On the value of being offended

What you think you know on a subject you care very deeply about is wrong.

Over a year ago when I started my blog I suggested in my opening post that being offended is not a bad thing. I said I would expound on that and so I am. Better late than never.

First a distinction: some bits of information we come across, like slurs scrawled on a bathroom wall are meant to offend and to do nothing else. Many other times when we find ourselves reacting emotionally to something we read or hear it is because that information is across the battle lines from views we hold as obvious, valuable, and central to our worldview. Most of us can think of times when we have read views that we disagree with, expressed in a dispassionate and thoughtful manner, and felt a warm surge of disquiet or anger. Too many people, judging themselves to have been made offended, will read no further. This is a mistake and this reaction is directly opposed to the philosophical mode of thought that one ought to be working to cultivate.

It is a sad commentary on the state of mind of the average person and the degree to which many people are failing to cultivate the philosophical mindset, that when you present someone with information that counters their view on something, even something of little relevance, they tend to double down on that view. You have to begin an encounter like that by identifying a point on which you and your interlocutor agree, and proceed gingerly from their. Even then you may have little hope of swaying the other. Begin at all aggressively and all hope is lost.

So if the philosophical mindset is our aim, what is it and how should we proceed? First we must acknowledge the fact of human fallibility. Our knowledge is always tentative and we must always be open to the possibility that we might be wrong about anything. Our brains evolved under selective pressures prevalent in the environments our ancestors encountered. So none of us are the dispassionate, purely rational actors we take ourselves to be. Only a very small part of human cognition takes place at the level of consciousness. Our conscious thoughts are always very intimately tied up with our emotional systems. This causes our thinking on many subjects to go astray and accounts for the fierce resistance put up when faced with counter evidence to our core beliefs.

From an acknowledgment of human fallibility we move to the banishment of all sacred cows. If we want to have true beliefs, we must always be willing to pull anything into the light of critical scrutiny and abandon what is found to be inadequately supported. We should value most, then, information we find from thoughtful people, arguing in good faith against what we take to be the best view on a subject. Though at first you may feel like you have just laid eyes on a scurrilous slur on a bathroom wall, you should be able to set that aside and know that you are actually have the most valuable experience you can have in your journey into the world of ideas and you are sure to be better off.

I haven't written much lately. Neil and Dakota have both decided to ignore my replies from now on because they don't like my take on their religion. I can't imagine why not. Anyway, here is something that I wrote from July 4th.

“Those two statements taken on their own should be enough to convince anyone that our founders did believe in the existence of some sort of a Creator, or God, therefore disproving the statement that there was no mention of Him in our founding documents.”

Of course, I’ve never said that there is no mention of God (though not specifically the Christian God) in any of our nations founding documents. I have said that there is no mention of God, Christianity, Jesus, etc. in the US Constitution. If you want to know just how essential the founding fathers really thought belief in Christianity, or even theism generally, was it might be illuminating to consider the most important document they ever wrote. Article IV section 3 says that no religious test shall ever be given to hold public office. Given the fact that many colonists came to the new world fleeing religious persecution it would make sense that the founders would not desire to have a religious test favoring one sect or denomination over another. But article IV section 3 says NO religious test, NOT EVEN A TEST FOR THEISM. Clearly they understood, as most of the religious right does not, that a non-theist could be just as fit or more so to lead the country than any believer could.

"John Adams stated, “The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity…”

You almost seem to be laboring to show that the American system never would have come to be if not for Christianity. Clearly that cannot be the case. Christian hegemony over western thought spans close to 1500 years before we see any of the vital concepts central to our system- i.e. constitutionalism, the separation of powers, equal rights, etc.- find a foothold. The bible doesn’t mention any of those things. The Bible tells us that we shouldn’t make graven images and that you shouldn’t covet your neighbor’s ox. If anything Christianity has been a roadblock in the way of human progress. Had the dark ages not set in and had people been free to pursue topics of political philosophy first expounded by the ancient Greeks, as Montesquieu, Locke, Hume, et. al were able to do only once again in the Enlightenment age, July 4, 1776 might have come much, much sooner.

