A Philosopher of Sorts

At least you didn't have kids...

2009-04-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Since I am on a kick about cliche' sayings that I really hate, I might as well cover this one, too.

So some of you know I got divorced last year. One of the most common questions I got from people who didn't know me was "Did you guys have any kids?" (We didn't) and they and people who do know me tended to say "At least you didn't have kids..."

Now, first of all, I once again understand why people think they say this. They think they say it because it will make me or any other non-parent divorcee feel better about things. But I have to tell you from my perspective that it is one of my least favorite things to hear.

I'll tell you why I think people really say this in a little bit, but first let me say why I think it is a stupid thing to say, once you think about it.

First of all, imagine that a couple divorced partly because of one partner's inability to have children. (This is not my case.) Imagine what it would feel like if you had a marriage fail partly because you could not have children, and then someone says to you as consolation: "At least you didn't have kids." I would choke them.

Imagine a second case (closer to my own) where a couple considers having children at some point, but divorces before that happens. The would be consoler's "at least you didn't have kids" now serves as a painful reminder that the marriage didn't make it long enough to get there.

My case is best captured by this analogy: Imagine a guy whose parachute doesn't open, and who hits the ground hard enough to break a bunch of bones, but lives through the fall. Now imagine the would be consoler in the hospital, who says "At least your kid wasn't with you" and the parachuter replies "but I don't have any kids" and the would be consoler says "Yeah, but imagine how bad it would have been if you did."

I think the parachuter should say something like: "I'm laying here with all my freaking bones broken, and you want me to consider some hypothetical?!?"

I get the point. People who have kids tend to prioritize them in such a way that they imagine a divorce mainly in parental terms. It is not hard to imagine also that some people avoid divorce precisely because of a concern for their kids. But those of us without kids are not there, and we get very little satisfaction (and if my hypothetical cases above are sometimes real, then we may get a lot of pain) from considering how lucky we are not to have any kids.

So, the next time some non-parent tells you about their divorce, just ask them how they are doing, and leave their imaginary kids out of it.

EHFAR

2009-04-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

I couldn't even type it out. I had to use an acronym.

My apologies up front to the person who reminded me how much I hate the phrase--she had no idea, and was just saying the kinds of things people say. This is not about her. It is about the following:

"Everything happens for a reason."

Ugh.

So just to clear up why I hate it, it can really only mean one of two things, and neither explains anything.

First, it could just mean that everything that happens had some reason, or some cause, for it to happen. So, when water boils, we might say that the reason it boiled was because it hit around 100 degrees celsius. The boiling happened for a reason, just like every other event. This is true enough, of course, but it doesn't really mean much. For every effect there is a cause. Okay, got it. And sometimes this is helpful to know, like when you want to make macaroni. There are mechanical laws in the universe, and things tend to behave according to them.

Of course, this isn't what people usually mean when they say that everything happens for a reason. They usually have in mind the second meaning, which is that everything happens because it was supposed to happen that way. Who supposed it? Well, generally it is thought to be God, although I have also heard it used in ways that suggest maybe Karma, or The Force, or some other Power has meant whatever happened to happen. And usually the basic idea is that, although whatever happened seemed really unfortunate, really whatever happened was for the best.

But this doesn't explain anything either. Referring to some Grand Plan of which we could have no knowledge to explain why something bad happened is replacing something that is potentially difficult to understand with something impossible to understand. It is also just showing a pretense to knowledge. If you don't really know that God or Karma or whoever or whatever planned that particular event to happen that way (and how could you?) then you can't say for sure that anything happens for a reason in that sense. So just don't say it, okay? (And especially not with that knowing tone.)

I realize that, in hindsight, many events are such that they would not have happened were it not for dozens or hundreds or even millions of sequential events happening just so. But, for me, the very improbability of any individual event taking place is magnificent enough, without imparting some divine or cosmic purpose behind it.

Put differently, if we took enough time to appreciate the richness of the first possible meaning of "everything happens for a reason," we would never need to intend the second. And I would like that very much.

On Blues Music and American Philosophy

2009-04-08T10:59:00.000-07:00

Link to a paper I presented on John Dewey and Albert Murray, and about the nature of art.

http://www.american-philosophy.org/archives/past_conference_programs/pc2001/Discussion%20papers/nathan_hill.htm

(Note: the email listed for me there is dead)

Beautiful People

2009-04-08T09:14:00.000-07:00

(Just came across this essay I wrote a few years ago. I like it.)

Beautiful People

If there were a calendar that highlighted the most important annual events in our celebrity culture, one of the most revered dates would surely be the release of People Magazine’s “Fifty Most Beautiful People” issue. The 2002 issue featured a list of thirty women and twenty men who the editors felt best exemplified beauty in contemporary pop culture. Atop the list sat Nicole Kidman. In the brief editorial column in the magazine, managing editor Martha Nelson wrote of Kidman’s selection:

The choice to top our 13th annual 50 Most Beautiful list with Nicole Kidman was a natural one. Rebounding from a very public divorce with grace, poise and dignity--as well as her first Oscar nomination, for Moulin Rouge--she has proved to be magnificently resilient, committed to forging ahead on her own terms. (8)

In further comments, Kidman was characterized as “quite giggly,” “charmingly self-deprecating,” “inviting and warm” (8). Later, in the introduction to the list, the editors wrote:

Beneath the moisturizers and mascara this year’s chosen 50 are brimming with joy. “I always wake up in a good mood,” says our cover girl Nicole Kidman. Reese Witherspoon focuses “on the things that make me happy--my marriage, my child, and my work.” And Cameron Diaz says, “It’s all about being comfortable with who you are.” That exuberance shows up in the glowing faces on the coming pages. Behold 2002’s beauties. (75)

Forget that this blip really had little to say to the beautiful men pictured (“moisturizers and mascara”?). Forget that the messages of resilience, self-confidence, and dignity seem to be lost in a sea of smashing good looks. Forget this problematic stuff, and note that People magazine at least said that beauty has something to do with something beneath or beyond mere physical appearance. This message was built into every one of the fifty pieces in the issue.

Consider, for example, comments on someone who was undoubtedly one of the most unexpected recipients, Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney: “[C]hildhood pal Tom McCaffrey insists that while Romney’s ‘family looks like a Gap ad, which makes us all a bit cynical,’ he is a man of ‘immense credibility and character--which shows in his face’” (156). This quote reveals a tension underlying Romney’s good looks. Being handsome or pretty often evokes an air of superficiality or even vanity. Thus, McCaffrey initially assures us that Romney’s good character exists despite his good looks. Of course, he follows this by saying that Romney’s good character “shows in his face,” in keeping with a long tradition relating goodness and beauty. Nevertheless, the central point here seems to be that real beauty, like real character, lies on the inside, even if occasionally spilling out on the surface.

