ways of saying them. 

For example, Gracy Olmstead thinks that politics, to our detriment, is taking the place of older forms of social connectedness and identity formation: 

Political groups offer us insulated bubbles of thought and opinion—ones that are all too often self-ingratiating and comforting...it’s easy [these days] to segregate ourselves on opposing political islands, staring across the watery chasm with disdain and anger at those we disagree with. 

Politics is often personal, yes, but politics should not define us. It’s only one ingredient in the enormous swirling mass we call identity. The most important ingredients, one might argue, are (or at least should be) those that enable us to love and serve others—not the stuff that promotes friction and separation... 

In today’s America, our political schism is growing ever wider, separating us into vivid shades of red and blue. Only those able to bridge the gap, to step into the realm of the purple, will be able to build community, love, and empathy in coming days. Sadly, our political tribes are loath to accomplish this sort of work. All too often they encourage us not only to make political difference personal but also to make it unforgivable. Thus, we need local communities and individual groups to pop these self-contained bubbles of separation and disdain—to remind us of the communities and memberships beyond partisanship and political opinion.   

https://home.isi.org/lara-witt-dating-questions-political-personal  

And this, from Chantal Delsol, who offers a unique way of characterizing modernity; instead of referring, as so many do, to Prometheus or Faust as the progenitors of our age, Ms. Delsol suggests we are descendants of a different mythical figure: 

For the past two centuries, in order to escape from the labyrinth of mediocrity, we have believed ourselves capable of radically transforming man and society. Since Condorcet, the philosophy of Progress has promised to eliminate war, disease, and need, and various ideologies have announced a radiant future. We have just come to the realization—because of the revelation of human disasters in Eastern Europe, and in the West through the reappearance of poverty, illiteracy, war, and epidemics—that these hopes were finally in vain. We have fallen back to earth, where we must re-appropriate our human condition. 

But along the way we have lost the keys of understanding, and we no longer recognize this mediocre world, nor do we know its meaning. 

Western man at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the descendant of Icarus. He wonders into what world he has fallen. It is as if someone has thrown him into a game without giving him the rules. When he asks around for instructions, he is invariably told that they have been lost. He is amazed that everyone is content to live in a world without meaning and without identity, where no one seems to know either why he lives or why he dies.

Ms. Delsol has a book on this very subject: ICARUS FALLEN: The Search for Meaning in an Uncertain World.  

https://home.isi.org/ancient-story-icarus-modern-progress  

Finally, and again from Gracy Olmstead, a brief reflection on three unpopular but necessary virtues for our time: namely, Prudence, Gratitude, and Mindfulness (or Attentiveness). After delineating each virtue in turn, Ms. Olmstead concludes: 

The vices we see in our society call for a particular and an intentional growth of virtue. Each of us faces the trial and temptation of [modern life] in a different way—but we can each, through prudence and temperance, exercise mindfulness in our everyday lives. The health of our communities, families, and even countries increasingly demand it. 

The cultivation of virtue is a lifelong practice. We aren’t who we ought to be: we’re still striving for our telos, our purpose, in a broken and sinful world. While some virtues may be more natural and easy for us to grow in, the cultivation of others will require years of prayer, discipline, and intentionality. 

But in 2018, despite the challenges, hopefully we can all advance a little further in our practice—striving for inward excellence and not just outward fitness and health. 

https://home.isi.org/virtues-new-year 

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¹ ISI is far more than just a magazine, a blog, or a website. It sponsors "ISI Societies" on campuses around the country, provides scholarships and mentoring, maintains a speakers' bureau and a resource center, etc. It is, in other words, a well funded and fully committed part of the vast right-wing conspiracy, colluding in plain sight against modern liberalism. 

Breakfast Links

It's been a while since I've visited the website Aeon, which offers essays on a variety of topics. Here's a quick sampling of some recent Aeon efforts. 