“And for those who believe the Ten Commandments have no place in our lives…”

Yes, and how many of those Ten Commandments are currently serving as the basis of any of our laws. If the answer ain’t ten, you have some explaining to do. We are to believe that they are divinely inspired, remember. And the are commandments, not suggestions!

“How is it that we as a nation can support a President who hosts a gay, bisexual and transgender event to celebrate Gay Pride Month?”

Uh, because “we as a nation” includes gays, bisexuals and transgendered peoples, as well as a large percentage who understand that these people have the basic right to conduct their private lives as they see fit.

“I understand that there are those who do not believe as I do, and I can accept that fact. However, I cannot accept the fact that there are those who would prohibit me from freely expressing myself because my viewpoints stem from my religious beliefs.”

I couldn’t accept that either. However, if you are going to present your religious beliefs in the public sphere you had best not expect them to receive any special deference just because they happen to be religious beliefs, or because they happen to be “personal” beliefs, or because they are based on blind faith. People deserve respect, Neal, beliefs do not. Also, as I said before, if you can’t prove it you don’t get to call it truth.

Happy fourth, by the way.

I was polite. I wished him a happy 4th. I don't see what the problem is. Oh well...on to better things.

Oil spill in the Gulf is a good (horrible) thing.

"The extinction of the human race will come from its inability to EMOTIONALLY comprehend the exponential function." -- Edward Teller

Specifically, I would add, to emotionally comprehend what happens when the exponential function meets a finite resource.

My radical thesis is that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is ultimately a good thing, and the bigger and uglier it turns out to be the better. In the essay below I aim to explain why.

We desperately need to develop a clean, renewable energy industry in this country for the following reasons: 1) Climate change. The vast majority of the worlds scientist accept that climate change is occurring and is almost certainly caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere as a result of human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels. Every major scientific organization of repute in the world, including the NAS the AAAS, and the Royal Society (UK's version of our National Academy of Science) have issued official statements accetping this position on climate change. So any apparent "controversy" on the issue is not among scientists, it is between the community of the worlds scientists and the community of conservative pundits and commentators who dismiss the science of climate change for purely ideological reasons. The scientific consensus is clear and unless you are privy to knowledge that refutes the scientific consensus, then the most prudent thing to do is to accept the consensus as most likely being true. If the community of conservative commentators does not accept the scientific consensus, their recourse ought to be to produce sound science that will overturn the consensus. That is how responsible inquiry is done. Any other course of action on this issue is pure demagoguery.

2) Fossil fuels are a finite resource. This is simply a fact that no one disputes. That being the case, it makes no sense to base our way of life and any future growth on a nonrenewable energy resource. However, the technology needed to transfer from a fossil fuel based economy to a renewable economy is not fully available yet. On existing technology such a transfer would be a massive engineering endeavor requiring the bringing to scale of massive amounts of new infrastructure, what has been referred to as Renewistan. Clearly such a transition would require a major reorganizing of national priorities and resources. It would not be easy, but it is simply necessary, and the longer we wait to begin, the more painful it will be.

3) An early commitment to developing a clean renewable energy industry and becoming a world leader in this new industry provides possible economic benefits. For the two reasons explicated above, the world has no choice but to make the transition to clean, renewable energy. As I stated above this will require a large scale commitment to technological innovation and will create a need for a large scale manufacturing and technological base that could create thousands of new high-paying jobs that could not be outsourced. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has referred to clean energy technology as "the next great global industry" and many other experts share this view. China is just beginning to recognize this fact. If we do not make a commitment to pursuing this technology now the United States may well loss it's role as the leading world economy.

4) National defense. Most of the worlds oil now comes from countries that do not share our ideals of political freedom and equal rights. If a regime is able to maintain a strong economy simply by pumping oil out of the ground it has no incentive to invest in the education and welfare of it's people. The political process in these countries suffers as a result and despotic and dysfunctional regimes can emerge. The result of developing a clean, renewable energy industry would be an undermining of such regimes. Also being independent from these regimes would shield us from vicissitudes that might result from them.