Supermodel Tyra Banks, in her book Tyra’s Beauty: Inside and Out, puts forth the same basic claim in this way: “Without the inner beauty that comes from a strong sense of self, all we’ve got is a nicely wrapped package with nothing filling it”(168). Later in the book, Banks clarifies this “sense of self” as a kind of self-love:

[S]elf-love is the real approval and appreciation of who we are deep down inside. I’m not talking about that ‘I’m so cute. I’m so fine. I’m all that and a bag of chips’ kind of self-love. We are all we’ve got, so we better get to lovin’ not only who we see in that mirror but what we feel about ourselves when we look in that mirror. (192)

Some fifteen years earlier, a similar characterization of inner beauty was extolled by Sophia Loren, in the introduction to her book, Women & Beauty. “My approach to beauty begins not with the face or figure but with the mind. If you can learn to use your mind as well as you use a powderpuff, you will become more truly beautiful”(12). For Loren, in order to be beautiful a woman must first believe herself to be beautiful. Only after she has convinced herself and discovered her own beauty will she “radiate the pleasure of [her] discovery”outward to others (17). Loren is quick to note, however, that simply believing oneself beautiful will not be adequate in a culture with specific requirements for beauty. This also requires that a woman commit herself to the practices of a rather specific “beauty routine,” which is worth it in the end for the self-confidence and pleasure it brings (19).

Now, there is certainly much to worry about in terms of the contradictions inherent in these texts. Both Banks and Loren offer a shot of inner beauty, followed by a long chaser of hair and skin care, makeup, fashion, diet, exercise, and other advice, all dedicated to the enhancement of external appearance. But, both seem to believe that external beauty, even if culturally prioritized, is in the end only a vehicle (or an obstacle) to, or an effect of, a kind of inner beauty that comes from loving oneself as one is. Real beauty, again, is on the inside. In this sense, Banks and Loren have tapped into a prominent theme in the Western philosophical tradition.

In the Symposium we find Socrates recounting the speech of Diotima, in which she says that “personal beauty is a trifle” (51). Of course, it is not that personal beauty is wholly unimportant, but only that it has its place. Specifically, personal beauty is but one species of beauty, and is ultimately important insofar as it leads one to recognize the beauty of all beautiful forms. Moreover, “the beauty of the mind is more honorable than the beauty of the outward form,” presumably because the mind or soul is capable of more constancy and is more lasting than the external body (51). This general movement toward higher and more lasting forms continues in Diotima’s speech, ultimately resting in the “science of beauty everywhere” or the form or essence of beauty (51). Thus, in terms of the progression towards absolute beauty, the inner beauty of a person is higher and more lasting than their external beauty.

In fact, as the case of Socrates shows, one need not even be beautiful on the outside in order to be understood as truly beautiful. As Alcibiades reports, Socrates has a face like a satyr (56). But, in a rather famous passage, Alcibiades notes that Socrates is like one of the figures in the statuaries’ shops, that when opened, reveals images of gods inside (52). He continues:

But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded--they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them. (58)

While there is much more going on here than a distinction of inner and outer beauty, at least part of Alcibiades’ speech and indeed, the Symposium on the whole, is dedicated to just this point.

Joseph Sen argues that Plotinus’ conception of personal beauty hinged on a similar turn toward interiority, and the recognition of a priority of inner over outer dimensions. Sen cites the following passage from Plotinus:

But perhaps it is not really possible for anything to be beautiful outwardly but ugly inwardly; for if the outside of anything is wholly beautiful it is so by the domination of what is within. Those who are called beautiful and are ugly within have an outward beauty, too, which is not genuine. But if anyone is going to say that he has seen people who are really beautiful but are ugly within, I think that he has not really seen them, but thinks that beautiful people are other than who they are. (24)

Thus, for Plotinus, outer beauty, if genuine, is merely the effect of inner beauty. On the other hand, someone who appears ugly may, in due time, become beautiful to us, as we see deeper into his or her soul. Thus, as Sen puts it, external beauty is something that may simply be “spotted” at any time, but inner beauty is only “won through acquaintance” (25). Discovering the inner beauty in ourselves and others requires time and effort, but such beauty is there, waiting to be realized, analogous to the sculpture waiting in the stone.

But this analogy is somewhat misleading. The notion that beauty is there, in the stone, suggests that it could eventually be “spotted.” In other words, beauty is still understood here in terms of visual perception. Granted, it may take some time and effort to be able to see it, but the payoff comes in the form of a physical form. Put slightly differently, the real force of Plotinus’ position is that real beauty requires a different kind of seeing, a kind that takes time. In fact, beauty isn’t really something that one sees in the first place, but rather, it is something with which one becomes acquainted. Here again, the example of Aclibiades and Socrates helps make the point, since it is not so much that Alcibiades sees a different Socrates than most, but that he has come to know one.

Of course, we are getting into some tricky territory here, especially since the act of seeing and the act of knowing have been so closely intertwined in Western philosophy and literature. Our ordinary language reminds of this constantly: do you see what I mean? But the point from Plotinus and Plato seems to be that real beauty depends upon tendencies over time, which cannot simply be seen but must be known. Sophia Loren seems to agree when she asks her readers to imagine a couple of beautiful women and then says,

[I]f you stop and examine these “beautiful” women you will almost surely see that something more than hair, eyes, skin and figure made them spring to mind. In fact, they may have some defects like a big nose or small eyes or a less-than-perfect complexion. Yet somehow they have convinced you, and probably most of the people in their lives, that they are beautiful. (14)

As already suggested, these women have been able to convince others of their beauty largely because they exhibit what Loren describes as a “healthy vanity,” which includes “charm, self-confidence, and style” (18). Beauty is once again described in terms of a way of being that one might experience, rather than something that could be simply seen.

Returning to Plotinus, we find this theme developed in even more detail. Beautiful objects do not possess a property called beauty, but rather, serve as a trace of the Idea, Beauty. In order to see through, as it were, the superficial into the Idea, Plotinus recommends that we “Shut [our] eyes, and change to and wake another way of seeing, which everyone has but few use.” As for Plato, the search for beauty with Plotinus is an inward one. It is a movement from sensible beauty through the soul to the more lasting and transcendent Beauty, which is intimately related to the Good. This journey toward Beauty is thus anything but superficial, and is in fact imbued with a deeply ethical character.

