Many years ago I was initiated into Daoism by a teacher who came from China. I've spent many years learning since then and would like to introduce anyone interested into my odd little life trying to practice this ancient wisdom tradition in a modern urban setting.
My wife and I have been having discussions lately around a set of different questions that all have one thing in common, they are what I believe are known as "wicked problems". I'm no expert on these things, but the more I think about them, the more I think that Daoism and Daoists may have a special insight into these problems and have something like a way of coping with them that other folks might find useful. Consider what follows to me more wild speculation than a fact-based discussion.
People have thought about these sorts of things since the 1970s and have come up with a list of things that describe a "wicked problem".
The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.
Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.
Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.
Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation.'
Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.
These points are somewhat spare, so let me illustrate them (at least insofar as I understand them) with examples.
The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.
This is to say that wicked problems do not allow us the luxury of waiting until we understand everything before we have to take action. This may be because of simple practical considerations, such as being locked in the room with a ticking time bomb---we have to defuse it before it goes off, whether we know enough to confidently know which wire to cut or not. Or it might be that we simply cannot know the answer until we attempt a solution---we won't know whether or not we can safely remove the bomb's outer casing until we do so and see if it is attached to a tumbler switch.
Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
A "stopping rule" is some limit that controls how far a problem can go. If a person with a gambling problem goes to Las Vegas and is only allowed to wager the money in his pocket, the "stopping rule" is that once he has lost that money, he cannot lose any more. But if he can use a credit card, or borrow against his house, or, even worse, go to a loan shark for money, the lack of a "stopping rule" means that he can end destroying his life and bankrupting his family.
Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.
It isn't immediately obvious that a solution is "right" or "wrong" for a wicked problem. Indeed, some solutions might be quite acceptable for some people, but not for others. Over-population could be solved by government-enforced family planning (e.g. as in China), or, enhancing the role of women in all world societies. Each of these might theoretically work, but every one would have very sizable opposition from elements of society. If you are part of that opposition, the problem seems "wrong". If the opposition is strong enough, then the solution isn't really a solution after all, because it will prove unfeasible in actual practice.
Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.
and Every solution to a wicked problem is a 'one shot operation.'
Wicked problems are the ones that are so big that they tend to be pretty much unique. Think about things like the environmental crisis, political reform, etc. Because each of these problems comes with its own set of complex issues, there is no set of problems that can be solved with a generic solution. This means that each of them has to be solved on its own terms. So unlike demolition experts who once they've defused one bomb can be sure that the same technique will work with all future examples of the same model, a wicked problem bomb will always be totally unique every time they face it. Moreover, there is not even any reason to suppose that the same sappers would be involved in defusing the next bomb anyway. This means that wicked problems never allow people to gain any experience, self-confidence or authority with which to deal with them.
Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.
Many simple problems come with a limited set of alternatives. In the classic short-story, you only choose from two doors----each of which has behind it either a lady or a tiger. But in a wicked problem you usually have a very large---if not infinite---number of solutions, or, ultimately none proposed at all. (This latter case leaves you to your own devices, which, in a way, is also an implied large number, as you have to investigate and try to find on your own. The number being limited by your own knowledge and imagination.) It isn't a question of cutting the red wire or the blue, but rather of seeing a tangled mass of wires on the bomb and not having a clue of which does what.
As I see it, a great many wicked problems confront us both as members of the human race and as individuals.
The environmental crisis, for example, is a wicked problem because it easily fills all the criteria listed above. Moreover, it not only presents a wicked problem for the human race as-a-whole, it also presents a wicked problem for any individual who is concerned and wants to "do their bit" to try and become an agent for solving the problem.
Consider, for example, the point of where someone should draw the line on being an exemplar of sustainability. We can try to have as small a footprint as possible on the earth. But the act of doing so will inevitably result in diminishing our ability to have any influence on the rest of the human race. If you try too hard, you run the very real risk of being seen as a "nutcase" by the other people you meet. And this not only will result in their ignoring whatever it is you have to say to them, it could also "damage the brand" to the point where they dismiss all environmental concerns as being "kooky". Even if you avoid this problem and become an exemplar of environmental issues, you run into the fact that all the avenues that a person has in our society to have some sort of influence on society-as-a-whole come at some sort of ecological price. (For example, the server farms that support the internet use a great deal of electricity, and, my laptop uses rare-earth metals that are mined under horrible conditions. So even this blog post comes at the expense of Mother nature.)
Even more mundane problems have wicked tendencies.
For example, consider the issue of trying to eat a healthy, balanced diet in harmony with nature while trying to keep within a tight budget and please family members who may not have similar dietary concerns. Or, think about how one develops an exercise regime that deals with health concerns that come from a person's individual history. In both cases we don't know enough to even begin to have some sort of simple and easy solution to the complexity.
All sorts of people will offer simple solutions to wicked problems, but IMHO these are pretty much useless. With regard to the environment, people will suggest that you support a specific political party, purchase some sort of enviro-product, etc. On the individual level, there are fads such as drinking wheat-grass juice or doing "hot" yoga.
These sorts of things miss the point that wicked problems are invariably the result of systemic crises and cannot be solved by any single remedy. Indeed, because the crisis is systemic, any given remedy that is offered may actually make things worse rather than better. Wheat-grass might give you the runs and ruin your food budget. Hot yoga might make your bad back worse. Manufacturing the battery on your electric car may poison the water table. And voting for the Green Party might split the vote and result in the Conservatives getting elected.
The grim fact is that you simply do not know what the results of your actions will be, yet by the mere fact of being alive, you have to act. That is the essence of a wicked problem.
Traditionally people didn't find themselves confronted by so many problems because they simply didn't have all that much choice in the first place. Government was controlled by "higher ups", so none of the fretting we do about politics existed. Food was just what our people always ate and we cooked the way our parents, grandparents, etc, always cooked it. Again, exercise usually consisted of work. If it didn't, it usually involved some sort of ritual game or martial exercise that again had been handed down from eons past.
The modern age is very good at sticking people with uninformed choices. We can choose between different political parties in democratic elections, but things are so darn complicated that only fools think that they understand what's going on. The same thing with food, exercise, etc. The free market gives us a myriad of options, but this leaves us wandering in a sea of ignorance that our grandparents would not have even known existed.
When I first started thinking about all of this stuff, it occurred to me that the reason why I have been so attracted to Chinese culture---and Daoism in particular---is because it offers the promise of a complete system that integrates an understanding of how society works, physical exercise, food, and aesthetics all bound together. This means that once I decided that I was a "Daoist", I had the beginnings of an integrated vision of how to spend my life. This was very relaxing after spending a life feeling like I'd cast adrift on the cultural vortex that capitalism made of Western civilization.
More to the point, I think that Daoism actually offers a way of looking at and dealing with wicked problems. Mind you, I don't think it offers anything like a solution. Instead, it suggests that we look at the world around us as a complex whole, or "Dao" instead of trying to break it up into individual bits. And it doesn't give us anything like an algorithm for solving problems. Instead, it suggests that a lot of problems simply need to dealt with through our gut instinct. And in the process of making those instinctive decisions, we need to "let go" of any hope of understanding or solving the problems that confront us. Instead, we need to accept that we are simply leaves flowing down the river of life.
I've recently read a fascinating anthropology book about the creation of monarchies as a mode of human organization, and, got married. The two aren't related, of course, but the former got me thinking about the big picture and the latter introduced me to a lot of new human relationships, which helped me understand the theory better.
Eli Sagan's book,At the Dawn of Tyranny, argues that human societies develop oppressive monarchies in order to break down the instinctive bonds that connect people into kinship---or family-based---societies. The argument is that it requires a truly ferocious government in order to get people to start thinking about it first instead of parents, cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles, etc. And until people start thinking that way, the "rules" get bent so often in favour of what the Chinese would call "filial piety" that it is impossible to run anything larger than an tribe or small village.
