Will all Muslims be caught in the backlash against Islamists?

January 28, 2009 — xanthippa

This post can stand on its own, but it is a loose continuation of my rant from yesterday:  Actions and reactions

In my never-humble-opinion, we are dealing with several things which overlap and muddle all discussions when we discuss ‘freedom of speech’, Islam and the now inevitable clash between the two.  Here is my little breakdown:

1. Islamists – those for whom Islam is not just a religion, but a political movement bent on dominating the world (it is wrong to dismiss the things people say they believe – and want to do, even if it sounds outrageous to our sensibilities).

2. Muslims – these are people for whom Islam is a religion.  It includes people for whom it is nothing more than their personal faith and who wish nothing more than to live in a free, democratic society.  It also includes all the Islamists.

3. Islamists make claims and demands on behalf of all Muslims, whether all Muslims agree with them or not.

4. Making claims and demands is perfectly OK. I know I make enough of them!

5. Legislators are satisfying and accommodating these claims and demands.  This is wrong.

Even if the Islamists DID have a mandate to speak for all Muslims (which they do NOT) it is unwise to grant any demands for special privileges to any group within a democracy, because this sets up official ‘classes of citizenship’. (Do we really want to follow the example of Malaysia, where there is one ministry to deal with the rights of non-Muslim women and then a secretariate to deal with the rights and welfare of only Muslim women, with no agencies permitted to participate in both?)

Also, accommodating the Islamists sets them up as ‘community leaders’ and this special status empowers the individual Islamist leaders.  It physically, financially (as government programs for the community are often administered through them) and psychologically gives them the ability to control most of the Muslims in their community.  Not only is very unfair to those moderate Muslims who want to enjoy democracy, it also, in a very real way, creates a parallel governance structure which is independent of the national government and free to pursue its own goals (which are often not compatible with the national government’s goals of maintaining terittorial sovereignity, and so on.)  

6. By setting Muslims apart from society, and giving them a special, privileged status (real or perceived), a strong resentment against all members of this perceived special group will necessarily happen.  That is human nature – people resent being treated (even if this is just a false perception) as second-class citizens, and, if they feel unable to change the governance structure which instituted this inequity, they will turn their resentment against the privileged group.   This is dangerous.

I am in no way saying this is right, or should be happening.  Rather, I am lamenting that human nature dictates that this is inevitable.

Let us look at what is happening in Europe now. No, let’s not dwell on the players: that is minutia. Let us examine the bigger forces behind the action….

The European Union (EU) has adopted many of the ‘multicultural’ attitudes from the UN.  The UN has, over and over, accommodated lobbying from the Organization of Islamic Conference to accord special status to religions in general and to Islam in particular.  And, regardless of the fact that the Western society is deeply rooted in the European renaissance – whose very existence began by criticizing religion and removing blasphemy from the criminal code… the EU has re-criminalized blasphemy.

In Holland, Geert Wilders, a sitting MP, is criminally charged. The prosecution charged him with making anti-Muslim statements. Wilders claimed he made true, supportable statements and quoted Muslim leaders. Wilders won, the charges get thrown out of court. The prosecution appealed. The appeals court – which over-rules the lower court in every way – ruled (on the day after President Obama’s inoguration – so the mainstream media focus would be elsewere) that the charges should not have been dropped and that the politician must face prosecution in that lower court because he is, in the appeals court’s opinion, guilty and must be punished.

You don’t have to be an accomplished jurist to understand the situation here. The lower court was told by its boss that this guy must stand trial because he is guilty.  So, they have to try him and find him guilty. Even if they do not, the appeals court will over-rule them.  Do you think there is even a tiny possibility this can be an impartial trial?

In Austria, Sussane Winter, a sitting MP, was actually convicted of ‘insulting Islam’.  24,000 Euros in penalties (I wonder what her court costs were in addition to the fine) and a suspended 3 month prison term. Her statements may have been phrased differently, yet the substance of what she said is in complete agreement with what the leading Muslim scholars are saying.

If re-criminalizing blasphemy is not going to plunge Europe into another era of ‘Dark Ages’, then what I found out while digging about on this definitely will!

The story comes from Belgium (and, yes, it does make on recount the Monty Python skit about the contest for the most insulting thing to call a Belgian…).

There, only a few years ago, some very, very strange stuff was happening indeed.

First, I must declare my political bias here – I deplore separatist parties. Frankly, I think it is wrong for a party to be in Parliament, if its main goal is to break up the state. Yet, if this party’s representatives are elected into parliament, I would never prevent them from representing their electorate. In this case, subverting the will of the electorate would be a greater wrong.

OK

In Belgiun, there is was a separatist party of an ethnic minority. This party was – from what I have read – not too nice. But, what happened to it – that is even more ‘not nice’. It would appear that the Belgian Parliament actually passed some laws whose sole purpose it was to make this minority party illegal.

Scary?

Not as scary as what followed…

The party ‘cleaned up’ – at least, on the outside, changed its name (slightly) and is now growing in popularity.

GROWING IN POPULARITY!

Is this the beginning of the backlash?

And if it is, will ALL Muslims be caught up in it, not just the Islamists???  I certainly hope not!!!

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Fascism now rules ‘The West’

January 13, 2009 — xanthippa

First, let me state clearly and unequivocally that this post has nothing to say about the (so euphemistically called) ‘conflict’ currently under way in Gaza.  The particulars of the conflict and those involved in it are irrelevant to what this post is meant to address.  It could be any conflict, anywhere, between any groups: atrocities or not…. 