Being beautiful is therefore related to being good. We have already seen that Plotinus thinks it impossible that one could be outwardly beautiful but inwardly ugly. But, we must be careful here, since for Plotinus there really isn’t something that can be termed outward beauty. Outward beauty is not something that resides, say, in a face, but is rather an effect of the radiance of inner beauty. Put slightly differently, Plotinus is not saying that pretty people are necessarily good, but that beautiful people are. And to say that beautiful people are good is almost a tautology.

For the most part, and most likely without conscious intent, Hollywood culture has preserved this link between goodness and beauty. But, Hollywood tends to take the further step and make all the beautiful people pretty as well. Not only do good guys and gals always wear white, but they also typically wear it well and to great effect. But there is a common counter tendency here as well, as made clear in the Farrelly Brothers film Shallow Hal. In this film, all characters who are good and beautiful on the inside are outwardly ugly. Those who are pretty on the outside prove to be ugly within. (The film uses two actors for each character to really drive home the idea that our inner and outer selves are different.) The point here is the one made earlier about how external beauty can be understood as representative of a certain level of vanity or superficiality, which in turn makes for a less inwardly beautiful person. Shallow Hal’s problem is our problem: namely, that we don’t know how to see through misleading appearances to the inner person.

While the film fails in too many ways to mention here to offer a convincing remedy for this lack of vision, it, like People, at least claims to be promoting the search for a kind of real, inner beauty. The movie is disappointing. At the same time, I am drawn to it because I find the original intent to be somewhat compelling, perhaps because of the philosophical legacies already discussed. In a culture such as ours, what self-respecting critic wouldn’t be supportive of a project aimed at getting beyond the superficialities of mere external beauty? The idea of finding some kind of lasting identity behind all the glitz is appealing. Seeing people for their real beauty--I’m down with that.

But I'm not entirely sure I know what this means. Confident that real beauty is not mere appearance, I am also skeptical of any major transcendental turn here. Plotinus' advice that in order to see real beauty we must shut our eyes just seems to miss too much of what we mean when we talk about beauty. We need a better alternative, and one way of thinking this through is to consider beauty's worldly counterpart, fashion.

Karen Hanson, in an extremely perceptive essay titled “Dressing Down Dressing Up: The Philosophic Fear of Fashion,” writes, “the search for lasting truths and enduring values is a noble activity, but it has sometimes engendered a flight from ordinary, common experience, the experience of growth and decay, coming-to-be and passing away”(231). Among these common and passing experiences is that of fashion and dress. Styles change; clothes wear out. Fashion inevitably leads back to another source of precariousness: my bodily existence. In fact, I need clothes of some kind or another, and as a philosopher, this need may “stand as irritating proof of some fatal failures” (235). Much to the dismay of Plotinus, I cannot see through the superficialities of my embodiment to the Idea when I am especially chilled, or hot, or otherwise uncomfortable. Given these facts, perhaps I respond with spite to fashion, which constantly reminds me of my limitations and my mortality, and which continuously spurns my philosophical thirst for constancy. And like so many before me, I take a stand: I will wear clothes, sure, but I absolutely refuse to be constantly in style.

But there is undoubtedly a middle road between simply submitting to every fad and refusing to (or attempting to refuse) participate in a world mired in appearance. Hanson quotes Thoreau here:

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?...Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged and dirty the old, until we have so conducted, or enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. (232)

Thoreau wants a change of character with each change of clothes, and though the former is clearly the most important, the latter is not superficial. The recognition is that though clothes may not make the man, they can certainly fit him. Moreover, Thoreau advocates here a way of thinking about clothes that is hand in hand with thinking about oneself, a concept that has no shortage of supporters in the philosophical tradition. As Hanson puts it, “[s]elf-consciousness, it must be remembered, is generally an epistemological advance. One would need a special argument to show that the self-consciousness connected with an awareness of and interest in one’s appearance is inherently retrograde”(239). Of course, she is quick to point out that the kind of self-consciousness implied here is a bit different than traditionally formulated, especially since it requires seeing oneself as an object as well as a subject. Philosophers are supposed to be knowers, not the known; seers, not the seen (239-40). Yet a willingness to be seen, and to see oneself as seen, might help create an atmosphere where philosophy and fashion complement one another.

Philosophers need to take more seriously the ways in which who we are is intimately connected with how we look. We already do in many contexts, as for example when we consider what our attire will say to potential employers. But this is usually a negative consideration; that is, we are typically worried that our dress will suggest something about ourselves that we do not intend. This also seems to be what is going on when we claim to be “self-conscious” about our appearance; namely, that the self we see is not really our self. In such cases, the clothes just don’t fit.

We have been asking some of the right questions in this regard, but in the wrong contexts and for the wrong reasons. We have all frustratingly asked, “How do I look?” but have not desired or usually received an answer that appreciates the possible complexities of the question. Of course, we will need to learn to understand the heavy implications of the question before being able to cope with the answers. Thoreau is right to call such moments “crises” in our lives. Nevertheless, a positive consideration of the suitability of our fashion to our character could be philosophically instructive. It might also open up a space wherein we can think of external beauty as a (different) kind of fitness, instead of mere superficiality or an emanation of inner radiance. What might happen if we resisted our next haircut, or the purchase of a new scarf, until we were confident they suited the demands of our character?

Works Cited

Banks, Tyra, with Vanessa Thomas Bush. Tyra’s Beauty: Inside and Out. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998.

Hanson, Karen. “Dressing Down Dressing Up: The Philosophic Fear of Fashion,” in Aesthetics in Feminist Perspective, eds. Hilde Hein and Carolyn Korsmeyer, 229-241. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.

Loren, Sophia. Women and Beauty. New York: W. Morrow, 1984.

Plato. Symposium. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1980.

Sen, Joseph. “Personal Beauty in the Thought of Plotinus,” in Neoplatonism and Western Aesthetics, ed. Aphrodite Alexandrakis and Nicholas J. Moutafakis, Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.

It takes a flock

2009-03-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a morning lecture on Darwinism at Mizzou.

While most of it was pretty standard, introductory stuff, I was interested by one of the studies profiled in the discussion. Seems some poultry guy at Purdue wanted to investigate the fairly popular (but mistaken) view of Darwinian evolution as a rather individualistic enterprise, where strong individuals are the ones who reproduce most and thus survive.