The kings in these emerging tyrannies are able to overcome people's commitment to kinship because they are bloodthirsty tyrants who practice large-scale human sacrifice, fight brutal wars, and, break up families through migration. Sagan argues that this situation is a transitional phase, though, as once the state is firmly established, more "institutional" monarchies emerge who's job is to protect the existing state of affairs by creating a more benevolent style of leadership that gains the support of the population through religious indoctrination rather than fear. (As I've mentioned before the "God in the Sky" looks an awful lot like the King on his throne.) Kinship societies do not seem to believe in an Abrahamic God but instead seem to follow the Daoist model of an impersonal force like the Dao plus a multitude of nature spirits.
Getting married shortly after reading this book allowed me the luxury of seeing how kinship actually works. My wife's family is far smaller than mine, but it is more closely knit. She lives with and takes care of her mother, who has health issues. In addition, once the wedding was announced, her sister and brother-in-law moved Heaven-and-Earth to attend the ceremony. As well, much to my surprise, a couple of my closest friends also made the thousand mile trip to another country to attend. (Indeed, they absolutely insisted on attending.) Family matters!
When I crossed the border, however, I ran afoul of the Tyranny that Sagan was writing about. I have a bad habit of telling the truth to people and when the "Homeland Security" guard asked me where we were going to live after getting married I foolishly started a rambling account of how we were going to have to figure that out. He cut me off and acted like I'd just spit in his face and called his mother a whore. I got sent to an office to cool my heels for an hour and another person (who didn't seem to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed) told me that while he believed me when I said I was going back to Canada, I'd better bring a whole portfolio of documents next time I come (it appears that a passport simply isn't enough anymore.)
In retrospect, it strikes me that that guard with the attitude problem was just doing his bit to reinforce the point that the state is more important than family. I'm just glad that I don't live in the sort of state that Sagan describes, or else he might have broken my arms and legs and left me at the side of the river for a crocodile to eat. (One of the numerous unpleasant things that used to happen in the country that existed where modern Uganda now sits.)
Having digested this bit of anthropological insight, it occurred to me today that there is more than just a war between family and state going on in our souls. There is also a deep war within that involves a conflict between the household and the economy.
This conflict manifests itself in things like the way the family home has transitioned from being both a source of production and consumption to becoming just a place of consumption. In my short lifetime I have seen people stop growing their own food and then stop cooking it. With the younger generation I increasingly see people who no longer know how to sew their own clothes or do household renovation and construction. In all of these transitions, people have become less and less independent of the economy. As I see it, this is a very similar process to what has happened when the early monarchies fought against kinship as a means of social organization.
My wife is getting back on her feet after a very long spell of significant ill health. One thing that she is trying to figure out is just how much she can do to make money without threatening her recovery. This is a difficult concept as the demands of the workforce don't really allow a lot of "slack" for people with subtle problems. She is a very hardworking, intelligent, creative person. But she finds it very hard to follow the rhythms and schedules of a complex organization. She needs to be able to work when it suits her instead of when it suits someone else.
As near as I can see it, this is a purely modern phenomenon. I grew up on a farm, and in the old family farm system individuals had a great deal of personal autonomy which allowed them to set up their daily work pretty much as they saw fit. Of course, agriculturalists have to work in harmony with nature, but that is really different from having to follow the dictates of the time clock and the moods of a boss (or a border guard.) I can sympathize totally with my new bride, because I remember all the struggles I've had in my life trying to accommodate myself to the basic unreality of the workplace. (In my case I've managed to find work where I had a maximum amount of autonomy----mainly by working night shifts and odd "generalist", "minder" type jobs.)
It seems to me that anyone who tries to live in harmony with nature instead of human society (and nature includes things like the promptings of our hearts) is going to find herself in the same sort of dilemma that faces my new bride.
I suspect that is disconnect with the modern world is what fuels a lot of the "back to the land" impulse that has been around as long as I have been alive. For most people this manifests itself in wanting to move to the countryside, which remains only a pipe dream for most folks. Personally, I don't find this dream terribly appealing because my experience in the countryside has taught me that in order to live outside of a city you have to either be independently wealthy of drive long distances in order to find employment. As someone who cares about the environment, I do not see how this is helping save the planet. Moreover, I don't see how locking yourself into long commutes will bring anyone much peace of mind.
IMHO, the "Hacker" movement is a much more positive development. This involves people who refuse to be mere passive consumers of technology and instead want to learn how to modify and create. One example is the "Ifixit" website that allows people to share information and access tools and parts of expensive, high-tech gizmos and work around the "planned obsolescence" that is built into things like IPhones. Another are the co-operative "Hacker Space" workshops that are sprouting like mushrooms all over North America. One last example are the "urban sharecroppers" who will grow large vegetable gardens in suburban lots and sell the results in Community Shared Agriculture programs and farmer's markets.
I'm close to retirement so hopefully I will be able to move in with my American wife once I stop having to go to work. (How's that for alienation----my work forces me to live 1,000 miles from my wife!) In her case, she thinks that the best option is to try and opt out of the money economy as much as possible by being very frugal and self-sufficient in an urban setting. To that end, I've been doing some of the "heavy lifting" of setting up a garden for her and showing her how to do some of the food preservation techniques I learned in my childhood. Hopefully she will eventually be able to find some sort of work that doesn't harm her health. In the meantime, saving money on the food bill through an intensive garden is a good way to augment the income. (It was certainly a key component of my family's support when I was young.)
It is hard to live in a cesspool without getting dirty, but it is possible to lesson the disconnect between our hearts and the world around us. But the first step is understanding that the conflict exists in the first place. One of the many thousands of things I love about my wife is the fact that she sees the problem. Most people do not.
In my last post I dealt with my suspicion that "conservative", especially people of religious bent, do not see hypocrisy as being nearly as bad a thing as "liberals" do. Since I posted it, I've done a bit more looking around and it seems like a lot of people blogging from the conservative point of view agree with my analysis. For example, take a look at this blog post, entitled "Hypocrisy, the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Left" . The author pretty much makes my case, but from the point of view of a conservative Christian. Take a look at the following quotes.
I am suggesting, then, that hatred of religion is at the root of the Left's excessive and unbalanced animus against hypocrisy.
---in our culture, dominated as it is by liberals and leftists, most of the Seven Deadly Sins are not reckoned sins at all. Given that sin is a religious concept, there cannot be sins for those who deem religion buncombe from start to finish. But one can believe in vice without believing in sin. I think it is safe to say that most Americans today do not consider any of the Seven Deadly Sins to be vices, with the possible exception of sloth interpreted as laziness rather than as acedia. Take gluttony. Americans are by and large gluttons as one can observe by going into any public place. And yet how many speak of gluttony as a vice as opposed to an 'eating disorder' to be treated by stomach stapling, etc? This is a fit topic for a separate post.
This is an interesting question, "Do liberals no longer believe in 'sin'? Or 'vice'?"
First, it's important to try and understand the difference. It would appear, from a quick Google search, that the core concept of "sin" has to do with the relationship between a person and a commandment of God. A "sin" occurs when someone does something God has told her not to do.
Two interesting points.
First of all, what happens when someone's sense of "right and wrong" conflicts with what God has told him to do? In the Bible the best example comes from the story of Abraham and Isaac. For those of you who don't know the story, God asked Abraham to murder his only son as a sacrifice. Abraham sets out to do the deed and God stops just before the deed is done and says "Just fool'n".
What would have happened if Abraham had told God the following "I don't care if you are Jehovah. I don't care if you will torture me for all eternity for saying this. But I will not kill my own son. Such a deed would be perverse and evil." In saying so, Abraham would at the same time be committing a sin, and, acting in a moral manner.
Lest this seem a weird, hypothetical example, consider the bind that religion puts many parents of gays into. They may very well genuinely love their children, but at the same time, God's commandment tells them to treat them as if they are pariahs who's instincts are the result of demonic influences. Again, the moral thing to do (e.g. try to understand your child and love them as you would have others love you) conflicts with the dutiful thing to do (e.g. cast them from your home and disown them.)
The second issue that arises comes from the question of how someone actually decides what is and is not a commandment of God. As I see it, there are four avenues for learning God's will. Each of them, IMHO, has significant "deal breakers".
First of all, people say that the will of God is revealed in holy scripture, like the Bible. The problem with that is that if you make the effort to look at scriptures in a disciplined manner, it becomes obvious that they are the result of human activity----with all the contradictions and confusion that that entails. Once you start saying that you read the books in some sort of metaphorical manner and allow for the frailties of the human authors, the authority that says that this is "the word of God" quickly dissipates.