Instead, this is a story about how we, in ‘The West’, have woken up to find ourselves in a fascist police state.  The official government position – as enforced by the police – is truly frightening.

No, we cannot see it everywhere – yet.  But, we do see it.

No, the grip is not a stronghold – yet.  But, it is unmistakably there, and it is tightening.

No, most of us have not felt it – yet.  But, some of us have… and if it can happen to some of us, it can happen to all of us!

Please, consider the following:

  1. In Germany, police enter an apartment without a warrant while the occupants are not home and remove ‘offensive material’ . (Hat tip:  Breath of the Beast)  I do not care what material they removed or why it was ‘offensive’ – it was not illegal.  When police abandon the rule of law and due process – for whatever reason, we all have reason to fear for our safety.
  2. In Alberta, Canada – in front of Prime Minister Harper’s constituency office – a man waving a tiny flag is told by police to stop it, or he will be arrested for ‘inciting civil disorder’.  This was not a flag of an outlawed organization of any sort.  The man was not tresspassing, or obstructing traffic.  When the police arbitrarily threaten citizens, who have not broken any laws, with arrest – we all have reason to fear for our safety.
  3. In Montreal, Canada (still), the police fail to even attempt to take any action whatsoever when a mob incites violence against a group identified by their religious beliefs.  Incinting violence is against the law.  Promoting prejudice against an identifiable group – on the grounds of religion – is also against the law in Canada.  When the police fail to enforce the laws of the land – we all have reason to fear for our safety.
  4. In Toronto, Canada, a protester publicly and loudly utters a death threat against a child – police look on and do not arrest the law-breaker.  When the police arbitrarily fail to enforce laws – and uttering death-threats is a criminal offence – especially when a child is threatened – we all have reason to fear for our safety.

If this is not a clear and unequivocal demonstration that the rule of law is disintegrating, I do not know what is!

Before anybody has a chance to justify unjustifiable acts, citing some crap about ‘being oppressed’ (and that includes people who like to play at ‘oppressed’) and only acting out as a result of social oppression, please, let me tell you a story about a little boy….

I was born and raised in a country occupied by foreign military forces which imposed an oppressive, totaliritarian dictatorship.  The foreign military forces never left:  and were reviled by most of the population.  Even those among the populace who subscribed to the political doctorine of the dictatorship resented the presence of the foreign forces which enforced it.

One day, when I was about 10 years old, I had surgery and had to stay in the Children’s hospital for a while.  I was in a room with 4 beds and 6 kids (2 of the beds had little kids, so, in the highly-rationed medical system which is the hallmark of socialism, there were often 2 kids per bed….I remembered sharing a bed (and not having a pillow or a blanket, because they ‘ran out’) from an earlier stay there. 

I was one of the 2 lucky kids to have a bed to myself (I was pretty big for my age).  The other kid that had a bed to himself was a cute little  boy, about 4-5 years old, who had fallen out of a tree he was climbing – breaking both arms, getting 2 very black eyes and a bit of a concussion.  The Children’s hospital did not allow any visitors, because children would cry when visitors left – yet, my little tree-climbing room-mate’s father was allowed to visit him…

Why?

The dad was a general in the foreign occupying forces!

The little boy lived on the military base, because his dad was one of the highest ranking officers – and thus one of the few ones priviledged enough to keep a wife and a family.  As such, the little boy had never encountered any of us ‘natives’ – and did not speak or understand our language.  The fact that his dad was allowed to visit him caused incredible resentment among the other kids, none of whom were not allowed any visitors (some of us for weeks)…  The fact that he was a son of a general of the foreign occupying forces also caused most of the nurses to greatly resent him – and many refused to speak to him in his language – feighning ignorance – just because of his heritage.

Now, my family was directly targetted for persecution by the political regime whose power stemmed directly from this foreign occupation.  My uncle had the secret service follow him, 24/7, all of his post-invasion life – even to the point of taking photos of everyone who had attended his funeral.  My dad was sent to the uranium mines because he was identified as a ‘potential leader of people against the people’.  My mom was pressured (by threats against me and my ‘continued well-being’) to divorce him.  She resisted.  We were ‘identified as undesirable elements’; enough that from my earliest childhood memories (pre-school), people would forbid their kids to play with me at playgrounds once they learned my name, lest this minimal association is ‘reported’ and prevents these kids from getting an education a decade-and-a-half later…  My teachers (grades 1-5) regularly berated be in front of my classmates, lest they be accused of ‘coddling the child of a political dissident’ – and loose their job or miss out on a promotion…. 

In other words, you could say I had a good reason to resent the ‘occupying forces’ – personally.  And I did – truly, by this age, I truly did.

But, I could not condone the social ostracism this little boy was subjected to!!!

He was little – it was not his fault his dad was a general!!!  He was hurt, concussed, stuck into a place where he did not understand the language – and many people treated him very, very coldly.  I could NOT stand it!!!

I translated for him – whenever I could (and, many of the nurses were ‘shamed’ by this into speaking to him in his native tongue – even if poorly).  Both his arms were broken – and in casts… so, I fed him (it was not the nurses’ job to feed the kids, just to deliver the food…).  When he was frightened, or cried because he missed his mom, I dredged up all the memories of nursery rhymes and little songs and poems in his language and tried to comfort him (he must have been tone deaf, as well, because he seemed to be comforted by my singing). 