So, he performed two experiments. In the first, he took the most productive laying hen out of each cage full of hens, and then made a new cage with 9 of only those most productive hens. Think: all-star laying team. He then followed this group through six generations, in order to test whether said generations would improve upon laying success and productivity.

In experiment two, he took the most productive cage of hens, considered aggregately, and followed them through six generations. In other words, these 9 hens were representative of both good and bad and average, kind of like a regular season team, but overall they were the best team in the henhouse.

At the end of six generations, only 3 of the all star team hens remained alive, and these had completely plucked each others feathers and consistently harassed each other. (The other 6 had been killed by these same processes.) The average group had improved laying productivity 160% over the same 6 generations.

The point, as I see it, is that we have to think of the processes of natural selection occurring in social contexts, and that we should be careful when identifying "strength" or "fitness" not to think to0 individually, which seems to be one of the most common misunderstandings of evolutionary theory.

Belated Thanks

2009-02-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

I think I'm overdue to send a shout out to some really good people in my life, so I thought I'd take a little time today and get it done.

To my "biological" family (and those of you who know me well know why I make that distinction--some of us have multiple families): thanks for all of your varied support, especially through what was a pretty sucky 2008. You guys never cease to amaze me.

To the Crooms and the Wiegands: thanks for opening up your homes (and your ears) and never once making me feel guilty about taking you up on the offers.
To Heather: thanks for being a source of true friendship and wisdom and humor all along, and especially when I needed them the most.
To Terry: thanks for always being willing to help, no matter what.
To Keith and Joe: thanks for being so damn funny when we hunt and fish together.
To Ray: thanks for letting me into the joys of Mountainburg and the excrutiating pain of theological discourse (mostly joking about the latter).
To Tom: thanks for going fishing with me, and keeping me grounded in what you call "the simple life."
To my extended facebook friends (and the most important of you know who you are): thanks for keeping me updated and occupied and amused.
To my bass pro buddies: thanks for talking fishing, going fishing, and then talking fishing with me. I love it.

The rest of you can all go to hell.

Okay, so I'm just kidding about that last part, and probably have forgotten to mention somebody that I should have mentioned. I'll add them in when I remember.

On Truth and Lying

2009-01-23T09:44:00.000-08:00

Some of my friends have asked me to continue posting philosophical material for discussion, so my apologies to the rest of you who wish I'd shut up already!

This post concerns a very central moral question: "Is it ever morally permissible to lie?" Or, asked in converse: "Must we always tell the truth?"

There seem to be two general responses to the question, which represent two major traditions in the history of philosophy.

The Utilitarian View: Utilitarians believe that right or wrong actions are determined by considering the pleasure or pain produced by doing them. If an action produces more general harm than good, then it is generally understood to be wrong. If an action produces more good than harm, it is generally understood to be right. So, with respect to lying, we might argue that some lies actually produce more good than would the truth, so in those cases at least we should lie.
So, when your significant other comes in and asks "Do these pants make me look fat?" (and let's assume they do) the utilitarian will simply weigh the amount of pain or pleasure produced by the options of truth-telling or lying, and then will go with the one likely to bring about the most happiness for the most people. A small lie there might be justifiable on these grounds, assuming the pants aren't that bad.
At the same time, the utilitarian will need to realize that even if a small lie seems to work in this very specific case, generally speaking lying tends to produce more pain than pleasure. In other words, since as a rule lying is harmful, perhaps we shouldn't do it in this case either.
At any rate, for the utilitarians there is nothing inherently wrong with lying, and it is only wrong when it produces or tends toward more pain than pleasure for the most people involved.

The Deontological View: The eight dollar word "deontology" is derived from the Greek "deos" which roughly means "duty." Deontologists believe that morality is a system of duties or obligations we have, and that these duties are generally independent of the consequences of our actions.
So for example, a deontologist might argue that "lying is wrong" regardless of how much pleasure a particular lie might bring. The Christian version of this position is represented in the Commandment against lying. Notice the absence of fine print there--it is not "Thou shalt not lie, unless you can make something from it." The idea is that lying is just plain wrong, no matter the situation or circumstances.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant came to the same sort of conclusion about lying, and went so far as to say that even if an "inquiring murderer" comes to you asking about your friend's whereabouts, you must still tell them the truth, even if it costs your friend's life. This is a tough stance on truth, no doubt, but it is not hard to see his point. If everyone adjusts the rules of morality to benefit their own individual circumstances, then morality becomes nothing more than whim. Instead, moral rules should be "categorically imperative," which means they should be the kinds of rules that hold for anyone, anywhere, at any time. If telling the truth is our duty, then we simply must do it--come hell or high water.

Nate's View (Which might also be labeled "Aristotle's View"):
Honesty is a virtue, which means it is a trait of character which is good for us to have. Being honest is generally a good thing, and so it is a good rule of thumb to tell the truth. In fact, if you are ever stuck and unsure whether to tell the truth or lie, tell the truth. Odds are you will do right.
At the same time, being honest is not enough to constitute being good. There are other virtues to contend with, such as kindness. I'll bet that if you think of the best person you know, you'll find that they are not brutally honest. They will be the sort of person who always says the right thing, but not necessarily always the truest thing. The best sorts of people find ways of tempering their honesty, and making it timely, and using it prudently.
Sometimes--maybe even often--being good will require us to be perfectly and openly honest. Really good people know when the time is right. And really, really good people know when it isn't.

The Morality of Killing

2008-12-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

(Spring, 2008--I wrote this in response to a prompt that I gave my ethics students. I felt it was only fair that I wrote the same paper. I then shared my paper with them, and took their comments and questions. Given that format, I don't really cite my sources here, and I leave some points under-explained. But it isn't bad, anyway.)