First, Rebecca Boyle bemoans "the end of night": 

Everyone owns the night sky; it was the one natural realm all our ancestors could see and know intimately. No river, no grand mountain or canyon, not even the oceans can claim that. But since Edison’s light bulbs colonised our cities, the vast majority of humans has ceased to see those skies. More than 60 per cent of the world, and fully 99 per cent of the US and Europe, lives under a yellowy sky polluted with light. For many of us, the only place to see the milky backbone of our own galaxy is on the ceiling of a planetarium. Although humans are diurnal, factories and Twitter and hospitals and CNN are not, so we must conquer the darkness. As a result, almost everything industrialised people build is lit up at night. Malls, hospitals, car dealerships. Streets, bridges, air and sea ports. Buildings on a skyline. These artificial lights identify our cities all the way from the moon.  

This is not merely an aesthetic issue:

A young but rapidly growing field of research suggests that night-time light itself is far more dangerous than the dark. In a 2012 report, an American Medical Association committee called electric lighting a ‘man-made self-experiment’ creating potentially harmful health effects. Humans, and everything else that lives on this planet with us, evolved during billions of years along a reliable cycle of day and night, with clear boundaries between them. Staunching the flood of artificial light can help restore this divide. Our well-being, and that of our fellow creatures, might depend on us doing so – or at the very least trying. The loss of night-time darkness neglects our shared past, but it might very well cut short our futures too.  

https://aeon.co/essays/we-can-t-thrive-in-a-world-without-darkness 

Next, in "Change Becomes You," Kevin Tobia argues that "in contrast to a view that identity is really about static persistence or similarity, the self is organic and dynamic. Being the same person over time is not about trying to hold on to every aspect of our current selves; instead, it is about changing purposefully." 

Purposeful change—what I learned years ago to call "self-directed change"--allows a person's true self to emerge over time: 

The history of philosophy evokes purposeful change as central to the self. The ancient Greek philosopher Plotinus invoked the image of self-sculpture. He encourages us to ‘cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one radiance of beauty. Never cease “working at the statue” until there shines out upon you from it the divine sheen of virtue.’ Purposeful self-modification does not problematise personal identity. Instead, it reveals facets of one’s true self. 

Centuries earlier, the Chinese philosopher Mencius described people as cultivators of seeds of virtue. If we grow into good persons, it seems that we have grown in just the right way, cultivating our seeds of virtue. Importantly, we are born like seeds – not full-grown trees – of virtue. We are not born perfectly good and developed, persisting by maintaining that exact goodness. Instead, we are born with mere seeds of virtue that flower through development. 

Similar ideas recur throughout the history of philosophy. In Ecce Homo (1908), Friedrich Nietzsche describes the phenomenon of becoming what you are: ‘Becoming what you are presupposes that you do not have the slightest idea what you are … the organising, governing “idea” keeps growing deep inside … before giving any clue as to the domineering task, the “goal”, the “purpose”, the “meaning”.’ And in the interview ‘On the Genealogy of Ethics’ (1983), Michel Foucault remarks that: ‘We have to create ourselves as a work of art.’  

This view of the self as a work in progress offers both opportunity and responsibility; it may, however, place too much of a burden on the individual. But combined with an understanding that the self is formed not in isolation but through interactions with others, the view of "self as process" allows us to grow, to change, and to be changed by our experiences: in other words, it keeps us open to life—and that is the proper stance for any living creature. 

https://aeon.co/essays/to-be-true-to-ones-self-means-changing-to-become-that-self  

Finally, Julian Baggini offers what he calls a "triage of truth" to help guide us through today's Misinformation Age. Baggini acknowledges that we must sometimes rely on experts; but how do we decide who is and who is not an expert? And what are we to do when experts disagree? 

There is so much that we don’t know that giving up on experts would be to overreach our own competency. However, not everyone who claims to be an expert is one, so when we are not experts ourselves, we can decide who counts as an expert only with the help of the opinions of other experts. In other words, we have to choose which experts to trust in order to decide which experts to trust. 

