Epicurean, Epidurean…paradoxes everywhere!

February 24, 2008 — xanthippa

As far as Greek philosophers go, Epicurus was pretty O.K. 

Contrary to the customs of his era, he allowed women as students in his school.  Though there is absolutely no historical fact to justify this, I would love to think that the legendary Xanthippe (of whom he most certainly knew) and her famous debates versus Socrates, may have influenced him in this.  After all, his philosophy was not really all that far removed from hers (at least, the few little bits of her philosophy that have survived).

But, unlike Socrates, who was busy gazing at the navel of his immortal soul, Epicurus saw humans as having physical, intellectual, spiritual and social needs:  the ideal, then, was to strike a harmonious balance in one’s life.  Frankly, this seems almost too reasonable an opinion to be held by a ‘philosopher’! 

After all, where is the brooding, the derisive scowl at the cares of the world – isn’t that the image the word ‘philosopher’ is supposed to evoke?  I bet his ‘reasonableness’ cost him a lot of ‘pretentiousness points’ among the lofty circles…

 

He would likely have been written off and forgotten, had he not also voiced some very provocative ideas.  Most (though certainly not all) of his contemporaries aspired to the creed of monotheism, describing God in a way modern day Christians would recognize:  omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent towards mankind, his creation. In the still predominantly polytheistic environment, this idea – coupled with the notion Socrates had taught of the immortality of one’s soul – seemed very deep and mystical.  Yet, Epicurus directed some very pointed questions at this creed…and none of them have been satisfactorily answered as yet!

 

            Is God willing to prevent evil, and not able?

                        Then he is not omnipotent.

            Is He able, but not willing?

                        Then he is malevolent.

            Is God both able and willing?

                        Then whence cometh evil?

            Is He neither able, nor willing?

                        Then why call him God?

                                                –     Epicurus, 341-271 BCE

This is perhaps the most famous group of his questions and has been handed down to us under the name the ‘Epicurean riddle’, or the ‘Epicurean paradox’.  It has been much paraphrased over the millennia, but the above is one of my favourite renditions.

People say that pain can, at times, bring ‘things’ into a sharp focus.  This was true for me, as I deeply questioned every single one of my life’s decisions, whiling away the endless hours of late-stage labour.  Truly, I came to question everything!

And then, it occurred to me:  in order to make people (especially female people) truly comprehend the meaning of the Epicurean paradox, perhaps I could re-phrase it into terms that had more immediate impact on our lives.  It’s almost as if the words came to me of their own volition:

Is God is truly omniscient?  Then He must know the pain of childbirth! 

And if He is also omnipotent, and he did not invent ‘the epidural’ waaaay before inventing this whole childbirth thing, then he is most certainly not benevolent!

I like to think of this as the Epidurean paradox!

I would go on, but I don’t want to belabour the point….

Posted in atheism, human nature, ignosticism, philosophy, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »

How we argue

February 23, 2008 — xanthippa

One of the best teachers ever (I’ve had more than my fair share) was my grade 10 English teacher. Yet, he had this one fault that was totally destroying his reputation with the students. Whenever he returned marked tests or materials to us, a long queue would form by his desk and he’d let people bully him into raising their marks! After weeks of working up my courage, I finally waited for him after class and poured my heart out…

His smile totally stunned me! When he saw the look of incomprehension on my face, he explained: “I’m not letting them bully me into anything. I’m teaching them how to use English to prove their point! While they stand in line, they prepare their argument. If they do it well, they earn marks for their oral presentation. English is a living language: it needs to be spoken, with passion. So, I reward a well presented oral argument. But ‘the system’ does not allow me to give marks for this….so I just tack them on to the tests!”

A teacher who actually valued a ‘good argument’! This put things into a brand new light, in one of those ‘paradigm shifts’…

Yet, he forbade me from telling anyone what he’s doing. This really struck me: if they knew they were being tested, the kids would argue differently (if at all) then when they thought they were just arguing!

Ever since then, I paid closer attention to HOW people argue.

Yes, of course, much depends on the person: but even considering the same guy or gal, there is a big difference in how people argue…depending on what is at stake.