A very good friend of mine continues to fight a long battle with cancer, after having had surgery and gamma knife treatments to remove a malignant tumor from his brain. Previous treatments have had little lasting positive effect--the tumor has reappeared each time, and each time has been larger and faster-growing than it was before the initial surgery. The gamma knife treatment in October has stalled the growth, allowing for a fairly normal level of activity this winter, which he has cherished. Everyone is naturally trying to be optimistic, but all know the stark reality of the how such things usually end. (Multiple doctors have confirmed that 3/5 with this kind of cancer die within 6 months, the others die within 18 months—and he is now nearing the end of that window.) He has decided that it is worth all the trouble and pain and sickness of continuing treatments, as needed, especially as far as his family is concerned. But he has also made it clear that if continuing his biological life for a short time ever means diminishing his qualitative personal life to a great extent, then he will not go through with it any longer. For him the issue is largely one of autonomy, since he has been responsible for himself in no small part for the past 45 years, and would rather be “put out of his misery” rather than have others tending to his every need. Notice that he does not merely want to be allowed to slowly die a painful and potentially humiliating death, but he wants out quickly and painlessly when his conditions are met.
I think that his request ought to be honored, given this set of conditions, for reasons I hope to make clear. This kind of killing is clearly a difficult and problematic one, and starting here raises a host of serious questions and potential criticisms. So, instead of building my case from this one, I’d like to instead turn to a much less controversial case and then see what translates from there. The less controversial kind of killing is that done in self-defense. Almost no one thinks that we lack a right to defend ourselves from clear and imminent death at the hands of another, even if this means we have to kill the other. I say “almost no one” because there are undoubtedly those who, usually from religious convictions, say that all forms of killing are absolutely wrong, and that we do not even have the right to protect our own lives by taking another. But I don’t think one can consistently think this, since allowing another to kill you is nevertheless endorsing killing. Moreover, even if one decides from their own personal convictions that they will never kill in self-defense, they would be hard-pressed to offer good reasons why someone without those particular convictions should not have the right to kill in self-defense.
This weak challenge overcome, self-defense is a very unproblematic case. But we might wonder why this is so. Why is it that self-defense constitutes a justifiable reason to kill other full-fledged persons? I think the answer is right there in the term: self-defense. So, what is a self, anyway? The first answer that we can rule out equates the self with a living body. While selves tend to be associated with living bodies, they are neither fully explained by them nor identical to them. In other words, my self is much more than my body. In fact, if all of my past experiences and history were magically transferred to another body, I would feel as if I were the same self in another body.
I think this is consistent with our understanding of killing in self-defense. I can kill you if you are killing me not because you are ceasing my organic functions (killing my body), but because you are threatening my selfhood. Once you kill me I will never again see my friends, or go fishing, or watch the Cardinals, or listen to Muddy Waters, or teach my ethics class. And, if you could take away all these things, and leave my biological body alive, I would say that you had killed the essential part of me anyway. And if you could take my biological life without taking any of these things, then you wouldn’t have really killed me, or would have only taken a part of me. So, I can kill you in self-defense to save my future. And any self who has a future like mine has a right to life, and can also justifiably kill to save their future. And we wrong someone when we take their future-like-ours from them without very compelling reasons.
Notice that I differ from Don Marquis in that I think having a future like mine requires that one already have a fairly-well defined self, and a future that relates to it. If you kill me, you take away all future possibilities, but what hurts most are those things I see in my future and are continuous with my present and past. Perhaps at 65 I would have been the next great rock star, but since I am not looking forward to that, if you take that away it barely touches me. That possibility is not what I am fighting for when I am fighting for my life, except in a very remote way, since I realize that myself is dynamic and open to new interpretations and expression (twenty years ago ‘philosopher’ was about as likely as ‘rock star‘!). Put differently, what is wrong about taking away my future is that I am looking forward to it as a realization of anticipated and also unexpected experiences.
So there it is: a being has a right to life if it has a future like ours, which requires selfhood; and any being that does not have a future like ours does not have a right to life.