At first, I did not know him – and the sight of his father’s uniform filled me with hate!  I am ashamed to admit it now, but it really did.  (Please, remember I was quite young  and deeply hurt myself back then….)  Yet, I KNEW I had to help the little boy!  Not helping a sick, frightened child would have made me less than human!

Until now, I have only told my immediate family about this.  So, why am I sharing this deeply private and emotional event in my life, I cannot but feel very, very vulnerable.

Yet, when I read the shallow justifications of many ‘Canadians’:  ‘These people have been oppressed!” – to excuse the call for the MURDER OF A CHILD – just because this is a child of a perceived oppressor…..  that is just so very, very wrong!!!! 

I cannot explain just how deeply offensive this is to me….

No matter who the child is, no matter what the child’s parents have done – or what his clansmen, co-nationalists or co-religionists have done – NOTHING can justify the call for the murder of a child!!!

Every attempt to justify the murder of any child is not only an insult me, personally, but to every single person who has sufferred oppression – yet did not loose their humanity!!!

(Sorry, I don’t really know how to write a ‘proper’ conclusion to this post…. )

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Religion (definition): part 2

January 9, 2009 — xanthippa
To recap from Religion (definition): part 1 :

Religion is a particular state of mind.  It covers beliefs (faith), convictions and even concepts or principles that humans find note-worthy, worship-worthy or love-worthy.  I attempted to demonstrate that different people define ‘religion’ very differently from each other (and from my above definition), providing example of a school librarian who only considered several sects of Christianity as ‘religion’ (not even covering all of Christianity) and classifying all else as ‘mythology’.  As there is no provision in our society for ‘protection from discrimination on the grounds of mythology’, should everyone define the term as narrowly (or according to their own particular liking), this would effectively place many ‘religions’ outside of legal protection…. 

C.G. Jung’s definition of ‘religion’ (which I happen to like because it is clear, concise and can be workable in both a personal and a legal context – as well as being a definition I think most people could accept), is as follow:

Religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of the mind which could be formulated in accordance with the original use of the word religio, which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors that are conceived as “powers”: spirits, demons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals, or whatever name man has given to such factors in his world as he has found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshiped and loved.

This definition would effectively eliminate the problem which I cited in the ‘librarian’ example – and more.

This definition of religion limits it to a peculiar attitude of the mind:  not the practices or ritualswhich accompany it.

As such, whereever freedom of religion was guaranteed, a person could believe, admit and openly discuss all aspects of their religion freely, without regard to how ‘offensive’ this may be to other religions or to some members of the society.   However, since religion is limited (by definition) to a state of mind – not actions – one could not claim protection under ‘freedom of religion’ laws for taking action which would contravene the laws of the land that person would happen to be living in.  In my never-humble-opinion, drawing a very firm line between ‘beliefs/thoughts/ideas’ and expressing them freely (protected) and actions (not protected) is very, very important.

All actions which contravene the laws of the land – no matter how much rooted in or motivated by ‘religion’ – ought not enjoy any protection under ‘freedom of religion’.

Example:

Human sacrifice is an integral part of many bona fide religions.  From ancient Egypt and other parts of Africa, to China and Japan, to Europe, and the Americas – human sacrifice was an integral part of many religious rituals.  If actions based on religious belief were to be protected under ‘freedom of religion’, any person claiming to subscribe to any one of these religions could commit ritual murder without fear of prosecution or any kind of legal action.  The murderer would be protected under ‘freedom of religion’.

I particularly selected human sacrifice for my example because it is so extreme.  Yet, it is a well documented part of many religious rituals!  If there is a blanket protection for actions based on religious belief, even such extreme acts as ritualized murder would be protected.

In no way am I proposing that this ought to be so.  To the contrary.  I am demonstrating in as strong terms as I can think of that ‘freedom of religion’ must not be allowed to excuse acts which are in breech of secular laws.  OK, so the ‘religious practice’in question need not be as drastic as human sacrifice:  it could be polygamy, ritual rape, paedophilia (child-brides), ritual cannibalism, genital mutilation (male and female) – the list could go on for pages… 

The particulars of the practice are really not important.  The key is that freedom of religion ought to protect one from discrimination based on thoughts, belief, ideas – but must not in any way protect behaviour which contravenes the secular laws of the land.

We must protect everyone’s right to believe and hold ideas freely and openly.  At the same time, we must not allow cries of ‘this is part of my religion’ to protect illegal behaviour:  this would only lead to the hijacking of religions by criminal minded people or those who wish to oppress -or worse. 

It would be wrong of us to allow religions to be abused in this manner.

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Religion (definition): part 1

January 8, 2009 — xanthippa

Another term which is important to define when talking about The Big Picture is ‘Religion’.

This is another one of those words that everybody thinks has a universal definition – but not all these ‘universal definitions’ are congruent…. and some of the differences between the various descriptions are, well, rather substantial.  (Yes, this does make our constitution, which forbids discrimination on religious grounds, rather laughable, as in the absence defining what is meant by ‘religious grounds’, this phrase is worse than meaningles…. it is open to abuse!  Please, don’t get me started on that topic!!!)

Just look at the how (not the what) of the way different people practice religion. 

To some, religion is little more than some surreal principles.  They believe in some undefinible, intangable divine principles that form the universal subconsciousness or, if you prefer, which give the Universe a consciousness of her own.  Or, they call it Mother Nature, or some ‘laws of nature’ which have no perceivable form (personification-able, that is).  To these people, spirituality is important, but religiosity – the rituals associated with these beliefs – may be largely irrelevant.