And I use the ‘at stake’ to apply in a myriad of ways. Let me break out a few (yes, many overlap, and this list is by no means exhaustive) of these:

The Positioning Argument
The outcome will affect some position (even just a little one) of their life….from a test mark to getting that refund to not getting cheated out of a deal….

The Personal Competition Argument
This could start out as any other type or argument, but grow an edge: now it’s personal! The original issue becomes secondary to beating the other ‘guy’.

The Professional Argument
There is a definite stake in the outcome argument. Yet, it is not personal and the topic does not necessarily represent a deep personal investment.

The Detached Argument
This could be a purely ‘fun’ or ‘no personal stake’ argument, where neither side cares about winning or loosing…the argument is perhaps more closely related to common brainstorming. In other words, neither side has put an emotional stake onto any of the positions discussed, even if the outcome may have an impact. So the many points presented can be examined and debated without the fear of ‘loosing’.

The Scientific Argument
Perhaps it is a special case of the ‘detached argument’, because in a scientific argument, the outcome is not something one has a personal investment in. Yet I think it deserves a separation because it is more rigid, uses words in a more technical way than common speech, and requires very specific type of proof…only objective, scientific proof, to be specific.

The Philosophical Argument
This is another such special case of the ‘Detached Argument’, or at least, can be, because the language may be used in very different ways from common speech. However, the ‘Philosophical Argument’ can easily stray from its ideals and escalate into a ‘Faith Argument’.

The Faith Argument
A very personal argument, which involves one’s beliefs or faith or some deeply-adhered to dogma: very high stakes, deep personal and emotional investment…. These arguments can start very philosophically, and may also end very amicably. However, if the ‘Faith Argument’ escalates, it can become very unpleasant….people are not usually comfortable having their faith/beliefs/dogma challenged. And, if the argument is so structured that loosing it will be perceived as an invalidation of these deeply held beliefs, faiths or dogmas, it might get bitter indeed.

The ‘Look at me’ Argument
Designed not to argue, or win, simply to demonstrate one’s cleverness and/or superiority…

The Dismissive Argument
This is the ‘your argument is so pathetic/unreasonable/unworthy/stupid, I’m not even going to acknowledge it’ argument…. May appear arrogant, but then again, when done well, it can be very effective. By preventing the opposing side from being heard (either by shouting them down before debate starts, or by prejudicing the audience against them), it wins the argument by default. This would be the type of thing debunked by the child’s cry of ‘the Emperor has no clothes’…. if you’re the type of person who’d take an uneducated child’s word for things, that is….

The ‘Smarter than you and I’ Argument
This is a combination of ‘Faith’ and ‘Dismissive’ arguments and something all of its own. In essence, it states that neither person doing the arguing is qualified to evaluate the points presented, but that someone who is qualified (some higher power or intelligence) had made a determination, so that is the only acceptable position. This one is hard to argue against, because one is dismissed on faith…

Perhaps these are somewhat artificial divisions, but they make sense to me. But what is more, I use them as a tool: when I am observing an argument or a debate (like, say, on ConvinceMe.net), seeing HOW the different people argue will tell me a lot… Not only will it say a lot about how the arguing parties relate to the topic under discussion, it also provides an insight into the way the debate is likely to evolve…and how to calm it down (if that would be called for).

Of course, I would never advocate using these observations to heat up the debate….unless it really needed ‘livening up’!

Posted in debate, human nature, language, philosophy. Tags: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Am I black or am I white?

February 21, 2008 — xanthippa

OK, sounds pretentious, but…what if, one day, you realized that people with whom you identified ethnically thought you an outsider?  A few years back, my (then) neighbour told me she had had to come to terms with exactly that…

 

At that time, my son was still a toddler, and her daughters (only a few years his seniors) thought him a doll.  They would play with him endlessly, and he ate it up:  big girls like me, Mom!  And as is neighbourly, we would often chat as we watched them play.