Non-Human Animals
A quick survey of the past year shows that I have been party to the killing of a number of non-human animals. In fact, a listing of all the individual cases would take us more time than we’ve got today--the grill on my Chevy is covered with evidence. Of course, the question in my analysis is whether any non-human animals have a future like ours, and I think the answer here is typically no. There are exceptions, like Ko Ko [a famous gorilla who learned to communicate through sign language with her human trainers], where a future like ours seems very much present. In these cases, I see no reason not to extend a right to life to these animals. We should need a very compelling reason--something as strong as self-defense--in order to kill any animals with a future like ours.
But, since most non-human animals do not have a future like ours, they do not have a right to life. So, as the first example, when I ordered the chicken sandwich I was not an accessory to murder, though this is not the same thing as saying I did nothing wrong. It could be that the chicken industry is harmful to the environment or its workers or chickens in ways that I should not support. An individual chicken has no right to life, but again there may be very good reasons for not killing it, or torturing it, or supporting its killing by buying the sandwich. I must admit that I have become generally convinced that most if not all commercial animal agriculture is wrong for these very reasons, and have adjusted my consumer and eating habits accordingly. I have almost fully stopped buying meat from commercial vendors, though I still eat beef raised on farms of which I have first-hand knowledge of the operations, and am confident that the animals are treated with a level of respect appropriate to sentient beings.
A second example places me squarely in the role of killer. In October ‘07, I shot and killed a whitetail deer, but I don’t think it was murder. As far as I can tell, deer don’t have a future like ours. I don’t think they look forward to anything, though I may well be proven wrong about this in the future—in which case I will stop shooting them for the reasons I do now.
I think I avoid Singer’s charge of speciesism here, since my distinction does not draw a clean line between humans and non-humans. In fact, the line I have drawn using the kind of self-conscious future I’ve described will mark some non-humans as persons (remember Ko Ko) and will mark some humans as non-persons (e.g., human fetuses). So, again, I do not arbitrarily and automatically prefer human life over other kinds of life. I am saying that some non-human animals, like deer, do not have a future like ours and thus have no right to life.
Of course, this is not yet a good reason to kill one, but I think there are conditions under which one may be killed with good reason. In fact, the State of Arkansas, where the mentioned killing occurred, sets these conditions: you must have completed a hunter safety course, and purchase a license; you may only hunt deer with a firearm on a few designated days in the fall; you may kill no more than 4 deer per season in the entire state, and all of them cannot be bucks or does; you must use lethal weapons; you must not waste the animal harvested; you must check the animal with the conservation dept, and so on. The majority of monies from license purchases (and also selected sporting equipment) funds habitat restoration and land acquisition that benefits a wide variety of wildlife species. Wildlife biologists recommend that killing roughly ten percent of the deer herd each year leads to better overall herd health than results otherwise, and deer-vehicle collisions and deer damage to habitat and to personal property is reduced when the overall herd is reduced. Under all these conditions, killing a whitetail deer (in itself no serious wrong) becomes regulated in such a way as to produce benefits that generally outweigh the quick killing of individual deer.
Buying a chicken sandwich is thus worse than killing (and processing, and eventually eating the venison from) a deer as I did, though neither of these animals counts as a person as I see things. What makes the first case worse is that the poultry industry treats chickens in ways that are completely at odds with their sentience, and for no reason other than the satisfaction of our taste buds. And, as I’ve mentioned, the industry also treats thousands of human persons as mere means to the end of profit by paying them poorly and subjecting them to sometimes horrific working conditions. Taking all of this together, it is hard to see how an occasional sandwich is really worth all the misery.
Tom Regan would respond that there is really no crucial moral difference between killing a whitetail deer or a chicken, since both of these killings show these animals as resources to be used in the service of some other end. These animals are “experiencing subjects of a life” and thus are due the same level of moral consideration as any other person. The problem with Regan’s position, as I see it, is that he includes certain kinds of cognitive abilities in the notion of being a subject which seem absent from deer, chickens, and other animals. For example, he says that experiencing subjects of a life have beliefs, but there seems to be no compelling evidence that deer or chickens believe anything. If belief is required for personhood, then his argument does not seem to lead to the conclusion that animals have a right to life, at least in many cases.
Suppose, then, we remove the requirement of belief from the criteria, such that being an experiencing subject of a life just means to be conscious and experiencing, though not necessarily believing anything. Once we make that step, I believe we have lost something crucially important to the definition of persons or selves, and can no longer fully explain why persons are important in the first place. Put differently, we tend to think that losing our beliefs is more detrimental to our personhood than is losing our conscious experiences and we worry about losing the latter only because it generally causes a loss of the former. Regan wants us to focus on our similarities with other animals rather than our differences, but we still might wonder which similarities, and which differences, are morally relevant. The presence of selfhood seems to be just such a relevant difference.
Abortion and Infanticide
One of the first things to notice here is that a fetus is not a self, so far as we can tell. A fetus, especially early in development, does not have a future like ours, since this requires looking forward to one’s life, and a fetus cannot do that. Infants probably can’t do this either, and the point at which they become selves in the fullest sense may be even years down the road. If this is true, then no fetus and few if any infants have a right to life. I should note again that Don Marquis has used a similar notion of a “future like ours” to conclude that all abortion is impermissible, since fetuses have a future like ours. I think—and Marquis seems to agree—that a future like ours requires anticipation toward that future. If so, then it seems that his conclusion that all abortion is impermissible does not follow from his account of a “future like ours,” since a human fetus does not seem to have such anticipations. If, on the other hand, anticipation of a future is not required in order to have a future like ours, then it will become much more difficult to explain how any consciously experiencing organism is not a person, and not only will abortion be impermissible in most cases, but so will the killing of most non-human animals. To his credit, Marquis notes that a crucial problem for his account is deciding whether the futures of some non-humans are enough like ours to warrant their inclusion in the category of personhood. But I contend that his description of a future like ours already excludes them, just as it excludes human fetuses, and at least some if not most human infants. Again, since human fetuses and many human infants lack a future like ours, they are not persons, and have no right to life.
This seemingly shocking conclusion becomes less worrisome when we remember that there is a difference between saying a being has no right to life and saying that we should kill them. If killing a whitetail deer, which seemingly has no potential for ever becoming a self, is regulated in fairly strict terms, then we should expect killing a human fetus or infant to be even more difficult, or require more compelling reasons, since there is typically more likelihood that those beings will turn out to have a future like ours someday. Put differently, my position is that there is nothing necessarily wrong with abortion or infanticide, but there are clearly better and worse reasons for deciding to do these things—and some reasons might not be good enough at all.
A significant worry here is that my approach, in principle, permits any and all abortions, and infanticide. The latter worry is easily dismissed, since reasons for killing an infant are up against so many good reasons for not killing one, that only in exceptional cases will we decide that the best thing to do is kill an infant. But these exceptional cases surely exist, such as when a baby is born with a terminal illness or severe defect promising only a short life of pain. Perhaps we should require a panel of experts to conclude that there is a slim chance at best that personhood will be reached, and that other options (like adoption) are worse or unnecessary, and then we can allow (notice I did not say require) parents or guardians the right to terminate that life.
I think the same kind of consideration answers the worry about the general permissibility of abortion. Some will say that my position allows abortion for the promiscuous and irresponsible woman who wants an abortion because her swimsuit won’t fit, and that abortion should not be used as a form of birth control, and that she should take responsibility for her own actions. But I think this charge is mistaken on several counts: first, the irresponsible and promiscuous woman seeking abortion is largely a myth generated out of a system that sees all women as sexually and otherwise irresponsible. The complaint against using abortion as birth control would perhaps carry some weight if girls and women (and boys and men) were given unfettered access to and education about and encouragement to use other available and less severe forms of birth control, but this is clearly not the case. (Fortunately, there seems to be a general trend in this direction, though a current resurgence in the message of abstinence may be a setback.) Finally, in a world in which women are expected to look good, and where gaining weight is seen as a moral weakness, perhaps we should not be so quick to discount the few women who actually do desire abortion for these reasons. Am I saying that fashion concerns should outweigh the lives of potential selves? Of course not. But if women are becoming pregnant in situations where they don’t want to be, and where it would be much better if they weren’t, then this requires an integrated solution that focuses on preventing this from happening in the first place. Forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy against her will is the worst solution, partly because is treats her as if she doesn’t really have a future like ours.
And again, I think the vast majority of abortions are not really light-hearted decisions about fashion and such anyway. Often women are weighing an unwanted pregnancy against their education, careers, relationships--in short: against the future they anticipated without the pregnancy. To take away that sort of decision is to treat them as if they were not persons, and is wrong, especially since we almost never treat male persons in the same way.
Capital Punishment
Given our current legal definitions, we can assume that everyone who qualifies for the death penalty is already a person in the sense I’ve been using. Human beings with schizophrenia or other mental illnesses are not candidates for the death penalty, partly because their inability to make clear decisions about their future means we can’t hold them responsible in the same way as we do others. So by law anyone sentenced to death is a person. Of course, the fact that they are persons with a future like ours is not necessarily enough to make capital punishment wrong. Remember that having a right to life is not the same thing as being free from ever being justly killed. What we need to, and I think cannot show, is that killing criminals is as justified as killing in self-defense.
So how shall we justify killing them? We might adopt a utilitarian stance and argue that doing so makes the world a better place, one with more happiness and less misery than a world without this kind of practice. Many argue along these lines that capital punishment deters more future violent crime than life imprisonment, but statistics do not seem to support that claim. Ernest van den Haag goes so far as to suggest that if even a few innocent lives were spared by a deterrent effect on a few would-be murderers, then this would be worth it. A few innocent lives are worth more than a few guilty lives, especially since killing the guilty might deter others from becoming guilty more effectively than would life imprisonment. To be fair, van den Haag says the deterrent effect is not decisive for him, given all the other variables involved here. And it is precisely the other variables involved that make the argument from deterrence suspect. Are there actually murderers out there who refrain from killing when the death penalty is possible who would not refrain from killing when the worst punishment is life without parole? Is it not equally possible that some murderer somewhere says to himself something like: “I wouldn’t kill this person, except that the State has sanctioned killing others in some contexts, and I believe this to be an appropriate context as well. If it is good enough for the State of ________, it is good enough for me.” While I doubt that such a person with such a process of reasoning actually exists, the point is that they—or some similar person—might, and that we would have to consider them as a counter-weight to the possible character in van den Haag’s scenario.
All of this is fairly speculative, and difficult to prove, but there is a more general sense in which arguments about deterrence ought to be inconclusive for anyone. It is highly likely that increasing the swiftness and cruelty of punishments for some crimes would deter more future violations. For example, if the penalty for speeding was an automatic loss of driving privileges and seizure of your auto, people would likely speed much less often. (I would, for sure.) But most of us would see such a punishment as too much, even if it deterred future violations, even if we are generally utilitarian in our outlook. We would want to see that the punishment was consistent with rules that generally promote the social welfare. In the case of the death penalty, we might search for ways other than the deterrence effect in which the punishment makes the world better. Perhaps more happiness is brought to the families of victims of such criminals by killing them than would be by life imprisonment? This is problematic as a general response, since many victims’ families actually tell us that they would rather see the criminal live a long but diminished life, rather than getting a quick out. This view also misses the rather obvious fact that criminals have families too, and their happiness counts equally from the utilitarian perspective.
Given problems like these, perhaps we could justify capital punishment as necessary retribution for some kinds of crimes. We could argue that regardless of future consequences, some criminals--notably murderers--deserve death for what they have done. The problem with this view is that it often confuses retribution with revenge. In order to pay someone back for what they’ve done or to “get even with them” we need not give them exactly what they gave us. If this were the case, some criminal actions could never be paid back: someone murders your brother, but they have no siblings; someone ruins your one-of-a-kind collectible, but they obviously do not have one, too; etc. What retributive theories of punishment require is an equivalent level of punishment, not a punishment identical to the crime. If what is wrong about murder in the first place is not really the taking of a biological life—as I have argued in this essay—then taking the murderer’s biological life doesn’t really fit the crime. Better to take the essential aspects of their life--their freedom to make their own decisions and shape their own future--while continuing their biological life, if we really want to give them what they deserve. Life imprisonment without parole is thus one of the worst kinds of punishment we can give—often worse than death—but nevertheless avoids many of the attendant problems of the death penalty. Thus, life imprisonment without parole should replace death as the capital punishment we provide.
Euthanasia/Suicide
Once again the permissibility depends on having a future like ours, but here the principle takes on a slightly different look. As we saw in the case of pregnant women, part of what constitutes having a future like ours is that we get to make decisions aimed at bringing about that future. Our future is full of projects and expectations and goals we hope to meet, and the possibility of establishing new projects down the road. As I’ve already argued, my right to life is based on this idea. But there are situations in which this very character of my future is in jeopardy. My friend’s brain tumor is threatening his self-consciousness, and thus his ability to have a future like ours. So, in what seems a contradiction, the best way to preserve his future might be to eliminate that future. Or, put differently, to preserve his selfhood, he may desire to end his life, and we ought to help.
Richard Doerflinger would refer me to the trio of inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and would suggest that my position contradicts the inherent hierarchal ordering to them. He mentions that the ordering of these words “reflected a long-standing judgment about their relative priorities” (RT, 158). If we forget for the moment that adopting the meaning or ordering of terms solely on their traditional use is problematic, where is this ‘long-standing judgment’ revealed? Doerflinger’s source is telling: he cites the Vatican from 1974, in a statement against abortion (RT, 164). Yes, there is a hierarchical order to the rights there, and Catholics may decide to support that in their own actions. But this is very far from Jefferson’s intent. Had Doerflinger properly traced the Jeffersonian roots of the phrase to Hutcheson’s moral theory, he might have found that these rights were equivalent in that they were all the sort of rights that a person cannot transfer to the sovereign, such as when entering a social contract. In other words, you are the keeper of those three of your rights, and presumably can exercise them as you wish, so long as you do not violate those same rights of others.
Once again, though in principle my view allows one to take their lives for any reason, since I am positing a person’s right to die, there may be and often are very good reasons not to exercise that right. If killing a whitetail deer requires safety courses and licensing and other regulations, then killing a person (even our own person) ought to require much, much more. This same kind of consideration holds for third-party cases, where we are dealing with human beings who are either non-persons or former-persons. We shall need to show in these cases that ending their lives is the closest we can come to treating them as persons, which means treating them as if they have a future like ours.
Either way, once we have determined in particular cases that respecting a person requires granting their right to die, I see no reason to always prefer passive euthanasia to active euthanasia. Letting someone die from starvation or dehydration when everyone who counts has consented to the killing is for me clearly worse than helping them painlessly and immediately end their suffering. (I recognize the ambiguity in the italicized phrase here, but there are clearly cases where these criteria are adequately met--my friend‘s case seems to be headed to just this kind of place.)