Complicating the matters still further is the well-known "confirmation bias," which in this case suggests that we tend to accept as "expert" someone who tells us what we want to hear and what we want to believe: 

The pessimistic interpretation of this is that the appeal to expertise is therefore a charade. Psychologists have repeatedly demonstrated the power of motivated thinking and confirmation bias. People cherry-pick the authorities who support what they already believe. If majority opinion is on their side, they will cite the quantity of evidence behind them. If the majority is against them, they will cite the quality of evidence behind them, pointing out that truth is not a democracy. Authorities are not used to guide us towards the truth but to justify what we already believe the truth to be. 

I'll let you discover and assess for yourself Baggini's three-part "triage of truth" (which he describes as "an iterative process [that] gives us a procedure but no algorithm"); suffice it to say that he ultimately falls back on David Hume's maxim that ‘A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence.’  In other words, even with experts it's wise to trust but verify. 

Baggini concludes: 

To properly follow Immanuel Kant’s Enlightenment injunction ‘Sapere aude’ (Dare to know), we have to rely on both our own judgment and the judgment of others. We should not confuse thinking for ourselves with thinking by ourselves. Taking expert opinion seriously is not passing the buck. No one can make up your mind for you, unless you make up your mind to let them.  

On the other hand, what makes Julian Baggini an expert on anything? 

https://aeon.co/ideas/the-triage-of-truth-do-not-take-expert-opinion-lying-down  

Breakfast Links

The putative Savior and Redeemer of the world having been born yet again and justly celebrated for almost the 2000th time yesterday--I make it about 1,965 and counting--we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

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At Aeon, Rubin Naiman writes about Nyx and Hypnos (the Greek goddess of night and the god of sleep, respectively) and about our modern addiction to being awake:

Great philosophers have taught that most of us mistake the limits of our own perception for the limits of the universe. Nowhere is this conundrum more relevant than in our contemporary take on sleep. We are mired in a pre-Copernican-like, wake-centric era regarding consciousness. We presume waking to be the centre of the universe of consciousness, and we relegate sleeping and dreaming to secondary, subservient positions.

Looking at sleep solely through waking-world eyes is like looking at a glorious night sky through dark sunglasses. We are caught in wakism, a subtle but pernicious addiction to ordinary waking consciousness that limits our understanding and experience of sleep.

Naiman makes a compelling argument for sleep, but you’ll have to stay awake to read it.

https://aeon.co/essays/the-cure-for-insomnia-is-to-fall-in-love-with-sleep-again

A while back, Kimberly Alters (at The Week) extolled the many virtues of the public library, which may at this point be the only major institution Americans still trust.  More than simply a repository of books, a library is a reflection of democratic ideals.  Ms. Alters notes “the immense positive effects libraries have on communities, where they're sometimes the only available access to free computers and internet, or where after-school educational programs can act as informal child-care services for working parents. Ambitious kids can explore subjects that aren't offered in schools, while artists can take advantage of new technology they may not be able to afford on their own. And the more we invest in libraries, the more they can invest in us, with more working hours and increased foot traffic meaning more potential employees can be hired.

"There are few purer expressions of common endeavor in America than the system of public libraries," my colleague Paul Waldman once wrote. "Built in cities and hamlets, in places big and small, they brought knowledge of the wider world to anyone who wanted it, no matter his or her station."

For all the talk about wasted taxpayer money, it's wasted taxpayer opportunity we're dealing with here. So go: Check out your local public library.” 