Even if you are the most adamant Biblical literalist, the fact remains that the book is filled with stuff that no one actually believes is the word of God and needs to be followed to the letter. Check out the following image.
It's not totally obvious, but this is a screenshot of a fellow who went to the trouble of tattooing the following quote on his arm: Leviticus 18:22 “‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable." What makes the picture funny is the fact that this fellow probably didn't read further in the book and come across this text: Leviticus 19:28 "'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD."
If all religious believers don't follow ALL of the commandments of God, but instead pick and choose due to some other criteria, then how is it that they are following the commandments of God instead of that other criteria?
If we aren't following the revealed scripture as the voice of God, what are we following? Is it the tradition of whatever denomination we find ourselves in? If so, why your tradition instead of another's? And, if you look at the history and internal politics of any religious body you will invariably find that the tradition mutates and changes over time. Does this mean that the law of God changes over time? If it was a sin to eat meat on Fridays in 1912, why isn't it still a sin in 2012?
If the rules change, then what is the status of someone who works within the church to change the rules? Is an activist who is pushing for the ordination of women a sinner up until he convinces the synod to make the change and then after that a righteous believer? Is the only criterion for sin whether or not you are successful in convincing the church hierarchy to adopt your point of view?
One final point of view would be to say that our conscience is the "voice of God". But if that is so, then what about when different people say that their conscience tells them different things? And what exactly is a "conscience"? If I change my mind about something, does that mean that God has changed his mind about something? Or does it simply mean that I now look at the problem in a different light?
After working through the above, it seems clear to me that I certainly do not "believe" in "sin". First of all, because the term refers to the will of God---and I don't see any valid evidence for the existence of said God. Secondly, even if I did believe in the existence of God, I don't see any valid way of divining exactly what his will really is. Finally, I don't really believe that moral issues should be settled by appeals to authority anyway. They don't work in math or physics, so I don't see why they should work in ethics either. If we do accept this point-of-view, isn't uncomfortably like the Nazi "I was just following orders" defense?
But does that mean that I no longer believe in "vice"?
This is an equally subtle thing to think about. The author quoted above writes that Americans no longer consider gluttony a vice but instead see it as an "eating disorder". He even suggests that the remedy is not longer an appeal to morality but rather "stomach stapling".
I think that this is a significant over-simplification. First of all, liberals do not lightly dismiss the concept of personal responsibility. Instead, there has been a great deal of thought aimed at who is responsible for social issues like the current wave of over-eating. But instead of simply placing all the blame on the individual, which is the attitude involved in the Church teaching about the Seven Deadly Sins, commentators have raised a whole host of complexities. For example, how much of this epidemic is as a result of marketing strategies aimed at encouraging people to eat too much?
It's all very well to complain about poor people's greed when it comes to eating. But this is the first society in human history where anyone but the wealthy has had the option to become overweight. It seems simply mentally lazy (e.g. slothful) to just put the blame on the individual instead of trying to understand the entirety of the issue.
I think the dividing line comes over free will. Paradoxically, the theist wants to believe that all people have a radical form of free will that doesn't allow for any significant social or biological influence over people's ability to choose one course of action over another. But they take away all of this freedom by introducing the idea of "sin" that reduces the entirety of this choice to whether or not one will freely submit to the absurd (in the sense of without rhyme or reason) direction of an unauthenticated authority. As I've pointed out above, there really isn't any reason why one particular definition of "God" should be followed versus any other, so you end up having to believe whatever religious authority you happen to come across in your life.
In contrast, the liberal has very little belief in free will. He knows from scientific study that for all of our sense of freedom, we are tightly constrained by our biological instincts and social conditioning. But in the midst of that knowledge, he is still willing to allow people to use their intellect to steal as much freedom as they can from the authorities around them by using the tools of inductive and deductive logic.
And what exactly is happening when someone indulges in hypocrisy?
I would suggest that what they are doing is experiencing some cognitive dissonance. In the examples from my previous posts, the anti-abortion crusaders were coming up against some personal experience that should have undermined their previous assumptions about life. But instead of taking this as a "learning moment" where they could seriously rethink the underpinnings of their moral code, they chose to simply do the mental equivalent of shoving their fingers in their ears while humming loudly.
From the conservative point of view this is a simple "the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak" moment with very little ultimate consequence. For the liberal, though, this is the fleeting opportunity for the person in question to exert real free will. Until reality smacked them in the face, they probably couldn't be expected to understand how reality diverges from what they have been told. But because they refused to take the opportunity to think things through and change their minds, they threw away their opportunity to be free.
The reason liberals believe hypocrisy is the ultimate "sin" is because it is the throwing away of the few opportunities we have to grow as human beings. It is also the process of denying that aspect of ourselves that makes ourselves so unique----the ability to learn and grow.
I recently read a blog post that reignited something that I've been thinking about for quite a while.
In a nutshell, Frank Bruni, writes about meeting someone from his college days who has gone through a tremendous transformation from rampaging Roman Catholic to agnostic. The interesting "kicker" for the piece is that this fellow is a medical doctor who has performed abortions for years because of his experience dealing with women.
The part that is of particular relevance to me is a passage where this fellow told Bruni about his experience performing an abortion for an extremely vocal anti-abortion crusader.
He shared a story about one of the loudest abortion foes he ever encountered, a woman who stood year in and year out on a ladder, so that her head would be above other protesters’ as she shouted “murderer” at him and other doctors and “whore” at every woman who walked into the clinic.
One day she was missing. “I thought, ‘I hope she’s O.K.,’ ” he recalled. He walked into an examining room to find her there. She needed an abortion and had come to him because, she explained, he was a familiar face. After the procedure, she assured him she wasn’t like all those other women: loose, unprincipled.
She told him: “I don’t have the money for a baby right now. And my relationship isn’t where it should be.”
“Nothing like life,” he responded, “to teach you a little more.”
"In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the 'antis' by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular 'sidewalk counselor' went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter's situation had caused her to change her mind. 'I don't expect you to understand my daughter's situation!' she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to 'murder their babies.'" (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)
"We saw a woman recently who after four attempts and many hours of counseling both at the hospital and our clinic, finally, calmly and uneventfully, had her abortion. Four months later, she called me on Christmas Eve to tell me that she was not and never was pro-choice and that we failed to recognize that she was clinically depressed at the time of her abortion. The purpose of her call was to chastise me for not sending her off to the psych unit instead of the procedure room." (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)
"My first encounter with this phenomenon came when I was doing a 2-week follow-up at a family planning clinic. The woman's anti-choice values spoke indirectly through her expression and body language. She told me that she had been offended by the other women in the abortion clinic waiting room because they were using abortion as a form of birth control, but her condom had broken so she had no choice! I had real difficulty not pointing out that she did have a choice, and she had made it! Just like the other women in the waiting room." (Physician, Ontario)
"The sister of a Dutch bishop in Limburg once visited the abortion clinic in Beek where I used to work in the seventies. After entering the full waiting room she said to me, 'My dear Lord, what are all those young girls doing here?' 'Same as you', I replied. 'Dirty little dames,' she said." (Physician, The Netherlands)
Usually I find that people who hear about this sort of thing have some sort of negative emotional reaction towards hypocrisy and leave it there. But I have the sneaking suspicion that something very important is happening here. I wonder if people who fall on the "conservative" line of thinking might simply not consider hypocrisy an actual sin.
I have wondered for quite a while if the divide between people often comes from people holding different sets of moral values. I first noticed this with regard to a controversy in my home town involving the mayor. This woman, who was a neo-conservative absolutely loathed the small and large "g" greens who dominated city council before and after her term of office. She got caught absolutely red-handed plagiarizing a speech that she delivered at some municipal function. I remember that many of my friends were absolutely furious about it, but I noticed that most of her supporters seemed to be genuinely surprised that anyone cared one way or the other.
