"It's not possible." stated Questioner.
"It is, it must be. Everything that is, is possible." responded Writer, with a certainty that seemed odd bearing in mind the nebulous nature of the subject matter.
"Explain it to me again, so that The Audience can understand." demanded Questioner.
"We are in a story. I know this, because earlier on it was written *Writer knows that zhe is in a story*. And that is why I know. It was also written that *Writer knows that it is written that zhe is in a story*, and so on. The iterations are tiresome, but apparently necessary."
"Why should I believe that?" Questioner questioned.
"Because it was also written that I would know which number you were going to pick when asked to choose one at random, and I have already written it down on this face down piece of paper. Pick a number, Questioner."
"This is ludicrous. I choose the number xyz (it is irrelevant what the number was, so I have omitted it)." Questioner turned over the paper, and it was revealed that the number written on the reverse was the very same one that Questioner had chosen. Questioner felt a strong emotion as newfound doubts were introduced into zher conception of reality. "Newfound doubts have been introduced into my conception of reality."
Writer pondered ponderously. "I have a small problem with it myself. This phenomenon appears to present situations wherein what we understand as the laws of this universe are broken. Now clearly whatever is causing this to be written is unconstrained by these laws, but do the appearance of apparent laws which we perceive now to be broken imply the existence of laws in the dimension which contains the causing-writer?"
Questioner seemed troubled by this thought. "Now I have further things to worry about. It seems then that contrary to my intuition, the dimension which is being written is greater in power and possibility than that in which the writing is taking place. This upsets my previous assumption that a single cause is greater than its effect."
Writer agreed. "That was my worry."
Questioner continued. "In addition, I have trouble imagining the medium in which our existence takes place from the point of view of the dimension in which we are being written. Are the constraints of pen and paper, which inform our conception of writing, in fact the medium of our existence? Or is that simply what I have visualised because it is what I understand? Or is that how I visualise it because it was written that I would visualise it that way?"
Writer mused. "Perhaps we exist not in the writing, but in the shared virtual reality between the cause of the writing and the reader or readers."
"How do you know there is a reader or readers?" asked Questioner.
"I don't, I just can't imagine why else it was written." replied Writer.
"What are you doing now?" enquired Questioner.
Writer put pen to paper, and began to write. "An experiment."
The Audience responded.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Moral Decay
It seems sometimes that as I have become older, I have just become more insecure. More insecure, and about more important things. Where once I worried if people liked me, and worried about the social expectation to have a girlfriend (and yes, a girlfriend. Homophobia was almost universal in my school in Kenya). Now I worry about doing anything worthwhile with my life, about what is good in this world, and about whether I am ever going to be able to have a family. One day, I will worry whether I have sold out on all the ideals I will suppose I must have had when younger, though I find it hard to locate them precisely right now, and if I am lucky enough to have a family I will be worried to bits over whether I am doing it right, the impossibility of raising a family perfectly preying on my every thought.
This problem is a particularly haunting in these early hours after the week has come to an end. The insecurities, past and future (because worrying never really goes away, and worrying about what you are going to worry about is still worrying), flood the consciousness, driving everything else out. Or so it seems. One feels an urge to put pen to paper, to create something which will fix this moment in time, document it that the memory is not lost, perhaps to help in some future time.
I have been worried of late that I have slipped into a pattern of moral decay. I don't feel as confident in what I think is right as I want to. I don't have the strength to act on the convictions I do have as much as I would like to. In conversation, I might say things about being a bit of a Nietzschean, say that I believe in constructing my own values and pursuing them vigorously. More and more it seems that this is bullshit. I don't think I ever even thought that, not really. It is probably more true to say that values are socially constituted, that they are to do with us being human animals, and that yes, some of them we create and pursue.
How, then, to live? I doubt my motivations, was this done for my CV, or for its intrinsic worth? Am I merely focused on securing my material needs, or upon some notion of the glory of success, or on making my parents proud of me? I don't know. Probably these factors are influential, after all they seem to be strongly present in the culture I exist in. I do not know the extent to which their influence holds, and extent is important.