At the other extreme, there are people for whom adherence to the religious customs and rituals is a much more integral part of their religion than any form of actual belief or even abstract concept of the divine.  We see this in many highly ritualistic religions which dictate daily routines and behaviours onto its practitioners.  I have known Anglicans, Catholics, Jews and Hindus who all practice the rituals of their religion because it supports their perception of their self-identity – or serves and supports others in their community – yet who do not subscribe to the doctorines of their religious dogma. 

Perhaps I should explain what I mean by this:  they are able to abstract moral lessons from their religious teachings and see value (either to their personal growth or things helpful or important to others within their community) in adhering to the religious practices, even though they reject the dogmatic or supernatural aspects of their religions.  (I regard this with great respect – it is the opposite of some peoples’ self-righteous pretense at being religious while missing the ‘greater message’!  That is a subject of its own…)

Yet others both have faith in the dogma of a religion, and adhere to its daily rituals.  The spectrum is about as varied as humanity itself…

Many people in The West think that religion is something which deals with questions regarding the meaning/purpose of life, death, afterlife, God, etc.  And, some religions do that.  However, most religions are not this narrowly limited.  So, what exactly defines religion?  What is common to all the religions ‘out there’?

Well, it depends on whom you ask… and what background they are approaching the subject of ‘religion’ from.

The psychoanalyst (NOT to me mistaken with ‘psycho analyst’) Carl G.Jung defines religion as:

Religion appears to me to be a peculiar attitude of the mind which could be formulated in accordance with the original use of the word religio, which means a careful consideration and observation of certain dynamic factors that are conceived as “powers”: spirits, demons, gods, laws, ideas, ideals, or whatever name man has given to such factors in his world as he has found powerful, dangerous, or helpful enough to be taken into careful consideration, or grand, beautiful, and meaningful enough to be devoutly worshiped and loved.

(Emphasis added by me…  I do have to admit that I copied this definition out in calligraphy and stuck it to the inside of my locker door when I was in high-school – yeah, I know, pathetic!)

So, accortding to Jung, religion is a peculiar attitude of the mind. 

The reason I like this definition is because in a society which allows fredom of thought, freedom of religion is automatic:  you are free to believe – fully, partially or not at all – anything you wish.  Here, freedom of religion becomes a sub-set of freedom of thought and does not require special treatment, privileges or accommodations under the law.

That, in my never-humble-opinion, is very important.  After all, no idea or belief should be accorded greater or lesser protection from persecution, regardless of its nature!  Plus, most oppressors (or would-be oppressors….knowingly or condescendingly) are notorious for defining ‘religious grounds’ in a way that allows them to oppress those whose ideas (religious or otherwise) they do not like! 

Example:  when my older son neared the end of grade 8 and different high-schools were lobbying us to register him to attend them, I visited one of the most highly regarded and very coveted high-schools in Ottawa.  That is when I got a chance to look around the school’s library – and it did indeed contain an impressive selection of books!  When I came to the ‘Religion’ section, there were many, many books on Christianity and Christian philosophy.  Truly, it contained an exhaustive collection of books on all the sects of non-Arian forms of Christianity.  Yet, when I looked for the Torah, the Koran, the Vedas, Tao Te Ching and other texts widely considered ‘religious’, they could not be found….until one came to the ‘Mythology’ section of the library….  Needless to say, we chose to send our son elsewhere.

Obviously, to this particular school’s librarian, only non-Arian forms of Christianity qualified as ‘religion’.  Everything else was ‘Mythology’, and would not deserve protection under Canadian constitution which bans ‘discrimination on the basis of religion’ – but does not protect against ‘discrimination of the basis of mythology’….  I’m sorry about the circuitous description, but, I do hope I explained by point clearly:

According to this librarian, only non-Arian forms of Christianity qualified as ‘religion’ and therefore, freedom of religion would only extend to people who subscribed to this narrow group of religious sects.

I’m afraid I prefer Jung’s definition or ‘religion’ to this librarian’s!
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DMCA’s a an instrument of censorship

January 1, 2009 — xanthippa

As 2009 opens, I am encouraged to see that more and more people are waking up to the dangers to the growing trend of censorship of free speech – with the dangers this entails!

It really does not matter who it is that is attempting to impose censorship of free speech:  it is the attempt itself that must be opposed, by every freely thinking human being, regardless of their particular world view, philosophy, religion, or whatever else they choose to call their outlook on life!

In Canada, we have seen the insultingly called ‘human rights commissions’ censoring any speech that seems to advance the Christian point of view.  Ezra Levant higlighted this when he demonstrated that publishing the very same words which got a Christian pracher, father Boissoin, a lifetime ban (!!!) on conveying his opinions on marriage and homosexuality (he was, among other things, a marriage councellor, so this, in fact, deprived him of his livelihood). Yet, when Mr. Levant – a Jew – published the very same letter that father Boission had written, he was not persecuted…. 

Thus, Mr. Levant demostrated clearly that it was the speaker’s religious affiliation – not the words he spoke (or published) – which determined his ‘guilt’….