This lady had many interesting stories.  She was ‘black and proud of it’!  Her origins were Caribbean, but she grew up in North America and derived a lot of her strength and self-identity from the achievements of great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  She used to get mad when people would use endless euphemisms to avoid saying the word ‘black’ or ‘negro’, demanding that those are beautiful words, and nobody should shame them.  You get the picture.

Her husband was also an immigrant, who came here from Western Africa.  One day, she told me that when they first got married, they decided to visit his family in Africa so that he could introduce her to his parents.  Wonderful, his parents loved her, she loved them, all went better than they had hoped for.  My friend told me she felt newly alive, reconnecting with her (generations removed) African heritage.

Yet, it was there, in that small African village, that she had to face this existential crisis.

One day, she was walking to the market, and the usual crowd of kids were running after her, calling out happily.  After all, they were not used to many visitors from so far away – and they were happy and friendly.  But, by this point, my friend had learned enough of the local language to understand what they were calling out:

“There goes the white lady!” and “The white lady smiled at me!” and so on…

At first she looked around, thinking there must be another visitor:  but no.  In their eyes, she was ‘the white lady’!

My neighbour laughed as she told me this story.  But she added seriously, until that day, she never realized that the lighter shade of her skin would make her appear ‘white’ to black African kids.  And that she kept thinking about this, for years….

Oh, don’t get me wrong:  having re-examined who she was, she came out strong and laughing.  But, next time you look into the mirror, ask yourself: if people suddenly saw you as the opposite of who you think you are, would you be able to come through it laughing?

All of us humans came from Africa at some point…   

Posted in human nature, immigrants, philosophy, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Cultural Tolerance – Part 3: HOW we ought to tolerate

February 20, 2008 — xanthippa

Everyone is calling for ‘tolerance’ these days.  But, really deep down, what do we mean?

It seems to me that there are several different types of ‘tolerance’, and they don’t all mean the same thing.  There is a whole spectrum of ‘tolerance’!  Let me highlight the ‘good extreme’ and the ‘bad extreme’, with the understanding that most of the time ‘tolerance’ – as practiced in our society –  falls somewhere in between the two.  I just hope we’ll try to aim towards the ‘good’ end of the spectrum…  

 

 

The ‘GOOD tolerance’ 

I suspect that is what most of us mean when we say ‘tolerance’.  This form is the ‘respectful tolerance’, and it requires that both sides ‘acknowledge the differences’ and then CHOOSE to respect the choices the others make.

 

That is by no means easy.  All sides (this is never as easy as just two or three sides) have to take the time and effort to actually educate themselves on other peoples’ views and beliefs, then consider each others’ positions objectively, then judge ‘the other sides’ to be worthy of respect….and that is not always possible.  For, how can one truly respect a view or belief which may be contrary to one’s core values?

 

The answer, of course, is with an utmost exercise of self-control and intellectual detachment…but remember, this is one of the extremes, an ideal we ought to aspire to live up to.

 

 

The ‘BAD tolerance’ 

This tolerance is not nice tolerance at all.  It is the dismissive kind:  ‘oh, let them do their thing, we could never hope to civilize them’ kind of tolerance…  ‘Oh, why would we want to bring democracy there, these people are just too backward – they could never understand equality.’  ‘Their women don’t know any different, so why give them ideas of what we live like – they’re just too tribal to change.’  You know, this is the ‘they could NEVER be equal to US’ tolerance….which permeates the separatist and racist underbellies of every society.

 

Not only does it dismiss the side ‘to be tolerated’, it treats people as unworthy of the expectations that one has of the members of a civilized society….  It inevitably leads to the alienation and isolation of the ‘tolerated’ side, socially and eventually economically, forcing them to become second class citizens.  It is dispicable!

This position is difficult to eradicate for two major reasons:  one, it is often deeply held, because it makes the person holding such views feel somehow ‘superior’ and way more ‘special’;  it is also often really hard to recognize, because it is so adept at masking itself…as real, proper, respectful tolerance!

What is even worse is that among those who practice this ‘patronizing tolerance’, there are often despicable busybodies who consider their actions to be noble, a showcase of how tolerant we all ‘ought to’ be, wrapping themselves in ‘the cloak of righteousness’.  These busybodies wreak havoc in many ways. 