I live in a university town and most of my friends are intellectuals of one stripe or another. In contrast, most of the people who supported this past mayor were involved in business. I came to the conclusion that for writers, teachers and scientists, there probably is no greater crime than that of stealing the ideas of someone else, because this is the capital by which they make a living and define their standing in the community. In contrast, for business people words and ideas are just tools for encouraging people to purchase their products. In contrast, business people often think that levying any sort of taxation at all is a tremendous sin---perhaps this is because money (or capital) is their stock-in-trade. Many intellectuals similarly cannot fathom this view that taxation is inherently sinful---since as long as they get value for the money, they consider it just the price of civilization.
Thinking about this example has got me thinking about the abortion one.
People who are pro-choice usually look at the examples I quoted above and see them as examples of complete moral bankruptcy. But, I would suggest that is because people who are "liberal" in the original sense of the word put an enormous value on the concept of intellectual courage and curiosity. Conservatives in general, and religious conservatives in particular, do not greatly value either of these qualities. Instead, they value submission to authority and conformity.
I know that Christianity makes a great pretence about helping the poor, etc. But if you look at the actual behaviour of the hierarchy of most denominations---especially conservative ones---it becomes obvious that over-riding teaching of the church is "Shut up and do what you are told!" And the theology of the most rabidly anti-abortion denominations often seems to boil down to some sort of cosmic fascist state. You must do as the great Fuhrer in the sky demands or else you will be sent to the eternal Auschwitz after your death.
Please note that when an institution is all about submission to authority, actual behaviour is of less importance than the attitude. Rebels who reject the idea that they should be submitting to authority are far, far more dangerous to the status quo than criminals who, for one reason or another, end up breaking the rules. (This is why political crimes are punished more severely than all others in totalitarian societies.)
If we understand this point, then it becomes obvious what is going on when someone who is a loud and vocal opponent of abortion has one. The actual abortion itself is not nearly as bad as the fact that some people refuse to accept that the process is evil or immoral. Abortion activists are ultimately protesting that women and doctors are putting themselves ahead of the revealed teachings of the church and making their own decisions about what is or is not a "sin". After all, according to church teaching all people sin and the only route for salvation is through the intercession of grace. Having an abortion might be worse than stealing a candy bar, but ultimately the Hitler in the Sky considers them both to be worth a ticket to the eternal concentration camp.
Hypocrisy is an homage that vice renders to virtue. ~François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, 1678
The quotation above makes the same point. If we simply understand that the word "virtue" means not some sort of universal or commonly understood truth, but rather the dogma of the institution you support (either the Roman Catholic church or the Republican party, for example), then "Hypocrisy is the homage that people pay to authority." If you will not be a hypocrite, then you will invariably be a rebel. And rebels are far more dangerous to authoritarian institutions than people who merely transgress the rules.
Looked at from this way, a lot of conservative behaviour makes a great deal of sense. When anti-homosexual pastors and politicians get caught hiring gay prostitutes, their willingness to be furtive instead of rebellious means that they still support the hierarchy. Similarly, when conservatives rail against government spending but wallow in the pork barrel for their constituency, the hypocrisy means that they are "team players" instead of dangerous "socialists" who want to throttle business.
I don't know where this insight leads me, but I have the feeling that it could be harnessed to improve the way people promote a better way of looking at the world.
For one thing. A lot of people think that it is just enough to point out the hypocrisy and expect people to change. But that doesn't happen because hypocrisy simply isn't a sin for conservatives. That woman who got the abortion and then went back up on the stepladder to protest was a dutiful daughter of the church who suffers from original sin. The real sinners are the "rebel angels" who think that they know better than the church about what is, and is not a sin. Rubbing this woman or her fellow believers noses in their hypocrisy will not change their minds.
If we want to change people's attitudes about things like abortion, on the other hand, I think we need to go deeper than the issue itself. Instead, we have to try to do two things.
Ideally, we should be teaching people to be "liberal" in the original sense of the word. That is, we should be teaching everyone who will listen that they should be intellectually courageous and curious. They should follow ideas where they go instead of being afraid of the implications. The social consequence of this is that we need to develop institutions in society that encourage this sort of behaviour. It isn't just the church that discourages critical thinking, our schools, the workplace, the bureaucracy, etc, all thrive on the model of "shut up and do what you are told". Of course, none of this can change overnight, but until we understand the problem, it is impossible come up with a solution.
It is impractical to expect all citizens to become Socrates, though. I would suggest, therefore, that we should also be developing role models and authorities who can counter-balance the authorities that conservatives lean upon. People of good will often have the mistaken belief if we reject the authority of the Pope to pronounce on moral issues that no one should be able to do so. But this misses the point that we appeal to authority all the time in life---doctors, mechanics, engineers, plumbers, accountants, etc. Why should moral issues be any different?
The difference is that a plausible moral authority should be willing to defend her position using logical argument instead of an appeal to force. The problem isn't that the Pope sets himself up as a moral authority, but rather that he is a bogus authority who's ultimate argument is "if you don't knuckle under, I'm going to kick you out of the church", and "God is going to torture you forever after you die". In contrast, it might be practically impossible to work through all the complex reasoning that a philosopher goes through to justify a position (after all, how many people do you know who would make the effort to read a monstrous blog post like this one?), but if someone wanted to, the option is open. We trust our mechanic to do the right thing, but if we wanted to, we know we could do enough research to understand why it is he says he has to do the things he says he needs to do in order to get the engine on your car working.
When I was a child my mother used to tell me to do things and when I asked "why", her response was to whack me and say "because". The difference in attitude could be as simple as her saying instead, "there's a good reason, but I simply do not have the time to explain it to you right now", or even, "I don't really know how to explain it, but I do believe that this is the best course of action and I have a responsibility to give you direction until you get old enough and have enough experience and knowledge to be able to make choices for yourself." You don't have to be Einstein to make this substitution. In fact, it could just be a rote sentence that everyone in our society ends of saying without really understanding. But the distinction is one that discourages empty submission to authority and hypocrisy, as such I think that we should try it.
This raises an interesting question, though. If Christianity felt itself threatened by what I’ve called “practical philosophy”, was it because it is yet another religion? Is it perhaps what people call “spirituality”? Or is it something else altogether? I don’t believe that these are trivial questions, because it highlights a problem that I have found in my own personal pursuit of Daoism.
First of all, it is useful to come up with a definition of “religion”. The term generally refers to a complex belief system and how it operates within a human culture. To a great extent, it deals with how a group of people, either at one time or over a long period of history, relate to one another. The religion of Roman Catholicism, for example, refers to a large group of people who currently live all over the Earth, and also, who have lived from the time of the end of the Western Roman Empire up until the present day. It includes a body of writings and traditions that govern the behaviour of individual followers of the religion, as well as a large institution that is hierarchically organized from the Pope in Rome to the altar boy in the parish church.
In contrast, “spirituality”, involves the interior life of an individual. It comes from a person trying to make sense of the experiences of his or her life. These experiences can arise from random events, from disciplined meditation practice, or they can be the insights and observations that the individual has gleaned from reading texts and/or interacting with other, perhaps more experienced practitioners. It can be totally idiosyncratic and is sometimes at odds with the teachings and practice of a religion. Or it can be completely in tune with these traditions and institutions.
Practical philosophy is often described as being from a specific “school”, such as Daoism, Stoicism, Cynicism, and so on. But, I would argue, these schools are significantly different from religions for several reasons.
First of all, adherence to a specific school of practical philosophy is a free choice based upon a personal decision that this specific worldview makes the most sense to the individual. No one is born into something like Stoicism or Cynicism in the same way that someone is born into a Catholic or Muslim family. In effect, the different tenants of a school of practical philosophy are descriptive instead of being prescriptive or credal. People who know about such things will often talk to someone and make a decision that a person is a “a Stoic” or “a Cynic”# based on the way they look at the world. In contrast, people are born and/or baptised as Catholics and they are trained/forced to learn to adhere to a specific definition of what it means to be a Roman Catholic.
Secondly, practical philosophy is taught through the exercise of reason. This takes place in two ways, deductively and inductively. The former is the process whereby someone comes to a conclusion through a logical reasoning.