We’ve been told that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but I think you can judge a community by the quality of its library and by the uses citizens make of it.  If you’re lucky enough to live, as I do, in a city with both a first-rate public library and a university library (we have the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Library at the University of Montana): you should take Ms. Alters' advice and get thee to the library as often as possible.

http://theweek.com/articles/648525/public-libraries-are-treasure

Writing at, and on behalf of, First Things, Carl Trueman claims we have reached a Ciceronian moment in America:

[The] change from republic to empire was traumatic and transformed Rome (and thereby the West) forever. And it is arguable that a similar thing is happening today. Our republic, and the philosophies and social realities upon which it was built and by which it has been sustained, are giving way to an empire, an empire of desire. Whether one agrees (as I have come to do) with the arguments of thinkers like Patrick Deneen and Michael Hanby, who see the origins of our current situation in the very origins and ambitions of the American experiment, or whether one sees our current society as a disastrous malfunction of the same, there is surely consensus on the fact that things are changing in fundamental and permanent ways. Liberalism is in trouble, as is the republic built upon it. The empire of desire, of which both expressive individualism and populism are symptoms, looks set to triumph. A chaotic and unsustainable triumph, no doubt, but a triumph nonetheless.

Ciceronian times call for Ciceronian voices, says Trueman:

Thoughtful, learned, literate, historically and philosophically astute, cultured in the true sense of the word, and engaged in the public square. To address the present we surely need to avoid the clichéd pieties of political correctness that serve only to bolster special interests. But we must also resist the simplistic populist rhetoric of reaction. We have to address the present by drawing on the history and culture of our past. And we must do so in a public way that calls out those who abuse their power while giving good arguments to those who wish to work for a deeper, greater good than the myopic vision offered by the regnant gospel of immediate gratification.

Schooled in my youth as a Catholic, I grew up identifying the Roman Empire as the bad guy in my simplistic view of history; Rome’s villainous status was later reaffirmed when I read the book (and saw the movie) Spartacus about a slave revolt against the Romans.  All of which is to say that I am no fan of empire; and I think Carl Trueman is exactly right when he categorizes our modern neo-liberalism as an empty, unsustainable “empire of desire”.

As Bobby Kennedy used to say, I think we can do better than that.

https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/12/ciceronian-times-call-for-ciceronian-voices

Breakfast Links

The website Big Questions Online is self-described this way:

Big Questions Online aims to explore the “big questions” of human purpose, existence, and the universe — from science and religion to markets and morals. We feature essays by leading thinkers: philosophers, scientists (including Nobel laureates), theologians and clergy, journalists, and writers from other fields. Our essays often bridge the disciplines, and they are short and clearly written, so that readers from all walks of life can be enriched and enlightened by thinking about the big questions that are fundamental to who and what we are.

BQO tackles questions relating to Behavior, Cosmology, Markets, Evolution, Morality, Philosophy, Reason, Religion, and Science. Browse the BQO archives for a sampling of what it offers:

“Are Developmental Mistakes Essential for Evolution?”

“Is Character Necessary for Moral Behavior?”

“Can Private Vice Produce Public Virtue?” (The answer to that had better be “yes,” because market capitalism is based on that very assumption.)

“How Can We Cultivate a Practical Wisdom?” (This question is posed and answered by the estimable Barry Schwartz.)

“How Do We Develop and Maintain Humility?”

“Why Do We Sleep?’

The essays are all relatively short, but for readers who really want to think these things through, each essay is followed by discussion questions.  It’s almost like being in school!  Just for fun, you could hold a “Big Questions” group at your local library (it would be like “Socrates Café”); or you could just show up at your neighborhood bar armed with copies of BQO essays, then ask the bartender to kindly turn off the TVs and the jukebox so that people could discuss “What Is the Difference between Joy and Happiness?” You’ll be the talk of the town!

https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/about/

If you’re less philosophically inclined but interested in staying up to date on the latest scientific developments: Real Clear Science comes from the same folks who bring you Real Clear Politics, Real Clear Religions, Real Clear Books, and more.  On any given day, Real Clear Science offers you such delights as “13 Signs You Work with a Psychopath,” “What Caused Voices in Joan of Arc’s Head?” and “Crows Use Tools to Move Objects.”  If those don’t fascinate you, how about “Brain Chips, Synthetic Blood Creep Out Americans”?  Or “Cockroach Milk: The Next Superfood?” The articles and essays are taken from a variety of sources and cover an eclectic range of topics, the common denominator being the conviction that only Science can lead us to Truth—although, in fairness, some of the selections actually betray a healthy skepticism towards that notion.