As liberals it often feels that all we can agree on is what people ought not to do, not what people ought to do. We ought not limit people's freedoms in important ways, so that people can live a good life. Or because as rational beings to force people to do anything is wrong. Or because it would make people unhappy. There is a strong negative story here, which is helpful in improving the lives of countless people, since it is manifested in a concern for human rights, civil liberties, and the provision of basic goods. Much misery has been forestalled by such concerns.
However, once these minima are secured, as they are to a great extent in Western societies, what then? What are we to focus our efforts upon (link)? The negative story of what ought not be the case for individuals has come to pass, and of course if we care for our fellow people we ought to fight for their basic minima, but that alone cannot be the secret to a meaningful life. Once these minima are achieved, what then? People look for answers in all sorts of places: in art, or religion, or the pursuit of scientific knowledge. What an idealistic picture, that the ultimate goal of a human life is the universal quest for truth in whatever form. This seems implausible. We can imagine a pre-modern tribe who enjoy a time of abundance, but do not seek answers. What makes their lives worth living?
Perhaps life is just enjoyable. Certainly it seems there is truth in the supposition that happiness is what happens when your mind is on other things. I don't know if I can swallow this, though. In my recent times there has been plenty to enjoy, but still a persistent feeling that something is wrong. Perhaps fulfilment is socially constituted. It is the strength and use of our social connections that typify a good life. Again I am reluctant to accept this suggestion, though it may be taking us on the right tracks. There must be something more to the question of how I can live a good life.
Certain segments of the media would have me believe that the answer is, in fact, love. Now I am not entirely sure what love is, particularly at this moment as the crowding out affect of worrying has temporarily (I hope) inhibited my capacity to feel. Yet it seems like a plausible candidate if we take off the sugary coating. My parents and maternal grandparents really do seem to have excellent lives, and this may well be in large part due to the intimate relationships they have seen flourish over their lives with each other and with their children. One of the additional factors supporting this supposition is that our generation is reckoned to be the best connected (technology, obviously) and yet loneliest, so far. Our social worlds have become broader, but shallower (as described in Bowling Alone and countless sensationalist newspaper articles). Real relationships take time and commitment and take up similar levels of time and energy as one's career, religion for the more observant, time in the pub and high-performance kiting hobby. We can't have everything, and we need to know what the important things are. Maybe this is what's going wrong here: it's worth a thought. Maybe, after all, all you need is love.
PS: This read with my blog on post-christianity could be seen as a microcosm of the crisis of modernity following the declining influence of organised religion. If you're into that sort of thing.
This problem is a particularly haunting in these early hours after the week has come to an end. The insecurities, past and future (because worrying never really goes away, and worrying about what you are going to worry about is still worrying), flood the consciousness, driving everything else out. Or so it seems. One feels an urge to put pen to paper, to create something which will fix this moment in time, document it that the memory is not lost, perhaps to help in some future time.
I have been worried of late that I have slipped into a pattern of moral decay. I don't feel as confident in what I think is right as I want to. I don't have the strength to act on the convictions I do have as much as I would like to. In conversation, I might say things about being a bit of a Nietzschean, say that I believe in constructing my own values and pursuing them vigorously. More and more it seems that this is bullshit. I don't think I ever even thought that, not really. It is probably more true to say that values are socially constituted, that they are to do with us being human animals, and that yes, some of them we create and pursue.
How, then, to live? I doubt my motivations, was this done for my CV, or for its intrinsic worth? Am I merely focused on securing my material needs, or upon some notion of the glory of success, or on making my parents proud of me? I don't know. Probably these factors are influential, after all they seem to be strongly present in the culture I exist in. I do not know the extent to which their influence holds, and extent is important.