One of the most destructive is by appointing themselves the ‘guardians’ of those ‘to be tolerated’.  In this role, they look for ways in which the ‘mainstream culture’ differs from the original culture of the unfortunates whom they’ve decided to ‘shield’, and demands exemptions for them.  This may be from sport-team rules and other minor things to cultural practices, or even to exempt them from some actual laws of the land.  Of course, this may please some of the newest arrivals (or those within the immigrant community who wish to control them), but overall, it denies the newly arrived immigrants the right and the very ABILITY to integrate, bullying them into perpetuating the very cultural practices they are trying to escape from by coming here….

Another extremely destructive thing these ‘busybodies’ do is to bully the mainstream culture into tolerating all kind of excesses perpetrated by some people in the ‘target minority’, into tolerating behaviours unacceptable by our laws and our cultural standards.  This, of course, is done in the name of ‘educating us all’ to the ‘sensitivities’ we must be mindful of when we tolerate these excesses and illegal behaviours….

How could this unwelcome and obstructive meddling do anything but breed resentment on all sides?  How could we all be blind to it?  How could we allow ourselves to be duped and bullied by these busybodies?

It would be naïve to think that we can ever fully get rid of the ‘bad tolerance’…it’s part of our human nature.  But, could we not try to minimize it?  Could we not try to aspire to actually respect each other?  Could we not hope to reach higher on the ‘kind of tolerance’ spectrum?

Gosh, I hope I’m not too naïve for hoping we can!

Posted in freedoms, human nature, immigrants, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Dogged by Dogma

February 10, 2008 — xanthippa

One thing that we humans do is ‘form communities’.  Extended families, neighbourhoods, professional associations, sports leagues, interest groups, church socials, nations, virtual debating site memberships – these are all communities formed by people through sharing common experiences.  It validates our sense of ourselves to be connected to other individuals and we feel most connected to those who have similar experiences and opinions as we do.  We even define our ‘self’ by the communities to which we belong.

 Each of these communities is unique in space, time and experience.  The ways their people interpret these common experiences affect the ‘facts’ of their ‘reality’:  the general assumptions about the world.  This is reflected in the way they use language, imbuing it with nuances and shades of meaning. 

 For example, the phrase ‘Three Kings’ may evoke a different image  in a Christian Bible study group than it might during a friendly card game.  Over time, some phrases which reflect certain key ‘common experiences’ turn into ‘presumptions’ which become more and more entrenched as they are repeated. 

 On and on, these become ‘unspoken truths’.  All new experiences are seen through this ‘truth’s’ perceptual prism.  And since the brain’s input has been filtered through this prism, the brain processes it that way – and concludes that the ‘truth’ is confirmed as ‘real’.  It is a circular cycle, a self-reinforcing process:  presumed ‘truth’ affects the way we perceive things, and our perceptions confirm this ‘truth’. 

 The ‘truths’ become so ‘common sense’, they are never questioned:  eventually, they become unquestionable.  Not because one would not dare to question them, at least, not at first.  Rather, it simply does not occur to anyone to question them. 

 They have now become dogma.

 And some people are happy to live in this way.  They are satisfied to be a member of their community, they are secure in their opinions and experiences, validated by their peers.  No problem there.

 What happens when, as is the nature of some of us, there comes along an individual who questions?  Who does not find anything to be ‘self-evident’?  Who is not able to believe – and more and more people today are daring to admit that they simply lack the ability to believe – and who dares to question the dogma and arrives at different conclusions?  Or even worse, what if this community encounters another community, one whose dogma is at odds with their own? 

 Human reactions have, in this regard, been very consistent.  We usually:
 
1. Silence the individual. 

2. Ridicule/denigrate or destroy the other community’s dogma. 

3. Find self definition and ‘specialness’ in our own community’s dogma. 

I plan to ‘jump around’ in my blog topics a little – having the attention span of a 2-year-old, I get distracted a little.  Yet, over the next little while, I will examine each of these very human reactions and post my musings on them.

Posted in human nature, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

What is ‘Fascism’?