By the way: the voices in Joan of Arc's head were most likely caused by a form of epilepsy, or so we're told.  The scientists who offer that surmise--which they could test if only they could get a sample of the Maid's DNA!--never consider the possibility that Joan's voices were actually divine communications; if you were intrigued by that option, you'd probably have to go to Real Clear Religion.

http://www.realclearscience.com/

Finally: let’s say you wanted to refresh your memory regarding the political views of the anti-Federalists.  You could, of course, turn to Wikpedia, where you would no doubt find a useful summary; but if you’d like the option to pursue the subject in depth and even to consult primary sources, I suggest you visit the Online Library of Liberty.  OLL will provide you this succinct explanation:

The anti-federalists were a group who had reservations about ratifying the U.S. Constitution when it was first proposed. Some thought the Articles of Confederation were sufficient to unite the sovereign American states; others were concerned that the rights of the states and of individuals needed additional protection and so supported a Bill of Rights; others were concerned that the Federalists wanted to recreate a head of state with powers too much like those of the British monarch against whom they had just fought a war of independence.  

More importantly, OLL won’t stop there; instead, it will link you directly to a variety of documents, biographies, and discussion forums. Yes, I know that Wikipedia also includes such links, but OLL is more specialized and provides, in my estimation, a better and deeper take on its subjects.  The OLL even offers complete books, as well as articles on topics like “Adam Smith on Why People Obey and Defer to Their Rulers,” “The Art of the Levellers,” and “The Corrupting Influence of Power in Shakespeare’s Plays”. 

Full disclosure: the Online Library of Liberty is a project of Liberty Fund, a well-known libertarian foundation.  If you’re worried about ideological contamination—well, you’ve been warned.  

http://oll.libertyfund.org/

An Entirely Unsolicited Testimonial

Are you looking for something to distract you from the Trumpening of American politics?  Would you rather be reading almost anything these days besides more analyses of the presidential primaries?  

Then do yourself a favor and check out the website Aeon.

The brainchild of Paul and Brigid Haines, Aeon prides itself on “[asking] the biggest questions and [finding] the freshest, most original answers, provided by world-leading authorities on science, philosophy and society.”  It eschews partisanship and ideology in favor of “big ideas, serious enquiry, a humane worldview and good writing.”  It publishes a new essay every day, as well as videos, “short provocations,” and interactive conversations with its readers.

I can barely keep up with what Aeon has to offer:

• In “Your Point Is?” Steven Poole writes about teleology and about whether the universe is purposeful (https://aeon.co/essays/what-s-it-all-for-is-a-question-that-belongs-in-the-past);
• In “Why Is Death Bad?” Eric Olson attempts to sort out what exactly is behind our unhappiness with our own mortality (https://aeon.co/essays/we-might-agree-that-death-is-bad-but-why-exactly);
• In “A Science Without Time,” Gene Tracy wonders whether time is a human construct (albeit a necessary one) imposed upon a timeless (or time-neutral) cosmos (https://aeon.co/essays/why-doesn-t-physics-help-us-to-understand-the-flow-of-time);
• In “When Does the Future Begin?” Daphna Oyserman advises that we are better motivated when we envision our lives as journeys that we are actively undertaking, and that “the way to succeed is to make the future feel connected to the present, thus requiring immediate and persistent action” (https://aeon.co/opinions/when-does-the-future-begin-a-study-in-maximising-motivation).

Two recent Aeon essays stand out for me: Joseph Pierre’s “A Mad World,” in which the author, himself a psychiatrist, considers the possibility that psychiatry is over-diagnosing mental illness (https://aeon.co/essays/do-psychiatrists-really-think-that-everyone-is-crazy); and Steven Nadler’s robust defense of Baruch Spinoza in “Why Spinoza Still Matters” (https://aeon.co/essays/at-a-time-of-zealotry-spinoza-matters-more-than-ever). Both those pieces deserve consideration at some length, and I plan to address them both when I can. 