For example, let’s look closely at the quotation I mentioned before from Epicurus:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
What the philosopher is telling us to do is to think through what exactly it means to say that some particular being is both omnipotent and good. If a being has both qualities, then why, for example, do children still suffer? If there is a reason why this has to be and there is nothing he can do about it, then what does it mean to say that the individual in question is “omnipotent”? If, on the other hand, he is able to stop innocent children from suffering and he simply chooses not to do so, what does it mean to say that he is “good”? In either case, we would be using the words “omnipotent” and “good”, respectively, in some sort of weird way that meant that we are not using the words as everyone else does. And if we aren’t using these words in any sort of understandable way, what have we actually learned about what we are calling “God” when we describe him as being both “omnipotent” and “good”? If saying that God is “omnipotent” and/or “good” really doesn’t mean much of anything at all, then does the word “God” itself mean anything? If not, then why believe in him?
Inductive reasoning comes from looking at the world you inhabit and attempting to find evidence in favour of one point of view as opposed to another. Take this example of a pithy Stoic saying by Epictetus: "Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire." This is a very different sort of thing in that it is making a statement of fact that cannot be either proved or disproved through logical inference. Instead, the person who hears or sees this statement is expected to think about their personal life experiences and the people they have met, and try and decide if this statement is in accordance with his or her experience or not. He might think about the time as a child he desperately wanted some sort of present from his parents, yet found that once he had it, it turned out that it wasn’t all that nice and that he pretty much immediately wanted something else. He might think the same thing about the promotion he wanted at work or the woman he desired as a lover.
One important thing that should be understood about the deductive and inductive methods employed by practical philosophy is that neither one is a source of authoritative, revealed “Truth” with a capital “T”. Instead, what the insight and wisdom that comes from this process is accumulated piece by piece as different people in a culture communicate and discuss their insights. Eventually, a consensus emerges about what is and is not a good way of understanding the world around us. In contrast, religious teachings are invariably “revealed” by the authority of religious prophets and sacred texts. This is not to say that innovation and change doesn’t happen within religious traditions, but rather that those traditions will not admit that there is a process of innovation and change because to do so would weaken their authority in the eyes of believers.
To cite one example, consider the case of celibacy in the clergy. In the New Testament most of the key figures were married and the only unambiguous statement on the matter is as follows: “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife---” (1 Timothy, 3:2). Various branches of the Roman Catholic church allowed marriage, until the assertion of Papal Authority in the high Middle Ages. To this day, the Orthodox Church of Greece and Eastern Europe, which is every bit as old as the Roman Catholic church, allows its clergy to marry. Knowledge of these facts are not widely promoted within the Catholic body, but instead, the clear suggestion is that celibacy is something that “comes from God” instead of being the result of historical political struggles within the Church power structure for practical reasons (i.e. to stop the priesthood from becoming an inherited position and to allow the Church to reassign a parish held by a priest on his death.)
The value of hiding behind the coat-tails of God comes from the fact that decisions that are made by man can be undone by man. But if a political decision can be effectively sold as coming straight from God himself, any attempt to change a specific state of affairs ceases to be ordinary political activity and instead becomes an act of blasphemy. This means that people who are unhappy with any specific element of the church either “suck it up” and accept that “God is mysterious”, or, leave the church altogether because they’ve “lost their faith”. This second option is only recently available to people, as in times past this option would have led to being tortured to death as a “heretic”. This gives whomever is in charge an enormous increase in their power.
Add together a lot of these different politically-arrived at decisions that hide behind the coat-tails of God, and you have what is known as a “creed”, or statement of faith for a religion.
Since many readers probably haven’t seen a creed, here is the “Nicene Creed”. It was the result of a lot of wrangling and compromise at a conference (or “Council”) that was convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine the First.
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen
English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC)
The importance of a Creed is as a yardstick or dividing line between heresy and orthodoxy. As such, it is a tool for asserting dominance and control by an ecclesiastic authority over the rank-and-file membership of a religious group. This particular creed was developed as a method for differentiating the official or orthodox church from the so-called “Arian heresy”, which taught that Jesus was not originally a part of God, but was instead created as a divine creation of God.# As such, it was intended as deadly serious and had the effect of consigning many men and women to very painful deaths. Not only was it intended to separate out heretics from orthodox believers, it serves as a form of thought control. Orthodox believers who fall under the sway of a creed, are expected to live in an Orwellian world where they must learn to conform their thoughts to an official version of reality instead of following their ideas where they may lead them.
Practical philosophy is very different. It involves thinking things through and following your insights where they lead you. There is no physical compulsion involved. If for some reason you simply cannot accept a specific idea, you are free to go your own way. And people often do, which is why there are so many schools of practical philosophy. There are many different religions and sects, too. But they usually had to fight wars in order to gain the freedom to practice their religions. In contrast, schools of philosophy have debates. And success doesn’t come from winning battles and killing anyone who disagrees with you, but rather by having your ideas survive from generation to generation. The existence of different schools of philosophy isn’t seen as proof of the devil’s ability to confuse people, but rather that life is very complex, people have very different life experience, and people know very little. As a result, even though people have gained hard-fought insights we know too little to assume that any of use really know any sort of “ultimate Truth”. In contrast, even though religious believers will often make statements of humility towards the vastness of their God, they act as if they have a “lock” on absolute Truth.
So, if practical philosophy isn’t a religion, could it be a form of “spirituality”?
It might be, but it depends on how you define the term. As commonly used, “spirituality” refers to the individual, interior experience. Often it is associated with strongly emotional experiences that can be called “mystical”, but at the very least are deeply meaningful to the individual. This puts the realm of the spiritual at odds with the religious, in that as I explained above, the religious realm tends to deal with creeds and institutions. I am willing to admit that the inductive and deductive reasoning that practical philosophy follows is ultimately grounded in the intuitions of individual people. As such, both have some similarity to other experiences of human beings that are meaning-filled.
This might seem like a strange statement to people who assume that logic has some sort of priority over other intuitions in the realm of human experience. But it simply is the case that the validity of statements such as “A cannot equal not A”, or “Socrates is a man, all men are mammals, therefore Socrates is a mammal” ultimately comes down to an intuition that a great many other people also share.# And it is also the case that some people simply seem to be oblivious to logic. For example, I have met people who argue that the Bible is totally without error and literally true. When asked how they came to that opinion, they will argue that it says so in the Bible. When I point out that this is circular reasoning, they do not seem to be able to understand the point I am making.#
Where what I am calling practical philosophy diverges from spirituality is that ultimately it is a collective process. People who make decisions about the world not only think their ideas through using the process of inductive and deductive reasoning, they also express these ideas to others and enter into a dialogue about both their truthfulness and their meaning. Authority figures in religious institutions also express their ideas to others, but they do not enter into a dialogue. Instead, they use force to impose their viewpoint on others. People who are following a spiritual path may not have the option of imposing their views on others, but they are not entering into a dialogue with others either.
A dialogue is a very specific sort of relationship between people. It is based on a willingness by two people to entire into a conversation where each is willing to discard their previous beliefs if the other person can come up with a better argument. The attitude that is brought to bear in a true dialogue makes it very different from some other things that may bear superficial similarity----such as political debates or court trials. In these cases the parties involve may use inductive and deductive logic, but these are just two elements of a much larger arsenal of rhetoric that are designed to sway audiences to support their position. People debating outside the “community of the dialogue”, routinely try to confuse people with complex and misleading arguments, appeal to their prejudice and feel that they have no responsibility to admit an error in reasoning when it is pointed out to them. No political debate ends with one candidate saying about the other “He’s made the better argument and shown me the flaws in my thinking----vote for him instead of me.” It is, however, sometimes the case that a dialogue does end with the following sort of statements by one side “You’ve got me there. You are right.” or “I hadn’t thought about that point. It does make my side of the issue seem wrong, doesn’t it?”
The dividing line over whether or not someone is willing to admit error and move on has tremendous social implications. It allows practical philosophy to be accumulative. That is to say, as human society moves through history, people are able to slowly accumulate more and more knowledge about the world around us, and build up on the work of previous generations. This is most obvious in the realm of science and technology where experimentation can disprove a given hypothesis. But even in the realm of something more nebulous, like philosophy, it is also true. Almost all of the arguments that I have used in this essay originated in the minds of other people, which I have found out by reading the books that have been written on various subjects. Because each and everyone of these arguments has been subjected to a rigorous debate whether or not they “make sense”, there has been a collective “sifting out” of the ones that are found to be false, and, a “polishing up” of others so that we end up with the very best explanations.