On the other hand, we have the ‘YouTube case’ where several radicalized Christian organizations had abused the Digiatal Millenium Copyright Act in an attempt to censor areligious and anti-rligious voices.  It really is chilling!  Please, join in the fight to stop DMC abuse to impose censorship on this particular forum or free thought:

All of this is not happening in a ‘vacuum’ or in some sort of ‘isolation’.  During this time, the UN has, quietly, decided that it is reasonable to limit freedom of speech in order to suppress ANY SPEECH that would criticize any ‘religion’!  This should strike the fear of censorship into every one of our hearts!

The great philosopher Hypatia had said:

“All forms of dogmatic religions are fallatious and should never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final!”

While I agree wholeheartedly with Hypatia’s sentiment, if it would not be too presumptuous of me, I would like to ‘update’ her statement to encompass the relalities of today:

“All forms of dogmatic doctorines (religious or secular) are fallatious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final – and must never be allowed to form a basis for laws and policies!”

Hypatia’s martyrdom marked the end of the classical era and the onset of the ‘Dark Ages’:  times where thought was replaced by blind obedience to dogmatic doctorine, learning was replaced by ignorance, respect for knowledge was replaced by book-burning and the destruction of all who entertained ‘opposing thought’. 

Are we at similar crossroads now?

Much of what is happening in the world indicates that we just might be. 

Yet, the dawn of 2009 is also bringing to us the beginning of the awareness of the danger of being at such a crossroads!  And, whether it is ‘Christian thought’ which is being censored – or which is attempting to do the censoring – the ‘dogma-affiliation’ (religious or secular dogma, it really makes little difference) is much less important than the action it takes:  censoring free speech and, by extention, free thought!  I really do not care who it is that is the censor, or who is being censored.  

Those are just the details of the larger precedent:  the desire and ability to censor!

This is something we must all stand together to oppose.  I just hope enough of us realize this and, setting aside our doctorinal differences, we lend our voices to the battle which would silence us all!

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Disbelief

December 30, 2008 — xanthippa

Perhaps it seems counterintuitive to define ‘disbelief’ before defining ‘belief’.  Yet, in this case, approaching things ‘from behind’, can allows a definition of what does not constitute belief.  Since belief is such a complex matter, it may, in fact, be effective to define ‘disbelief’ first so as to better focus on the different concepts we all lump together as ‘belief’.

Disbelief is simply ‘absence of belief’.

If I were to present you with the statement:  ‘my great-grandmother’s eyes were blue’, and if you would have no way of knowing if it is true or not (no facts are supplied along with the statement and there are no means for you to obtain the facts/you do not dig for the facts).  You would now be faced with two choices:

 

1. Believe

Having read some of what I have written, you could conclude that I am a reliable source and that if I say that ‘my great-grandmother’s eyes were blue’, then they truly were.  While this particular belief may not alter your life to any significant degree, you  invest your trust into me  and accept the statement at face value. 

You believe that at least one my great-grandmothers indeed had blue eyes.

 

2. Disbelieve

You may find that even though there is no reason for my statement to be false, without any supporting evidence, there just is not enough there for you to believe the statement. 

The following sub-categories of ‘disbelief’ are in not somehow official, scholarly, or in any way learned from any source.  Please, do not consider these divisions as somehow ‘authoritative’ or based on any specific philosophy (something I chose never to train in – but that is tangential to the issue….) – they are just my way of looking at the principle of ‘disbelief’.  Yet, I hope they will help to clarify the concept of ‘disbelief’, because it seems to me to be terribly misunderstood in current popular culture.

  • Tentative acceptance (conditional acceptance) 

You may decide that the information came from a credible source, so it is likely to be true.  You have no reason to doubt it.  Yet, you reserve committing to belief  in the veracity of the statement: if more information were to come along (like, say, a statement from several people who knew my great-grandmothers, or some other unforseen event which provided contradictory data), you would have no problem changing your mind on the matter.

On an intellectual level, in the absence of further evidence, you tentatively accept the statement as true, but you do not putt any emotional investment into its veracity.  Were you to learn that the statement is false, you might change your opinion of me as a source of information, but it would not greatly trouble you.  Though, for now, you may behave as if the statement were true, the absence of any ’emotional investment’ in its veracity means you disbelieve it.

This is why I contend that Pascal’s wager  does not constitute belief, but tentative acceptance.  Therefore, in my never-humble-opinion, it is a form of disbelief:  it is an acceptance on an intellectual level, but not on an emotional one.  The emotional investment is, in my opinion, necessary to constitute ‘belief’.

The tentative/conditional acceptance is what, in scientific terms, is termed a conclusion.  It is similar to belief, but not quite there.  It asserts that according to the best information currently available, this seems likely – it is the best conclusion from currently available information – yet, this conclusion is open to ammendment as additional information comes to light.  This is as close to belief as science ever gets….and, irritatingly (to me, anyway), many scientists refer to their conclusions as beliefs.  In reality, when a scientist replaces conclusions with beliefs, they cease being a scientist!

  • Possibility/probability assessment

Here, instead of believing the statement, or tentatively (conditionally) accepting the premise pending further data as truth, you may entertain its veracity as a distinct possibility.  Perhaps you might even give it a ‘probability rating’ – whether scientific or subjective.  Whether this probability is 1% or 99%, it is still a probability assessment – not a belief.

Back to scientists:  if a scientist assesses a conclusion to have a  high probability of being true, they may express this.  Again, this is not in any way the same as belief:  it is a probability assessment, without the emotional investment necessary to cross the boundary between possible or probable on the one hand and belief on the other.  Irritatingly, many people (including scientists – most of whom are not really all that up on liguistics and the nuances of expressions, and many of whom are rather deaf to ‘social nuances’ to start off with) erroneously lump this position in with belief when they speak about it – yet they do not, in any way, imply belief in the religious sense..