Conclusion
In order to determine whether killing is morally justified or not, we must consider to what extent the one who might be killed has a future like ours, which entails selfhood. But, as we have seen, beings with a future like ours may sometimes require death in the service of that selfhood, and some beings without a future like ours should be protected despite their lack of a right to life. In this sense, having a future like ours is a necessary but not sufficient component of any consideration of the morality of killing. In principle, then, the right to life is only deserved by beings with a future like ours--by selves, but the privilege of life may be--and often should be--protected for many sorts of living beings.

Postscript: My friend's biological body gave out just after his personhood, and soon after this paper was written. I had some of my frankest conversations about life and death with him, and post this paper in his memory.

The Art of the Straw Man

2008-05-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

I just caught Glenn Beck and Ben Stein discussing the latter's new movie on intelligent design.

Wow.

Beck is truly an idiot. That isn't just name calling--I simply can't think of a more apt term to describe his lumbering intellect.

I like when he mocked Dawkins for suggesting that aliens might be the intelligent designer of human cells (itself a slightly mocking explanation) by saying "Uh, who designed the aliens, then?" I truly believe that he doesn't see the implications of his own question, which is really rather shocking.

They didn't stop there, of course, and made sure to cover much of the usual ground, with a couple favorites:

The false dilemma: either we were designed or all of this is just one big accident, and since it can't be just an accident, we were designed.
Guilt by association: since Darwin was used by Hitler, Darwinism is Hitlerism, and since Hitlerism is bad, Darwinism is bad.