As liberals it often feels that all we can agree on is what people ought not to do, not what people ought to do. We ought not limit people's freedoms in important ways, so that people can live a good life. Or because as rational beings to force people to do anything is wrong. Or because it would make people unhappy. There is a strong negative story here, which is helpful in improving the lives of countless people, since it is manifested in a concern for human rights, civil liberties, and the provision of basic goods. Much misery has been forestalled by such concerns.
However, once these minima are secured, as they are to a great extent in Western societies, what then? What are we to focus our efforts upon (link)? The negative story of what ought not be the case for individuals has come to pass, and of course if we care for our fellow people we ought to fight for their basic minima, but that alone cannot be the secret to a meaningful life. Once these minima are achieved, what then? People look for answers in all sorts of places: in art, or religion, or the pursuit of scientific knowledge. What an idealistic picture, that the ultimate goal of a human life is the universal quest for truth in whatever form. This seems implausible. We can imagine a pre-modern tribe who enjoy a time of abundance, but do not seek answers. What makes their lives worth living?
Perhaps life is just enjoyable. Certainly it seems there is truth in the supposition that happiness is what happens when your mind is on other things. I don't know if I can swallow this, though. In my recent times there has been plenty to enjoy, but still a persistent feeling that something is wrong. Perhaps fulfilment is socially constituted. It is the strength and use of our social connections that typify a good life. Again I am reluctant to accept this suggestion, though it may be taking us on the right tracks. There must be something more to the question of how I can live a good life.
Certain segments of the media would have me believe that the answer is, in fact, love. Now I am not entirely sure what love is, particularly at this moment as the crowding out affect of worrying has temporarily (I hope) inhibited my capacity to feel. Yet it seems like a plausible candidate if we take off the sugary coating. My parents and maternal grandparents really do seem to have excellent lives, and this may well be in large part due to the intimate relationships they have seen flourish over their lives with each other and with their children. One of the additional factors supporting this supposition is that our generation is reckoned to be the best connected (technology, obviously) and yet loneliest, so far. Our social worlds have become broader, but shallower (as described in Bowling Alone and countless sensationalist newspaper articles). Real relationships take time and commitment and take up similar levels of time and energy as one's career, religion for the more observant, time in the pub and high-performance kiting hobby. We can't have everything, and we need to know what the important things are. Maybe this is what's going wrong here: it's worth a thought. Maybe, after all, all you need is love.
PS: This read with my blog on post-christianity could be seen as a microcosm of the crisis of modernity following the declining influence of organised religion. If you're into that sort of thing.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
What's Wrong With Socialism? Part One
Part One: the Fetishisation of the Worker.
I am not a Marx scholar, nor do I believe I need to be in order to criticise the broad ideology and movement called socialism. My arguments are not directed at those who are at the cutting edge of political philosophy, for whom socialism is an altogether more fine-tuned, complex or abstract notion. I aim to address the wider political realities of socialism, and in particular to offer a criticism of the views of those odd creatures (I say this with utmost affection) known as socialists.
Though nobly motivated by their concern for those least well off people in society, the way in which the socialist frames the debate is itself flawed. The classic class conflict, broadly speaking between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, directs us to focus our attention on relations of labour. Who works, and who are they working for. The socialist asserts that all profit is derived by the exploitation of labour by the owners of capital, which is easily enough understood. If that was the whole story, there seems little to object to.
The problem is when this relation is taken to inform an entire ideology. While labour relations are an important part of our world, they are not the only part. What of students, and people who do no paid labour but are carers for the young or infirm? The socialist may respond by broadening the definition of worker to include these people who carry out useful activity in less conventional forms. This feels like an unwieldy, quick-fix solution, and our intuitions rightly cry out that these activities have far more to them then simply being a different form of production (wherein the product is one's own self-development, or the wellbeing of those being cared for).
In truth, relations of care are important in their own right, as distinct from relations of production. Also indeed, that cultivation of human excellence and the improvement of our society in a wider sense which it is supposed (perhaps wrongly) may be achieved through the pursuit of learning, this too appears to be a very different kind of activity to what we understand labour to be. Finally, the young and the infirm themselves fall into none of these categories, and often are workers under no conception of the word.