This essay is standing on the shoulders of giants. And that is the big difference between practical philosophy and spirituality. Because philosophy allows itself to enter into the community of the dialogue, and submit to rigorous appraisal based on both inductive and deductive reasoning, it offers the hope of slowly adding to the sum total of humanity’s wisdom.
In contrast, when I talk to a great many people who hold “spiritual beliefs”, I find instead a tremendous unwillingness to submit their “insights” to any sort of rigorous analysis. They either get angry that anyone would question them, or, they simply assume an air of moral superiority and refuse to communicate at all. Often an assertion is made that it is just “too ineffable to describe”. But the person who makes these sorts of statements almost invariably use these experiences to make further claims that certainly do require some public discussion, such as, for example, that God exists.
Oddly enough, several philosophers have expressed that they too have had various uncanny, perhaps “mystical” experiences (for example, Socrates’ “Daemon voice” and Descartes “three dreams”.)# But the difference between the philosophical point of view and the spiritual is that the philosopher doesn’t simply assume that nothing relevant can be said about the experience, but instead tries to figure out exactly what the experience meant. In effect, I am asserting the when a spiritual person says that they are having an “ineffable” mystical experience, they simply aren’t trying very hard to explain exactly what the experience was like or to understand what it signifies.
I would also suggest that there is a very strong reason why many people would want to refrain from carefully exploring their spiritual experiences, one that bears close resemblance to institutional religions development of creeds. If someone has an experience that is “ineffable”, it means that the person who has had it has attained some level of spiritual authority gives them a greater status than someone else who has not had it. It stops people flat in their tracks when you can say “Well, if you’d had the experience yourself, you’d know I am right.” An appeal to a special type of authority, one that by definition cannot be scrutinized for authenticity or relevance is one of the easiest ways to opt out of the “community of the dialogue”.
I've been thinking a lot about "fatalism" lately. Primarily, this is because my significant other got me thinking about determinism---as revealed in my previous post. But in the process of writing that previous post, I started rereading a part of the Liezi, namely Chapter 6, which A. C. Graham titles "Endeavour and Destiny". This in turn, has become something of a literary "brain worm" that I cannot get out of my head.
I think that this is because I am deeply consumed by the "Fate of the Earth", and how human society seems incapable of dealing with substantive problems that arise from it. Here in Canada the Conservative government in Ottawa has tabled an omnibus budget bill that pretty much seeks to pass years worth of changes all in one fell swoop. This is a totally unprecedented action and an insane abuse of our Parliamentary tradition. It really is the case that the Prime Minister has so concentrated power over his caucus that he has reduced them to trained seals who bark at his command.
Things seem hardly better in the USA. There big money has taken over the political process to the point where all sorts of special interests have gained a veto over legislation, appointments and other elements of good governance. The result isn't some sort of conspiratorial government, however. That's because all they have gained is a veto----they actually cannot put forward any agenda themselves either. The result is paralysis.
Much the same sort of thing seems to be happening in Europe. It is obvious to all and sundry that the EU has to develop some sort of supra-national regulation framework in order to deal with the present monetary crisis. Yet the various parties seem in capable of "pulling together" to get the job done.
As an outsider who wishes for better and who has devoted a great deal of energy into politics, it seems that there literally isn't anything that anyone can do to make the world a better place. Instead, it appears that we are suffering from a specific type of "fate" and any power we have to change the world is simply an illusion.
This is a pretty startling thing for a modern person to espouse. Yet, if you read ancient wisdom literature, the idea of a "fate" predetermined by forces outside of our control is pretty common.
"Death and life depend on destiny, riches and poverty depend on the times." He who resents being cut off in his prime does not know destiny. He who resents poverty and distress does not know the times. To meet death unafraid, to live in distress without caring, is to know destiny and accept what time brings. (Liezi, A.C. Graham, p-132, Columbia Morningside Edition, 1990)
It's always seemed to me that this attitude is incompatible with living in a modern, industrial democracy. After all, if we are going to pursue science, democracy and the extension of human rights, people need to have some sort of belief in their ability to "do something" based on their personal effort.
This is the idea that since we are governed by fate anyway, why bother? For example, if you are sick you know that you are either going to get better or not, what is the point of asking for a doctor? Actually, this particular example exists in the Liezi. The argument seems fallacious to modern readers, but up until the middle of the 19th century you probably were better off not seeing a doctor, because their treatments usually caused more harm than good.
Even if modern medicine had not improved greatly since Liezi's time, the argument would still not really be terribly hard on fatalism. It can be argued that just as someone is "fated" to either get well or not, in the same way, you could be argued that people are fated to either be left alone or have a doctor inflicted upon them. I recall, for example, that Mother Teresa begged her nuns to let her die in peace without heroic medical intervention, yet they refused to listen and ordered the doctors to do their worst best for her final hours of life.
Indeed, the greatest fear of fatalism for modern people is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. People don't try because they think the results are set from the beginning, and not trying ensures that one set of negative results will result. To this extent, fatalism is a pernicious evil. But that, I think is not the point that Liezi is trying to make.
Previous to the quote I cited above, he contrasts a bunch of characters whom he names as "Artful", "Hothead", "Sleepy", "Wide Awake", "Tricky", "Simple", "Tactless", "Fawning", "Underhand", "Frank", "Tongue-tied", "Browbeat", "Cheeky", "Stolid", "Daring" and "Timid". Note that most of these names refer to types of behaviour. These are not people who chose to do nothing because fate had decreed all outcomes. The point is that they acted in harmony with their inner nature, which is why Liezi says of all of them: "These various attitudes are outwardly very different, yet all these men travelled on the Way in the direction destined for them." (p.131)
The point isn't what these people did, it's the attitude that they brought to their actions. They were willing to accept that no matter how hard they try to do things, ultimately their fate is decided by forces outside of their control. This attitude allows people to avoid two very significant pitfalls of politics.
The first of these is the idea that we have to be oh-so-clever in our calculations when it comes to things like voting. I used to see this all the time when I was running for political office. People would come to me and say "Oh I love your platform and agree 100% with everything you say. But I simply cannot vote for you because you have no chance of winning and it would just be a 'wasted' vote." ("The Simpsons" lampooned this in "Citizen Kang" in "TreeHouse of Horror: VII". When Homer reveals that Bob Doe and Bill Clinton have been replaced by aliens, most people refuse to vote for a third party candidate because that would be a "wasted vote".) The problem is, of course, that if you always vote for the "lessor of two evils", you always end up voting for an "evil". It also means that whatever party you vote for usually ends up ignoring you when in office because you have "nowhere else to go".
If voters simply "follow their heart" and vote for what they think is the best candidate no matter what, they stop having to do this sort of thing. It not only makes people feel better, I believe it ultimately frees up the political system from the various perversions that come from thinking of votes as being "wasted". This is something like Gandhi's ideal of "living the world you want to see".
The second problem with this sort of thinking refers to the way people in politics live their lives. A lot of people involved "in the process" tie themselves up in knots trying to be all things to all people and by trying to give 120% of their energy. This is based on the idea that when things go "wrong" it is always their "fault". The fact of the matter, though, is that in politics the effort you make only rarely has all that much effect. Sometimes people get elected in landslides who had no hope at all of being elected. Other times people who have every reason to believe that they would be returned to office easily get trounced. The problem is that it rarely is "up to you".
In both cases, a simple awareness of how important fate is to the project you are pursuing will take a great deal of the personal pressure that people impose upon themselves. A similar attitude can help throughout most of life. That job you always wanted may simply not be there for you no matter how hard you try. No matter how much you work at helping your child succeed, he might just end up being a lump with no discernible ambition. If the time isn't right, no amount of work can make a business succeed.