February 6, 2008 — xanthippa

Thank you for indulging me in a purely fun philosophical musing on the nature of thought and existence…which, if I am not mistaken, established a consensus that my own existence is defined by ‘being annoying’ rather than by ‘thinking’ … implied feedback loop, and all – and don’t go saying that it’s an infinite loop…   :0)      

So, please, let me move now to other topics:  less abstract, but hopefully no less thought provoking….  I promise to stay as annoying as ever! 

Children say the ‘darndest’ things…and ask the toughest questions.  Except that I didn’t realize this one would be a ‘tough question’.   

After all, ‘everyone’ knows what ‘fascism’ is, right?  Jackboots and swastikas and Italian right wing dictators – images of WWII appear before our eyes and we know EXACTLY what ‘fascism’ is.  Except…when I got asked this question, I found verbalizing the answer was nowhere as easy as my mental picture made me think it would be. 

Italian fascism (under Mussolini) was a ‘right wing’ dictatorship.  So were the ‘fascist’ dictatorships that plagued South America.  So, many people think that ‘fascism’ is a synonym for a right-wing dictatorship.  Except that it isn’t…  Yes, we also think of Hitler’s Nazi Germany as being a ‘right wing dictatorship’ – except that … it wasn’t.   

Not exactly, anyway.  The word ‘Nazism’ is a short form of ‘national socialism’ – and that is decidedly a ‘left wing’ terminology.  And even a cursory look at the policies instituted in Nazi Germany will demonstrate that Hitler’s dictatorship was ‘left wing’ in practice, as well as in name.  He nationalized many industries, and established more of a ‘nanny state’ than constitute most of today’s western socialist’s wet dreams.  He even said his two idols were Lenin and Stalin…  So, how could Nacism also be ‘fascist’? 

Some reading and thinking shows that the definitions and descriptions vary, based on the time and social climate and political views of the commentator…yet there are always a few features that are common across the definitions/descriptions.  Now, here are my own little observations: 

1.         In its deepest core, fascism is the ‘dictatorship of the majority/privileged minorities’.   

It does not matter if the government is left-wing, right-wing, or whatever.  It invariably ‘clips the wings’ of its citizens, and makes them feel special for it!  How?  By either turning ‘wing-clipping’ into a matter of ‘national identity and pride’, and justifying it in the most reasonably-sounding terms, at first… and the ‘moral majority’ is either ‘impassioned’ or ‘guilted’ into supporting them…and tramples down anyone who does not ‘run with the flock’….  After all, if your wings have been clipped, you can either ‘run with the flock’ or ‘be trampled’ – because soaring high in the skies is no longer an option and the very desire for it will be vilified. 

As such, fascism elevates the rights of groups over the rights of individuals who make up these groups.  This feature is the unmistakable mark of ‘fascism’. 

2.         Fascism often gains control gradually and insidiously. 

Remember, even Hitler was voted into power…  So how can fascism gain control ‘gradually and insidiously’?  By becoming indispensable to the individual, to force its citizens to ‘go along’ with things…  It does this by appealing to a call for unity (be it racial, social, religious or ‘under attack by an outside enemy’) and by forcing the citizens to ‘buy-in’ into government sponsored social programs to such an invasive degree, the citizens will no longer be able to exist independently (either because these services become government monopolies, or because the citizens no longer know HOW to take care of themselves).   

Anybody see the ghost of a ‘nanny state’? 

These are my ever-humble (or is that ‘never-humble’?) opinions….though this ‘sketch’ seems rather ‘rough’, in need of refinement. 

So, please, how would YOU define fascism?

Posted in freedoms, philosophy, politics, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

I am therefore I think….I think

February 3, 2008 — xanthippa

I think therefore I am…yeah, right! Go ahead and pull the other one!

For the life of me (please, excuse the expression), I cannot understand why people consider ‘I think therefore I am’ to be somehow ‘profound’, or ‘remarkable’, or – frankly – anything other than ludicrous and demonstrably unsupportable.