In the meantime, please do yourself a favor: forget about politics for a while and discover Aeon at https://aeon.co/.  You'll learn more from one visit to that site than you will from a lifetime (god forbid) of listening to Chris Matthews.

"The Dorothy Option"

One of my new favorite blogs is The Dorothy Option (found at Patheos).  The “Dorothy” in the title refers to Dorothy Day, and the contributors come from a publishing group called Solidarity Hall, self-described as follows:

The non-profit publishing organization Solidarity Hall launched in 2013 as a group blog created by a circle of friends based in Chicago, New York, Washington DC and abroad. We share a communitarian vision that includes themes of localism and an interest in new economic models while also grounded in traditional wisdom of the kind found in social theorists such as G.K. Chesterton, E.F. Schumacher, Jane Jacobs, Wendell Berry, and Dorothy Day. (Thus we are neither “left” nor “right,” but both “old” and “new.”) The core contributors to The Dorothy Option include original members of Solidarity Hall: Elias Crim, Daniel Schwindt, Grace Potts, Michael Stafford, and Mark Gordon.

Communitarianism, localism, human scale, and Distributism: these add up to something more challenging and even more radical than the trendy Benedict Option.  Grounded in Catholic social teaching ("Radically Catholic in the age of Francis"), contributors to The Dorothy Option offer a holistic, all-embracing vision of human existence:

“The word ‘solidarity’ is a little worn and at times poorly understood, but it refers to something more than a few sporadic acts of generosity. It presumes the creating of a new mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few.” -Evangelii Gaudium

Allow me to offer a small sampling of The Dorothy Option and its "new mindset".  

Mark Gordon, for instance, writes about “The Mystery of the Poor”:

Lately, there has arisen some dispute over whether the corporal works of mercy are intended to be strictly private and personal, or whether there is a social and political dimension to the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.” There really is no dispute. Any supposed boundary between the personal and the political is a clumsy fiction trotted out on behalf of one ideology or another…The notion that compassion and social justice is strictly a private affair has no basis in Catholic teaching. In fact, nothing about the Catholic faith is a private affair.

Mr. Gordon is not naïve and he does not romanticize the poor:

Working with the poor, one is quickly disabused of romantic notions about poverty. The poor are not always victims of others; often they are victims of their own undisciplined appetites. The poor, like the rest of us, are not generally noble; many wouldn’t give you the shirt off their backs, but they might take yours. Still, we are called to love and serve them, not because they behave lovably, but because they are our brothers and sisters, and because in their suffering they are Christ.

Gordon takes to task those who peddle the false distinction between the “deserving” poor and their more dissolute brethren:

Jesus does not say “I was legal, and you clothed me,” or “I was sober and you fed me,” or “I thanked you profusely when you gave me something to drink.” Our responsibility to the poor is defined not by whether they make us comfortable, or whether we see the logic of it, but by their need. After all, “God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) We were loved unconditionally before we “deserved” it. We are called to do the same.

And, finally, Gordon invokes the almost-sainted Dorothy Day herself:

“The mystery of the poor is that they are Jesus, and what we do for them we do for him.” – Dorothy Day

Gordon’s compassion may be difficult to put into practice, but it’s not necessarily controversial.  Daniel Schwindt, on the other hand, troubles the waters by fiercely denouncing work itself and the cult we have constructed around it:

Work has been presented to me as a sacrament. It is the religion that surrounds me and that has drowned out all the others. But it isn’t mine. I don’t believe in it, and the more I see it worshiped it, the more repulsive and blasphemous it becomes.

Schwindt is writing, not in praise of idleness, but as an advocate of creative activity:

[Work] is the very opposite of my religion, which is the religion of creative activity. Through all the jobs I have had, and all the jobs I’ve not had but only seen, insofar as the work was “work,” it was anti-human. It was the reverse of creative activity.

God created because to create is divine. He didn’t create because he needed employment or because work was good in itself. God does not have a job. The Divine Artist, like just about every artist, is unemployed, and in his unemployment he gives perpetual birth to the cosmos.