Glenn Beck is an idiot, of course, but when Ben Stein, who seems to be an intelligent man, takes up these arguments as if they were sound, it is disheartening, to say the least.

The (New & Improved?) Value of Philosophy

2008-04-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Concerning "In A New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/education/06philosophy.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

According to the author, philosophy is experiencing a resurgence in the U.S., as evidenced by the total number of undergraduate philosophy programs nationwide (compared to a decade ago) and the fact that Rutgers and CUNY and "a number of other universities" are seeing an increase in philosophy majors since 2002.

I will eventually ignore the problems inherent in these kinds of statistics, but can't help but note that I'll bet most of the students in my Reasoning class could find reason to worry about the comparisons drawn here--e.g., perhaps these increases are better explained by some other cause than some renewed interest in self-examination by undergraduates.

Even if we accept the stats as saying something interesting, I think we should resist agreeing with the author's characterizations. Ms. Hu wants undergraduate interest in philosophy to reflect students' desire for self-examination, but nearly all of the comments she offers from students show other motivations, usually connected to other career aspirations. So, we hear how philosophy helps one become a lawyer, or doctor, or commodities trader, or how it helps you find a significant other or win arguments with your mother.

Hmm, I don't recall Socrates or Bertrand Russell stressing those things so much.

Of course, this fits with the overall narrative of the article, which probably places Socrates and Russell in the "armchair" tradition of philosophy, which is now out of vogue. Nobody really wants to know about them, anway. What the new generation wants is an addition to their skill set, to be applied elsewhere.

I'm not sure that this is always a bad thing for philosophy, which I agree has been guilty of getting lost in its abstractions rather often. It has been too much theory, too little practice at times. But we should be careful not to reduce the practice of philosophy to the mastery of analytical skills, which has been a familiar refrain for even philosophers themselves. In fact, philosophers have been singing this chorus for some time now, in order to compete for students in a more and more job-training-oriented university. (Consider the quote in the article from no less than the President of the APA.)

And those of us with recent graduate education in philosophy will no doubt remember how often we heard (and said!) that a background in philosophy is prized by employers for all sorts of reasons.

Perhaps these efforts have made a difference in general perceptions of philosophy, but if so, we philosophers may be in serious trouble. We should take note of what has happened with the field of "business ethics," which is now firmly planted in business departments and taught by business faculty, usually not without some serious loss in scope and rigor. (Any philosopher who has ever witnessed a "workplace ethics" seminar in a corporate setting knows the tragedy of this all too well.)

When self-examination is reduced to "how can I best get myself employed?" do we really think philosophers will remain the experts?

The Race Speech

2008-03-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Yes, so I am a bit behind, but I finally got around to reading the full text of Obama's reportedly historic speech about race relations in America.

My reaction, in a word: huh?

Maybe I don't understand what it takes to make a speech "historic," but I would expect that either the content or the delivery (or both) would be fairly radical, and would sincerely challenge the force of tradition.

Obama's speech was really pretty traditional, in scope and form. He said that people on both (or was it all?) sides of the racial divide have some baggage that needs checking before all can move on. He said that some of those people (especially those from the last generation) often show themselves to be behind the curve when it comes to getting over. And he said--perhaps most importantly for his campaign--that he is not one of those people. (And the audience then self-congratulates: Neither are we, of course. After all, we are supporting a black candidate! Glad we got over that race thing!)

That all sounds to me like another version of the "politics speech," which just so happened in this instance to take race as a central theme, and which leaves everyone feeling just good enough to cast a vote.

And then the form of his speech was certainly nothing new for anyone who has ever read anything substantial in the African-American tradition, listened to the blues, or been to (a black or southern) church. The fact that the 24 hour news folks made so much of the "(not) this time" riff near the end of his speech shows just how culturally illiterate most audiences really are.

I don't blame him for using the idiom, which is tailor-made for winning audiences. (Unless you have no skills--you surely saw Romney and the "who let the dogs out" clip, no? And Clinton occasionally reading black dialect--ouch.) I also don't blame him for sounding serious about race without getting serious about race, since the latter would be political suicide.

But I certainly won't give him credit for an "historic" speech, until he really gives one.

The State of the Union is...Apparently Uncritical

2008-01-29T13:21:00.000-08:00

I tuned in for the State of the Union address, as usual, and, as usual, was severely disappointed.

I just don't get it.

I am not particularly disposed to party-line politics. I can't stand pandering. I hate idol-worship. I like logic. All of this together means that the State of the Union address sounds more like a really fallacious campaign speech by a candidate for seventh grade Student Council than a real assessment of where the US finds itself in 2008.

I always hope that those giving the standing ovations are doing so only to preserve strong party lines, or to otherwise save face, and not because they are taken in by the argumentation, which is oh, so bad. To single out one example, on No Child Left Behind:

"Last year, fourth and eighth graders achieved the highest math scores on record."

Anyone with the slightest critical intelligence might wonder why only two grades are mentioned, what it means to be the 'highest scores on record', and so on. Yet, the claim is met with resounding applause, from both sides of the aisle.

Has our critical consciousness devolved to the point that our representatives fear that criticism of such claims would likely suggest to us that they are opposed to fourth and eighth graders doing well in math? Shame on them, and us, if this is the real state of the Union.

The Moment of Truth

2008-01-25T10:23:00.000-08:00

Kudos to Fox for once again findest the lowest common denominator.

I tuned in for the premiere of "The Moment of Truth," the new game show that rewards its contestants for simply telling the truth, no matter what the cost. The contestants are despicable enough, of course, since they are clearly willing enough to air all sorts of damaging truths on the way to a possible payday.

I admit that some of it is amusing--like when the ex-football pro admits to sneaking a peek at his cohorts in the shower, or admiring himself in the mirror, or thinking he is better-looking than most men his age. Revealing these kinds of truths is fun enough, since nobody really gets hurt, since everybody already knows these things anyway.

Other revelations are not so harmless: like when the same ex-pro admits he has done things that would cause his wife to mistrust him, and when he informs all of us that he has refrained from having kids because he is not sure he'll stay with his wife long enough. Yikes.

But even this is not the worst element of the show. The worst is that after every 'moment of truth,' the host congratulates the contestant with something like: "At least you have come clean and told the truth, and for that, you've earned X dollars."

Since when is telling the truth, with money as the sole motivator, and with disastrous consequences, worth anything?