Since so many really smart people think it a ‘valid’ statement, I must be missing some salient point – not understanding something ‘deep’. Please, let me walk through my reasoning: perhaps someone will post an insightful comment which points out my error and just lead me to ‘reason’.

To begin with, there appear to me to be two interpretations of the meaning of this phrase. So, let us consider the literal one first:

I think therefore I am.

First, what is ‘I’? If one cannot define ‘I’, then how can it be determined what ‘I’ may, or may not, be doing?

‘Ah, but there ‘must’ be some ‘self-aware entity’ to be doing the thinking!’ says conventional thought. And I ask ‘Why?‘

What if our brain is akin to some sort of a weird ‘antenna’, which is picking up some background EM radiation….which then generates the biochemical reactions in the brain…which then generate other EM radiation we call ‘thinking’? How do we know this is not so? After all, the differences in the biological makeup of different brains might cause them to generate differing ‘thoughts’ in response to the same outside stimulus. What we consider ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ and ‘reacting’ might just be weird co-incidences, natural phenomena interacting in a random way….why should we assume anything different?

So, I have managed to convince myself that ‘thinking’ may not be a deliberate expression in and of itself, it might be a weird natural resonance of some kind….so there may not be any ‘independent I’… that self-awareness really may be an illusion, a ‘trick of light and shadows’.

What about ‘I am’ – generally understood to express one’s ‘existence’. What a nebulous concept! Some people say we are an indestructible energy, which animates our physical shell. Other people say we are our physical shell, which then generates an energy which animates it. Either way, without ‘thinking about it’, we cannot even ‘conceive of’ our physical shell, regardless of any ‘animation’!

So, we don’t really know even what ‘am’ is…without doing the ‘thinking’. In other words, the ‘thinking’ defines the ‘existing’ – they are both different ways of expressing one and the same concept.

So why stick a ‘therefore’ between them? It should be an equal sign… Saying one ‘implies’ the other is flawed logic…a circular argument at best.

So what about the ‘pragmatic’ interpretation? What if ‘I think therefore I am’ is a statement designed to prove the futility of what I had just attempted to do with the literal interpretation above? And then take it one step further, by saying ‘stop your navel-gazing and react to what you might, perhaps, be perceiving as life’?

Well, that is rather silly.

If we were to follow this chain of thought, we would find it impossible to define the ‘I’ in any meaningful way. A rock does not ‘think’, yet we react to one which appears to be hurled at us as if it truly existed. Even without thought. (I mean, the rock’s…)

But, some might say, it does not really exist in any way other than in your thoughts! It is your perception of the rock, the thought generated by your perception of it, which makes the rock ‘real’ enough to impact you (i.e. defines its existence). But, of course, that would not work for the original premise: it is not the rock’s ‘thoughts’ which make it ‘exist’, it is the ‘observer’s thought’ which ‘perceives’ the rock that makes it ‘exist’. ‘The rock only exists in your mind/thought.’ In other words, in order to prove its existence, the rock needs a reference point outside of itself.

This is congruent with mathematical logic: any self-consistent system, to be ‘proven’ real, requires a reference point outside of ‘itself’. Similarly, (and since we are going through the ‘pragmatic’ interpretation of the phrase) the ‘thinker’ would require a reference point outside of the ‘thinker’ in order to be proven to ‘be’. Yet, the statement hinges on the assertion that since we are only aware of our own ‘thoughts’, the ‘thinker’ cannot actually have a reference point outside of itself – without violating its own rules. (In other words, thinking defines the ‘thinkee’, not the thinker.)

I’m not sure if I am being clear, so let me go back to the ‘rock’: it is the act of being perceived by something separate from itself (like the observer’s mind) which ‘proves’ the rock’s existence. Similarly, the ‘thinker’ needs to be perceived by something separate from the ‘thinker’ to prove the ‘thinker’s’ existence….and ‘thinking’ is a property of the ‘thinker’, it is not separate from the ‘thinker’….which makes this a circular argument at best.

I think this is were I am supposed to say QED…..except that I am hoping I have committed some glaring error or oversight, and that someone will point it out to me. Soon!

Posted in philosophy. Tags: , , . 54 Comments »
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