  • Absence of opinion

You may read the statement, file away in your mind that I had made it, but make no conclusion about its veracity.  You simply do not care enough to believe it.  It’s there, you can recall that this statement had been made, but that is really the end of it for you. 

  • Belief in the opposite

OK, I admit it:  I am uncomfortable including belief in the opposite into the category of disbelief.  Why?  Because unlike the other positions, listed above, it involves holding a belief.  Not a belief in the statement itself, but rather, a belief in the opposite of the statement in question.  What would be the opposite?  Here, you might believe that my great-grandmother’s eyes were green or brown, so long as you believe they were not blue.

This is disbelief=withholding belief with respect to the statement in question, even if it is not general disbelief. 

  • Belief in unknowability

Again, I am not happy to include this positive belief in the category of disbelief, but, it must be included because it constitutes disbelief with respect to this statement.  The positive belief held here is that there is no way of finding out whether or not the statement is true:  that the veracity of the statement is unknowable.

 

This is not a perfect division – and I am aware that not everybody will agree with the lines I have drawn up to distinguish belief from disbelief.  Yet, I have attempted to apply logic consistently throughout.  I would welcome any and all comments which would help enrich this discussion.

 Aside:

If you are interested in a great documentary on the topic of disbelief, I would recommend ‘Jonathan Miller’s Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief’.  While I am not sure if I agree with everything he says (I’ve only been pondering it for a little over a year – and I am a slow thinker), it is interesting and thought provoking.  It is available for sale, or order over the internet in various places.

Alternately, the 3-hour series can be found many places on the web…  YouTube has many channels which feature it.  One of them has broken it up as follows:

Part 1.1,   part 1.2,  part 1.3,  part 1.4,  part 1.5,  part 1.6

Part 2.1,  part 2.2,  part 2.3,  part 2.4,  part 2.5,  part 2.6, part 2.7

Part 3.1,  part 3.2,  part 3.3,  part 3.4,  part 3.5,  part 3.6

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Corporate censorship – tip of the iceberg…

December 26, 2008 — xanthippa

‘The Economy of Ideas’ by John Perry Barlow, the co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is an excellent (if a little long – but well worth reading) essay published in 1994 in Wired Magazine.  I would be a visionary essay were it published today!  Here, Barlow warns us that in the coming years, corporate censorship could be the greatest danger to our freedom of speech.

A provocative – but well reasoned – position, to say the least. 

“Throughout the history of copyrights and patents, the proprietary assertions of thinkers have been focused not on their ideas but on the expression of those ideas. The ideas themselves, as well as facts about the phenomena of the world, were considered to be the collective property of humanity.”

…

“Notions of property, value, ownership, and the nature of wealth itself are changing more fundamentally than at any time since the Sumerians first poked cuneiform into wet clay and called it stored grain. Only a very few people are aware of the enormity of this shift, and fewer of them are lawyers or public officials.”

…

“Whenever there is such profound divergence between law and social practice, it is not society that adapts. Against the swift tide of custom, the software publishers’ current practice of hanging a few visible scapegoats is so obviously capricious as to only further diminish respect for the law. “

…

“I believe that law, as we understand it, was developed to protect the interests which arose in the two economic “waves” which Alvin Toffler accurately identified in The Third Wave. The First Wave was agriculturally based and required law to order ownership of the principal source of production, land. In the Second Wave, manufacturing became the economic mainspring, and the structure of modern law grew around the centralized institutions that needed protection for their reserves of capital, labor, and hardware.

Both of these economic systems required stability. Their laws were designed to resist change and to assure some equability of distribution within a fairly static social framework. The empty niches had to be constrained to preserve the predictability necessary to either land stewardship or capital formation.

In the Third Wave we have now entered, information to a large extent replaces land, capital, and hardware, and information is most at home in a much more fluid and adaptable environment. The Third Wave is likely to bring a fundamental shift in the purposes and methods of law which will affect far more than simply those statutes which govern intellectual property.” (my emphasis) 

Barlow makes the case that corporate interests will, if allowed, protect their investment in the ‘ideas’ which are the ‘currency’ of the Third Wave – and that could involve significant curbing of our freedom of expression.

Interestingly enough, I have come across this video (and there are many others which raise this issue) that might just demonstrate a tiny little bit of what Barlow is talking about:

It is something to ponder….

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Scaling up communities

December 16, 2008 — xanthippa

This is a series of posts which are part of The Big Picture – or what is happening in our society.

We can only care – truly care – about a limited number of people at any one time. 

Yes, we can ‘care’ about ‘all of humanity’ and ‘all on Earth’ and ‘all existence’ – but this type of caring is very philosophical, because we cannot possibly know every human being, or every being, or every ‘thing’ around us!  But, we care about all these issues in a more detached way than we care about our parents, kids, or closest friends.

Why?

Perhaps the answer is in how our brain is structured:  the Dunbar number is just about the limit of our ‘Monkey Sphere’ – the better we know someone, the deeper inside our Monkeysphere they get.  This is the reason why the death of a loved one affects us more than the death of someone we have never heard of before – and whose name or specifics we do not know.  My take on this is in Scaling up communities – Part 1. 