Accept your fate and live a happier life. Not bad advice, if you ask me
It was a beautiful sunny May day in my hometown and I was doing a little grocery shopping. Walking back home with my two full bags I noticed the young girls trotting around in their frilly dresses, showing off their shaved legs, painted toenails and "cruel" shoes. A thought flitted through my mind "the genes controlling those women want to get replicated". Then it occurred to me that the genetic material sets up the behaviour but the way it is expressed is culturally mediated. Go to a different culture---Punjabi, Hindi, or Chinese, and you'd have different shoe styles, different types of clothing---salwar kameez, saris, perhaps, or, a cheongsam. But the same genetic "push" would still be at work.
My genes are so hot to replicate!!!!
A moment later, my memory generated a random thought about something I'd read on-line earlier and I was feeling anger towards some dorky politicians. (Our government recently decided to defund the Round-Table on Industry and the Environment because it has repeatedly recommended the use of carbon pricing to combat climate change and the Conservatives don't even believe in what they refer to as "so-called" climate change.) This sort of thing makes me spitting mad and brings up all sorts of dark emotions aimed at various people.
At this point it occurred to me that I was responding to a cultural cue in much the same way as those girls were with regard to shaving their legs, painting their toenails and wearing a frilly dress. That is, there is some sort of genetic "push" working in me and my culture is manifesting it through me as anger towards the leadership of the country. Perhaps it is the constant "push" by inferior males to assert control over the dominant ones.
The Prime Minister and I
I don't know how far I can push the idea of genetics, though. I suspect that there is a point where we become predominately if not exclusively cultural creations. (I wonder if I was angry at the Prime Minister specifically because I was walking by pretty girls? Maybe one of them would sleep with me if I beat him senseless in front of her. Somehow I doubt it.)
After thinking of women as culturally mediated gene replication units, and myself as manifesting culturally mediated "beta male" aggression towards political "alpha males", I began to ruminate about how much of our interior life is dominated by culture. As luck would have it, at this time I passed a young mason who had just finished floating and brooming a sidewalk. He was wearing a hard hat that he had put on backwards. No doubt this has something to do with "hip hop" culture. I don't understand exactly what it is, but I do find it rare for young males to wear a hats the "right" way anymore. And now that I think of it, I can't see any objective reason why someone finishing a sidewalk needs to wear a helmet anyway. What is going to fall down on his head? The helmet's orientation is a signal that they guy is "hip", and the helmet's very existence is a signal that he is a tradesman.
Later on, I was walking down the street and I saw a "tough" guy walking on the sidewalk ahead of me. He was short, skinny, had a significant tan (a street person?), quite a few tattoos, and a very significant scowl on his face. He got to the corner just as the "walk" signal changed to "stop" and stomped on across the corner. I thought that he was "daring" car drivers to try and hit him. But then it occurred to me that he might be so "scattered" that he was oblivious to the traffic signal. It also occurred to me that if someone complained about his behaviour, he would probably get very angry and aggressive, maybe even violent. After a moment's reflection, however, it occurred to me that instead of just being a "dick" he might actually be someone who has been pretty badly jerked around by life and who has never learned even the basic skills necessary to get along with others. Instead, life may have taught him that the best way to survive is to have a volcanic temper so people will leave you alone instead of attempting to prey upon you. An instant later, it occurred to me that if he was or wasn't manifesting any of these behaviours in his life, the way I was reading them "into" him simply because of his appearance showed I was certainly in the grip of some significant cultural conditioning. (I'll never know if I was right or not in my "read", but that that doesn't invalidate the fact that my reaction was culturally programmed.)
The reason why I'm indulging in all this "stream of consciousness" stuff is because I've been having a conversation with my fiancee about the nature of "free will". She got all interested in this because of a talk she heard by Sam Harris on the subject. I originally didn't find the talk quite so interesting, because I've
been aware of the incoherence of the concept of "free will" since studying it at university. But I did find it exciting that at the very end Sam was making the connection between our understanding of free will and our legal system. This isn't a terribly subtle thing to figure out, but it does seem to have evaded popular discourse up until now.
The problem is that our legal system is based on the assumption that there are these independent, totally autonomous beings known as "people" who freely choose to do one act as opposed to another. People who freely choose to break the law are "criminals" and people who freely choose to follow the law are "good citizens". Harris, and I, would argue that this way of looking at the world is at odds with everything we know about how the human mind operates.
First of all, there is the inductive or scientific argument. That is as follows. It might be that people choose to act in a certain way because they are constrained by either their biology or conditioning. If it is a question of brain chemistry or childhood trauma that caused the behaviour, then how is it free? Let me give two examples that seem to indicate that this in fact could be the case.
Secondly, people who have had a history of savage abuse sometimes have a very hard time controlling their anger, which leads them to do terrible things. I read once about a robber in New York City, for example, who held up a convenience store and totally gratuitously turned around and shot the clerk dead while on the way out. During the trial there was no doubt at all about who did the shooting, as the whole thing was on video tape. The jury was howling for the perpetrator's death. But during the sentencing hearing a lawyer introduced evidence about the childhood of the shooter. As a child he had literally spend years locked into a tiny cage in the basement of his parent's home. Once the jury found out how badly the person had been abused, they were more than willing to sentence him to life imprisonment.
If people do extreme things because of some sort of morbidity in the brain, or, because their childhood conditioning predisposes them to act that way, how can we labour under the illusion that they freely "chose" to act that way? And if we can allow that people's freedom is constrained in these, extreme, circumstance, then doesn't it make sense that less severe behaviour may be the result of less severe, but equally important, conditions? Maybe people shoplift because their brain chemistry gives them some sort of specific predisposition to such a thing (poor impulse control---ever heard of manic/depression?) And maybe being around adults who routinely "push the envelope" and "take risks" reduces the anxiety that a child feels when thinking about doing something risky. If this is the case, then it would seem that there is far from a "level playing field" when it comes to making those sorts of snap decisions that can result in someone's life going down hill pretty fast.
The second set of arguments against free will are deductive or philosophical in nature. That is to say, if the idea that underlies our understanding is contradictory or incoherent, then we should be willing to entertain doubt that we are saying anything of value when we use it. Certainly, we should rethink any laws or policies that our society enacts on the assumption of free will.
It would seem that if when we talk about "free will" we are saying that there is some sort of "live" choice involved. That is to say, that a person who chooses to either do "a" or "b" really could choose one or the other. But if the person chooses to follow course "a", we are left with the question "did he choose to choose to follow course 'a'"? If he did, then did he "choose to choose to choose to follow 'a'"?
This might sound like a silly, semantic argument, but what is being raised is the issue of "causation". That is when I "choose to choose", I'm saying that the way our minds work would assume that we have to have a reason to do something, a "why" we choose to do something. But once we start asking why, we end up in an infinite regress---something like the old lady in the nursery rhyme who swallowed a fly. You cannot explain anything with an infinite regress, because all you are doing is pushing the reason for doing something off into the deep, dark past.
Let me flesh this out with an example. I have chosen to write this blog entry on the subject of free will. But the reason I did is as a result of a whole range of other choices, such as, for example, proposing to my fiancee who put this particular bug in my ear a couple weeks ago. (One of the several thousand things I love about her is the fact that we have these intense conversations about stuff like this.) And the ideas that I am raising are a result of things like the books I have read and the instruction I received at university. And, in turn, I choose to read some books as opposed to others, and to study philosophy at university instead of tool and die making at college.
In other words, if we look at our "free" choices they tend to be the result of a chains of previous choices that are also the result of earlier choices. Each of these previous decisions was also the result of historical happenstances too----courses that were offered in one semester, books that were on sale in a second-hand store, random conversations at parties, etc. The point is that it is hard to reconcile the idea of radical choice with chains of causation.
If, on the other hand, we suggest that decisions are made without the influence of causation, we have another problem. Suppose that we do make decisions "just because". By removing the "reasons" for doing something, the only way we can explain why we do anything at all seems to be random chance. And if we do things totally at random, it is hard to see how this is any freer than simply doing things because we have to. This is because "freedom" seems to include some element of meaning. Personal freedom includes the concept of personal volition, and it is hard to see how people choose one action over another if they do it totally at random.