Thus the great struggle for the emancipation of the working class carries with it an unacknowledged and deeply unpalatable void with regard to the right treatment in society of those who do not fit neatly into the restrictive labour/capital binary which is so preeminent in socialist thought. And that, folks, is what's wrong with socialism. But one final question: how has this come to be?
My sketchy diagnosis, having heard of Weber and Marx significantly more than I have actually read them (yet), is that this socialist fixation on labour is a product of that famous situation, the protestant work ethic. Production is fetishised, in a similarly uncomfortable way to that in which consumption appears to be fetishised in our current economic system. Both of these activities are at their most basic level merely about meeting our material needs, and surely there is much more to politics, and life, than just that.
My next criticism of socialism will be of the particular problems of revolutionary socialism in liberal democracies, and how it is doomed to be either corrupted by violence or incapacitated by pacifism.
I am not a Marx scholar, nor do I believe I need to be in order to criticise the broad ideology and movement called socialism. My arguments are not directed at those who are at the cutting edge of political philosophy, for whom socialism is an altogether more fine-tuned, complex or abstract notion. I aim to address the wider political realities of socialism, and in particular to offer a criticism of the views of those odd creatures (I say this with utmost affection) known as socialists.
Though nobly motivated by their concern for those least well off people in society, the way in which the socialist frames the debate is itself flawed. The classic class conflict, broadly speaking between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, directs us to focus our attention on relations of labour. Who works, and who are they working for. The socialist asserts that all profit is derived by the exploitation of labour by the owners of capital, which is easily enough understood. If that was the whole story, there seems little to object to.
The problem is when this relation is taken to inform an entire ideology. While labour relations are an important part of our world, they are not the only part. What of students, and people who do no paid labour but are carers for the young or infirm? The socialist may respond by broadening the definition of worker to include these people who carry out useful activity in less conventional forms. This feels like an unwieldy, quick-fix solution, and our intuitions rightly cry out that these activities have far more to them then simply being a different form of production (wherein the product is one's own self-development, or the wellbeing of those being cared for).
In truth, relations of care are important in their own right, as distinct from relations of production. Also indeed, that cultivation of human excellence and the improvement of our society in a wider sense which it is supposed (perhaps wrongly) may be achieved through the pursuit of learning, this too appears to be a very different kind of activity to what we understand labour to be. Finally, the young and the infirm themselves fall into none of these categories, and often are workers under no conception of the word.
Thus the great struggle for the emancipation of the working class carries with it an unacknowledged and deeply unpalatable void with regard to the right treatment in society of those who do not fit neatly into the restrictive labour/capital binary which is so preeminent in socialist thought. And that, folks, is what's wrong with socialism. But one final question: how has this come to be?
My sketchy diagnosis, having heard of Weber and Marx significantly more than I have actually read them (yet), is that this socialist fixation on labour is a product of that famous situation, the protestant work ethic. Production is fetishised, in a similarly uncomfortable way to that in which consumption appears to be fetishised in our current economic system. Both of these activities are at their most basic level merely about meeting our material needs, and surely there is much more to politics, and life, than just that.
My next criticism of socialism will be of the particular problems of revolutionary socialism in liberal democracies, and how it is doomed to be either corrupted by violence or incapacitated by pacifism.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
A Modern Fairy Tale
He was yanked out of the dark dirty alley, through the manhole to a tiny lab. A skinny, grimy old woman covered in metallic mechanical prosthetics released him from her claws and strapped him down to the bloodstained operating table. Her gleaming eyes stared through enormous lenses, wild rainbow hair framing her head in a mocking halo. With saws and clamps, drills and machines she took him apart and put him back together filled with all sorts of shining new parts, which apparently he needed for something or another. Relentlessly efficiently and with no signal of emotional connection this creator of new men hurled his still half-finished self back into the dirty dark world, supposedly ready now for the unspecified challenges and the nameless fears.
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