As our small, primitive communities grew to larger ones – culminating in our current political structures, called states.  These are much larger than our original communities, so we have had to find new ways of administering our societal structures.  I explored this in Scaling up communities – Part 2.

Yet, our modern ‘states’ are just social and philosophical constructs – and are unable to ‘affect’ anything without the aid of people who act on their behalf.  In Scaling up communities – Part 3, I look at the general concept behind being ‘an agent of the state’.

What happens when the state contracts a class of citizens to perform a certain collection of tasks on its behalf?  Scaling up communities – part 4 looks at what happens when a whole class of citizens who deem themselves ‘independant professionals’ are contracted by the state – as in the case of physicians in a state which provides socialized medicare – and how these professionals are not free to act according to their conscience while they are forced to be nothing other than ‘agents of the state’.

The story is ‘to be continued’ – and updated as it is continued.

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Scaling up communities – part 4

December 12, 2008 — xanthippa

As part of capturing The Big Picture of our society, I have been examining the benefits and costs of scaling up of our communities.

In Part 3, I looked at the establishment of governance structures as a necessity to administer our societies which have scaled up to become states.  The people who enable the governance structures are, in the core meaning of the term, ‘agents of the state’.  (The lead-up posts can be found here:  Part 1 and Part 2.)

The moral dilemma which agents of the state face is simple in its mechanics, but complex in its resolution.  Perhaps it cannot really be satisfactorily resolved – only ‘put up with’, or managed, in one way or another.  And, in a way, this dilemma is also the ‘last check’ on the power of the state…

There is an inherent dichotomy between being an individual – with individual moral views and opinions – and being an agent of the state whose very purpose is to carry out the will of the state.  This cannot be easy, as it is unlikely that every agent of the state will agree with every single policy of the state – yet, it is their job to implement them all.

An ‘agent of the state’ is anyone who is directly hired by the state (civil servant) or who is officially licensed (contracted) by the state to deliver a service on behalf of the state.   (In this series of posts, I use the word ‘state’ in its core meaning:  it could mean provincial, municipal, federal, state, or whatever other political unit has sovereignity of a specific geographic area within a specific sphere of influence.)

This is not the ‘licensing’ – as in certification, where the state accredits someone to practice in a specific field on their own – like, say, plumbers or electricians.  Plumbers and electricians (etc.) may be ‘licensed’ by the state, but their clients contract them privately, not to deliver a government-mandated service.  (There are exceptions, where the state may hire private contractors also licensed to practice by the state, but that is ‘special case’.)

It is a different kind of ‘licensing’.  This kind of licence contracts the licencee to perform services on behalf of the state:  it is this ‘on behalf of the state’ which makes such a licensee an agent of the state. 

When delivering services to its citizens, the government is bound by a different set of rules than a private citizen, or a private business, is (or, at least, it ought to be).  A private contractor may bid on a job – but is not obligated to enter into a contract to pave someone’s laneway in pink interlock brick, if pink annoys him. 

The government already has a pre-existing contract with each citizen to deliver certain services in return for the taxes already levied upon its citizens.  Once a citizen chooses to exercise their part of the contract, the government is obligated to deliver such services.  And, the person who has accepted to be the government contractor is obligated to deliver this.

To put it into different terms:  if I run my own soup shop, I may need a business licence – but it is my shop and I pick what is on the menu.  If, on the other hand, the government got elected on a promise to provide 5 specific kinds of soup in soup kitchens, free to every citizen once a day, and if I get contracted by the government to run a soup kitchen, I cannot then turn around and say I will not make pea soup (that being one of the 5), because it is against my convictions or conscience or whatever!  Either, I open my own shop, and run it pea-soup-free – and get paid by my clients.  Or I accept to be paid by the government, in which case I will indeed be serving pea soup. 

This, of course, translates into areas much more controversial than pea soup….which, by the way, I rather like. 

Socialized healthcare, for instance, is one such area:  each and every physician who does not hand a bill directly to the patient (or their insurance company), but is paid by the state – each one of these physicians is an agent of the state.  And, each and every one of them is obligated to serve pea soup – or prescribe ‘the morning after’ pill, or perform abortions, or whatever other medical procedure the government has agreed to provide to its citizens, as long as the physician is profesionally qualified to perform such services. 

Yes, I know – many of my conservative readers may not like this.  It seems repugnant to many of us that a physician who is opposed to abortion on demand may be forced to prescribe ‘the abortion pill’…. 

I agree – it is WRONG. 

But it is not wrong because the government is forcing the physician to ‘act against their conscience’.  The government is doing no such thing:  the physician had agreed to abdicate his or her personal convictions or beliefs when he or she accepted to act as an agent of the state!

So, the fault does not lie with the demand that agent of the state actually deliver the services they are contracted to. 

The fault lies in forcing physicians be the agents of the state in the first place!

If a physician has a private practice, there is no way a government should be able to compel him or her to perform a procedure the physician does not want to – whether through moral convictions or because the doctor is having a bad hair day.  Independant professionals ought not be compelled to perform services against their will.  

But, it is a completely different situation if the physician is an ‘agent of the state’ … 

If the agents of the state refuse to carry out the very tasks the state has mandated – ones necessary for the state to fulfill its contract to its citizenry, that state will cease to function.  If not remedied, the state will cease to exist. 

This is the ‘last check’ on the state which I mentioned earlier:  by refusing to carry out the will of the state, should the action be too abhorrent, its agents can indeed bring about the end of such a state!