God as an unemployed artist, a cosmic bohemian!  But Schwindt isn’t finished; he’s just getting warmed up.  Who of us cannot identify with this?

The part of me that plays the good worker, showing up on time and providing excellent customer service, that part of me is an abomination and an affront to my person. I’ll be happy to see it off to hell someday when I finally make it to purgatory’s fires.

Every minute of my life that I wasted on meaningless work—wheeling a mail cart around an office building, taste-testing non-dairy puddings and whipped toppings, and working for over a decade (God forgive me) as a bill collector—made me just that much less human and that much less the person I wanted to be.

Schwindt is utterly unsparing in his polemic:

The world worships work, and America worships with unsurpassed devotion. So great and recognized is this devotion that America acts as the world-priest of the religion of work and productivity. Any refusal to worship at the altar of work is punished by death. But death is better. Starvation is better. The greatest trick that the cult of work has played on humanity has been to convince people that it is better to work than to starve. It is far better to starve.

The only rule of the game of American freedom is that you cannot stop playing the game, and the game turns on work. The Statue of Liberty is a violent mother, and she’ll kill all her children before she lets them abandon the great productive project.

Speaking of children, Daniel Schwindt has something to say about how we inculcate them into our cult of work:

Work is America’s collective demon and it kidnaps the nation’s children when they are still in the cradle. By the time they’re ten years old they’ve developed Stockholm syndrome and in my experience they rarely grow out of it, because unlike the victims of kidnapping they are never set loose. Therefore they never obtain to an alternative arrangement, which undermines one’s ability to identify his attachment as perverse. ¹

And there are no policemen or parents out searching the streets for these work-captive youths. The parents are the ones who delivered them over to the captor, and the parents are captives too.

Having thus denounced the entire American way of life, Schwindt concludes:

I finally understand why Americans are so insistent about “taking pride in your work,” about promoting a “good work-ethic” as the height of virtue, and about labor of any kind as an unconditional good. By forcefully injecting artificial dignity into their empty pursuits they effectively immunize themselves from ever having to question the value of what they’ve given their whole lives to.

But this work-morality is proof against itself. Meaningful labor doesn’t need some ridiculous morality attached to it to ensure that it gets done. It doesn’t need the power of ostracism to ensure that everyone sees its value. Everyone understands the value of creative, human, personal labor intuitively, and every healthy human being does it automatically, craves it naturally. But “work” is different. Work requires a cult.

Jesus never said “Get to work, you slackers.”  What he said was, “Come unto me, all ye who are burdened and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  If work as drudgery is, according to the Bible, one of the curses placed upon humanity after Adam and Eve’s transgression in Eden, then “creative, human, personal labor” is what undoes the spell and what restores us to what we, as humans, were created to be. 

What are people for?  If Daniel Schwindt is correct, people are for mindful creativity and not for mindless productivity, which happens to be the same insight Paul Goodman, an atheist, offered fifty years ago in GROWING UP ABSURD.  With all the current lamentations about the loss of “good jobs” and the “outsourcing of work,” maybe it’s time we started to take this critique seriously.

As I said, The Dorothy Project is my new favorite blog, and I suggest you check it out for yourself: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thedorothyoption/archive-index/

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http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thedorothyoption/the-mystery-of-the-poor/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thedorothyoption/journal-entry-of-a-working-man/

¹ I did a presentation the other day at a high school here in Missoula.  In the course of my talk, I asked the students for their thoughts regarding the design of their desks: one-piece molded plastic monstrosities, difficult for an ordinary-sized person to get in or out of, confining and constricting, uncomfortable and even physically punishing.  No adult, I pointed out, works at a desk like that--so why do we inflict them on our children?  To save money, the kids suggested; to keep them awake (because uncomfortable); to make it harder for them to move around; in other words, to keep them in line.  The design of our school classrooms tells you most of what you need to know about the kind of life we have in store for our children.