The deductive argument leaves people stuck with two, equally unappealing positions. They either have to admit that every choice they make is constrained by an infinite number of earlier choices, or, else that their freedom consists of not much more than throwing the dice and accepting what comes up. The inescapable result is that there seems to be at least some element of inevitability in our behaviour.
As Harris rightly points out, if we accept that there seem to be at least severe limitations on people's ability to freely choose one course of action over another in any given situation, then this makes a mockery of the whole concept of "guilt" or "innocence". This, in turn, wreaks havoc with the notion of "justice". How can we call someone "guilty" if we admit that if he had had a different set of circumstances leading up to him "choosing" to commit a crime, he would have chosen differently? Similarly, how can we say that a punishment is "just" if we admit that it appears that the person being judged seems to have been pretty much doomed to commit the act. Punishment just seems like a gratuitous act added onto an already tragic chain of events.
"Tori" Stafford
I've been thinking especially hard about this issue since there has recently been a court trial that involves an especially sad crime. In my home town, across the street from my little brother's house there was a family that included a very cute little girl. Her name was Victoria Stafford, but the media instantly shortened her name to "Tori". As you can see, she was impossibly cute. (I feel a little ashamed perpetuating this disgusting exercise in sentimentality, but I'm hoping that the point of this essay will justify adding my bit to the mountain of vile exploitation.) One day she disappeared on her way home from school.
Terri-Lynne McClintic
Michael Rafferty
At first the police put their spotlight on her parents but eventually some video camera footage was found of little Victoria being led off by a stranger in a "puffy" down jacket. Eventually this led to the arrest of a woman by the name of Terri-Lynne McClintic. She, in turn, led the police to Victoria's body and a man by the name of Michael Rafferty.
From what I've seen in the press, it seems to be that McClintic is a woman who is totally devoid of any self-esteem who seems to believe that she is totally doomed. As the medieval Catholics would say, she is consumed with "despair", which was considered the worst of the deadly sins because once you are in the grip of it, you give up even trying to be a good person. Rafferty, on the other hand, seems to be someone who is consumed with sexual desire and who has been damaged by learning how easy it is for a good-looking man to manipulate women. This strikes me as a tremendously toxic mix as it connects a woman who is willing to be used as a tool with man who is able and willing to use her to pursue perverted desires.
The trial is over now, both Rafferty and McClintic have been sentenced to life sentences. What really creeps me out is the way the media has been falling over itself to report people's "jubilation" that "justice has been served". This sickens me. Stafford is still dead, and two other people's lives have been totally ruined. I feel absolutely no sense that anything worthwhile has happened. One of the few takes I have on this trial that does make some sense to me came from a crime reporter from the Globe and Mail. He calls Rafferty an "empty, hollow psychopath".
I'm not a psychiatrist and neither is the reporter who made that statement. But from what I can tell from the Wikipedia article on "psychopathy" , there seems to be a genetic trait that results in people becoming predators on the rest of society because, among other things, they get bored really easily, tend to aggression and violence, are very good at manipulating people, and, are not be afraid of getting caught if they break the law. Most importantly, they don't have any sort of internal moral compass. That is to say, they know in some sort of theoretical sense that torturing little girls to death in order to get your rocks off is a bad thing, but they don't feel any sort of emotional revulsion at the actual act of doing so.
This last point is important, because the legal definition of "insane" doesn't apply to this situation. An "insane" person has to be someone who is so out of their heads that they didn't even understand what was happening. One Canadian example that occurred recently involved a fellow on a Greyhound bus who was convinced that a fellow passenger was a demon sent from Hell, so he cut his head off in front of a busload of horrified onlookers. The killer was declared insane, didn't stand trial and was sent to a mental hospital instead. (He is now on medication and has responded so well to treatment that he has recently been granted day parole.)
But I find this distinction pretty hard to accept. It seems to me that a person's emotional response to a given situation is pretty tightly wound up with whether or not someone really does understand whether it is "right" or "wrong". It seems pretty obvious to me that ethical statements are always emotive (i.e. "emotional") in nature, otherwise they simply wouldn't be "ought" statements but would instead be "is" ones. (This is the classic definition of the difference between moral statements and statements of facts.)
Moreover, there seems to be a genetic component to psychopathy. Scientists seem to have discovered different hormonal and brain physiology qualities between psychopaths and the general public. Moreover, there is an evolutionary explanation for the existence of psychopathy. Male psychopaths have an enhanced ability to reproduce in human society because their lack of empathy and ability to manipulate allows them to seduce a great number of women and spread their genes throughout the population without having to worry about supporting the children.
Sadly, there is no way to treat psychopaths. At one time talk therapy was tried, but it proved to be counter productive in that all that happened was that the patients learned how to be even more manipulative in their dealings with others. And one of the symptoms of psychopathy is an immunity to punishment----jail or even the death penalty are simply not credible threats. But just because we cannot help them, doesn't mean that we need to exult in their being found guilty. They are products of forces over-which they have no more control than the forces that shape our lives. It is just that they are dangerous. As Sam Harris would argue, we don't feel hatred against hurricanes or tornadoes, but we do take steps to protect ourselves from them. In a similar way, we need to lock up criminals to protect ourselves, but we don't need to think that we are in any sense "superior" to them.
So what has all of this to do with Daoism? A fair amount, oddly enough.
I've been scanning through A. C. Graham's translation of the Liezi and as luck would have it, I read chapter 6, "Endeavour and Destiny". As Graham points out in the introduction, the authors of the Liezi are arguing for a fatalistic worldview. This position is in contrast with the Mohists who felt that virtue was rewarded by Heaven, and the Confucians who felt that while Heaven was often indifferent to people's behaviour, we are still able to decide to do good. The Liezi's point of view is that whatever controls our fate is completely and utterly indifferent to our well-being, so there is no hope of good being rewarded. Moreover, the book argues that people's reactions come from their innate nature, which is unchangeable.
In the case that I have mentioned above, it is certainly the case the little Victoria Stafford could not have done any sort of evil thing that would justify her awful fate. With regard to McClintic and Rafferty, Liezi would argue that they never really did have any chance to avoid their behaviour. She was doomed to be putty in someone else's hands, and, Rafferty was doomed play out his anti-social tendencies.
The only response that Liezi suggests is for people to understand that they are doomed to their fate and to accept it graciously. In one of the examples, two men are contrasted: Pei-kung-tzu and Hsi-men-tsu. The latter has the "golden touch" and prospers in everything he does. The former has the opposite effect, everything he tries to do fails. Eventually, this Pei-kung-tzu becomes bitter and asks why their fates are so different. The sage Master Tung-kuo argues that the only real difference is luck and nothing else.
The effect that this has on Pei-kung-tzu is profound, however. As Liezi says
When Pei-kung-tzu got home, the coarse wool he wore was as warm as the fur of fox or badger, the broad beans served to him were as tasty as rice or millet, the shelter of his thatched hut was as shady as a wide hall, the wicker work cart on which he rode was as handsome as an ornamented carriage. He was content for the rest of his life, and no longer knew which was honoured and which was despised, the other man or himself. (p124)
For the Daoist, the only real control that we have over life is how we mentally react to it.
Oddly enough, I would argue that that isn't exactly true. How we react to the teachings of Daoism is also a function of who we are, which is determined by fate. Master Tung-kuo understood this point, for he said of Pei-kung-tzu he was "a man to whom you need to speak only once is easily awakened."
So like those pretty girls I saw on the street, and like Michael Rafferty, I too am controlled by my fate. I am doomed to pass on these little nuggets of wisdom that have come down to us from ages past. This isn't merely "fancy speaking". I have been absolutely obsessed by this blog post for about a week. To me, thinking and writing about these sorts of things are as important as food and sleep. I'm just glad that this is such a harmless obsession---there are far more horrible ones.
Life is a strange journey sometimes. I was born into a small-town, farming family in Southern Ontario, in Canada. But I've always been attracted to oriental philosophy. I joined a taijiquan club when I was a young man and a strange Chinese immigrant initiated me into his Daoist lineage without my really understanding what I was getting into.
That happened about thirty years ago. The man has since died and I have nothing to do with his temple. But the path he started me on has become my life as I work out what it means to be a Western Daoist in the 21st century.
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