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Scaling up communities – Part 3

December 9, 2008 — xanthippa

We, humans build communities.   As our societies grew, since the dawns of history, so did the size of our communities – and we reaped a lot of benefits from this.  Yet, the ‘scaling up’ process -while raising our standard of living – has some costs associated with it, too…

Part 1  of this series looked at the significance of Dunbar’s number (about 150):  the number of people who comfortably fit into our Monkeysphere (that is, the people we relate to as individuals, rather than statistics).  This is about the maximum size of our community, before we start ‘scaling up’ by perceiving ‘others’ as concepts, rather than individuals….the reason why the suffering of our parent or child ‘touches’ us more than that of a stranger.  

In Part 2 , I tried to demonstrate how scaling our communities up meant heaving to sacrifice some of our individuality (having to interact with more people than can fit into our Monkeyshpere – and whose Monkeyspheres we cannot fit into) but that the benefits of this,  specialization and greater productivity, benefits us by allowing us to reach a higher standard of living.  The side-effect of this scaling up of communities is the emergence of governance structures.  

Here, I would like to look at one of the many implications of scaling governance structures up – and the emrgence of a specific group of people to administer them:  the ‘civil servants’.

I cannot remember which king is said to have uttered:  ‘I AM the State!’ – perhaps there were many.  Yet, most ‘states’ (and here, I use the word state to mean a political association with sovereignity over a defined geographic area) today are not ‘a person’. ‘State’ is a concept which only exists when real flesh-and-blood people act as its agents. 

In other words, a ‘state’ cannot ‘do’ anything ‘physical’, because it is not a corporeal being in and of itself.  A ‘state’ cannot pick up a stapeler, or a gun – or write a constitution.  It is individual people, the agents of the state, who act on behalf of the state:  they carry out the actions necessary to establish the state’s existence and perform the physical actions needed to fulfill the obligations of the state in the social contract between it and the the polulace which created it.

As we have already seen in the earlier parts, as we, humans, get more successful at ‘community building’, our communities get bigger and we can no longer decide each ‘common position’ in the same way we used to:  we no longer know every other member of our society personally, so the methods of the ‘smaller scale community’ are no longer applicable. 

By ‘scaling up’ our communities, through our social contract, we have chosen to give away some of our individual decision-making choices and agreed, in certain areas of our life, to abide by the decisions that ‘the group’ has arrived at.  The group may choose to accept the decisions of its leader, or each citizen may be able to vote on every desision, with the majority opinion becoming binding on the group – or any number of other methods…but that is not the point of this post.

The point I am making is that once this ‘group decision’ is achieved on a specific topic, it becomes the ‘law’ (OK, I am simplifying the process – but not the principle) or ‘policy’ of the ‘state’.  This ‘group decision’ is implemented/enacted/put into practice/fulfilled through the governance structures of the state – with ‘the civil servants’ acting as ‘the agents of state’ who carry out the actions necessary to enact (enforce, fulfill, etc.) it.

In democratic systems – and I am specifically referring to our ‘Western Democracies’ – it is not likely that every citizen will agree fully with every ‘law’ or ‘policy’ of the state.  And, in our Western systems, that is a good thing, because it is through open debate that we grow.  (OK, so this bit is more theoretical, lately, than most of us would like, but in principle…)

And this is where we run into a real problem, a bit where the ‘scaling up’ of our community creates a moral dilema:  what happens when the civil servants – the very agents whose actions are the only means for the state to act in order to fulfill its social contrats with its citizens – what happens when these agents of the states personally disagree with what they are obligated to implement?

While they are ‘off the clock’ as private citizens, they have every right to be the individuals they truly are.  Yet, while they are acting as agents of the state – what should govern their behaviour?  Their inividual views and opinions, or the policies/laws the society has agreed to accept? 

Difficult question, to say the least.

IF they should follow the ‘social contract’ mindlessly, they risk becoming the very agents of injustice, of ‘tyranny of the majority’ – and atrocities like the Holocaust could NOT have happened without ‘agents of the state’ refusing to enact immoral policies, blindly putting into practice the unthinkable.  Never again!

On the other hand – what happens if the majority of the citizens approve a just law, yet one which is not favourable to the civil servants?  What if it is designed to protect a minority – but not a minority that (for some unknown reason) the majority of civil servants do not respect?  Or, what if it is meant to curb the intrusion of civil servants into citizens’ lives?  It is not unprecedented that most of the agents of the state would be morally opposed – or, at least, personally unwilling – to bring these policies/laws into practice…

So, where does the balance lie? 

At which point should the civil servants set aside their individuality – and their morality – in order to perform the will of the group?

Difficult question, to say the least.

Without the civil servant’s denial of their individual morality, while acting as agents of the state, the state cannot effect its will – and so it will effectively cease to exist.  Yet, without applying their ‘morality’ to their actions, the civil servants may be empowering immoral laws or policies.

Where does the balance lie?

In my never-humble-opinion, the civil servants are the ‘last check’ on the state:  they cannot but evaluate their own actions based on their personal morality.  Yet, while they are acting as agents of the state, they may not act upon this personal morality.  It is up to them to weigh the balance between continuing to act as agents of the state – or not.  If they choose to no longer act as agents of the state, they must abdicate their role of ‘agent of the state’….

In other words, if enough civil servants resign over moral objections by refusing to enact the will of the state, the state will cease to exist.  This must be a heavy weight on the conscience of each and every civil servant!

Return to ‘The Big Picture’

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