So here we have four reasons for developing a clean, renewable energy industry in this country. More reasons may be available but these four reasons are remarkable in that at least one of them ought to appeal to most everyone, regardless of their political leanings. So why, then, is their such little political will in this country to begin making this transition? I can think of a few: 1) Everything seems fine right now. We can go about our lives giving little thought to our nations energy policy. People do not deal well with problems that are in the distance- we feel no emotional pull to do so. 2) Initially things will not be easy. The technological research needed will most likely not be done without large scale government funding. Venture capitalists and other investors will not endeavor to bring new technologies to scale without the assurance of demand for such technologies, thus the need for taxes on fossil fuel to ensure demand. 3) High levels of animus in the political discourse. Neither party is willing to advocate for anything that might require increased taxes or increased government involvement or regulation or short term sacrifice from the American people for fear of political repercussions, no matter how thoughtful or needed those policies might be. Our political system is essentially broken with no hope of making progress on issues requiring any degree of sacrifice, unless in the face of large scale, visible disaster. And therein lies the point of this essay.

No one was willing to accept sacrifice to improve our nations health care system despite the fact that health care spending was on pace to consume a quarter of our nations GPD within the next few decades. Why? The disaster was far off and not visible, so the rational arguments fell flat. Juxtapose that with the political climate following 9-11. Watching unmitigated evil unfold on our TVs nightly left the American people ready to make any sacrifice necessary to prevent anything like that from happening again. This willingness was squandered, of course, by inept and short sighted leadership in place at the time. The unmitigated disaster that will ensue if humanity continues to base it's entire way of life (transportation needed to maintain economic activity, energy needed to maintain functional food systems to support current and future population densities, etc.) on a finite and nonrenewable energy source would be horrible beyond anything experienced thus far in human history (exponential function meeting finite resource). Up to this point you have been reading the rational arguments and have been left, most likely, unmoved. What is necessary to produce the needed political will, unfortunately, is a truly massive and ugly visual spectacle. The oil spill in the gulf just may well be that ugly spectacle, but only if it is big and ugly enough.

The few days of no response from me led him to believe that he had fended me off with his logical acumen and command of the facts. Well, not quite...

“Kinda hard to argue with huh? I figured.”

This may be indicative of your problem here. You assume that my absence is due to the strength of your arguments (I will be kind and refer to them as “arguments”), whereas other, just as plausible, explanations are available such as- which is in fact the case- that I have a job and other responsibilities to attend to. If you happen to make a good point and I am around to see it and I have time to respond to it, then you can be assured that I will give you the credit you deserve. It hasn’t happened yet.

And so it continues with Dakota... This response came after a few days where I didn't respond to his rejoinder, such as it was. Anyway, more on that next.

“When the power brokers and politicians break the law and go against the rule of law and the majority in order to pass legislation …. then the politicals put themselves in conflict with law and the people that they swore an oath to adhere to.”

Sure. In what way has this happened? This is what you have failed to make explicit. You are kind of hard to argue with because all you have given so far is naked assertions and non sequiturs.

“Again …. this is not a democracy 51% of the people cannot vote to hang the other 49% ….get it? ”

The United States is a constitutional republic and representative democracy. It is NOT, of course, a direct democracy (I never claimed that it was), but surely our system has a democratic component, otherwise your complaint about politicians ignoring the will of the majority wouldn’t make any sense, would it.

“But when we have the type of abandoned circus that is going on in DC that defies the law and the Constitution , then the citizens should be surprised and take measures to preserve the liberties that we are guaranteed under the Constitution, and guaranteed by the founders also.”

For a citizenry to be justified in taking violent action against a government composed of officials elected to there positions in free and fair elections, it must first be proved to be the case that the government has in fact violated the constitution in some way. You have failed to make the case that it has. I won’t dedicate any more time to discussing this issue with you until you begin to back up the assertions you have made.

““Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.” ~ John Locke”

I wholeheartedly agree with Locke here, but notice the caveat:”Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power…”. Is that, in fact what is happening now? If that is in fact NOT what is happening now (and it remains for you to make the case that it is), then it is safe to say that you would find yourself in sharp disagreement with Locke on this point for the simply fact that a society simply cannot maintain when violent minorities attack the government when they don’t get there way.

Neal hasn't responded to my criticisms of his essay but someone calling themselves Dakota has. Here is a bit of the exchange. His stuff is in quotes.

“I really dig it when you people use those big fancy words and try to gain advantage via the “baffle them with bullshit” theory. (golly I wonder which professor indoctrinated you)”

What could you possibly have been baffled by. The argument I’m making is a simple one. And don’t flatter yourself by thinking we are having a college level discussion here. I’m trying to get you to understand basic high school level civics. In any society not everyone is going to be able to get what they want all the time. Someone is going to have to be in the political minority at any given time. The founder fathers well understood the mayhem that would ensue if those in the minority took up arms every time they didn’t get there way. Thus we have a political system in place where, if you are in the minority, you do have recourse: persuade, through reason and evidence, enough of your fellow citizens of the truth of your view so as to be successful in the election process. You haven’t given one reason for why you would be prevented from doing that. This being the case you and your ilk are not following in the footsteps of the colonists fighting off British rule, as you all like to fancy yourselves as doing. You are being lazy, you are being whiny, you are being ignorant of the basic facts of how the American system works and you are being traitors to the ideals this nation was founded on.

“Get it thru your head “sparky” I don’t care about you or any of your ilk …. you are the fodder of the left …. the “useful idiots” as Lenin coined the phrase. I am not going to do point on point with you cause frankly it is a waste of my time. I am busy preparing for more important things. DO what you will, but remember …. if you show up in my AO you will be treated like all the rest maybe worse. The gloves are off and you still wannna run to ACLU or whatever.”

I’m aligning my beliefs with the best available reasons and evidence. This is called being rational. You and your fellow tea partyers are the “useful idiots”. You are unable to formulate a cogent argument (calling someone a pinko commie does not qualify as an argument), you will believe any demonstrably false fruitcake conspiracy theory you are fed so long as it it seems to confirm your irrational prejudices (i.e. birther nonsense, death panel nonsense, acorn nonsense, communist/socialist/Nazi/whatever takeover nonsense, etc., etc., etc.). All this credulity plays into someones hands. Learning to think critically and rationally about what you are being told is the antidote.

“Funny thing about you progressives … you always accuse your enemies of doing exactly what you yourselves have been doing. Freedom of speech is your cause unless it is counter to your ideas …. then you silence swiftly by whatever means. See you in the matrix.”

I don’t know what you are talking about here. I have never advocated censoring anyone’s freedom of speech, in fact, I made my view of the importance of open debate pretty clear in an above post. It’s vital to the health of any type of democratic system. But why is that? Precisely so that those in the political minority might change the minds of their fellows, thereby AVOIDING the need for armed conflict and all the deleterious social consequences that brings about. Those in you “AO” may want to spend a little less time threatening everyone else and spend a little more time learning about the ideals this country was founded on before you destroy them.

Change of direction.

So, clearly I haven't had the inclination to write much here lately. I feel like i have been writing quite a bit though. Most of my writing has been in the form of responses to various people that I find on the Internet with opinions that suck (no shortage there). The problem is that all that effort eventually disappears into the digital abyss. Since I put so much effort into that time suck I should have something to show for it. To that end I have decided to use this blog primarily as a repository for my altercations with other people on issues of theology, philosophy, and politics with my commentary (appearing in red) as needed.

First up is a guy named Neal. He is a right-wing fundy with a blog. I first encountered him at a right-wing fundy site called Federal Observer that posts some of his essays. I posted biting, but not rude counter-points to nonsense of his and other essayists there for a bit. I was called names and indirectly threatened by the readers there and soon was banned from posting at that site. Anyway, Neal is just slightly more thoughtful than the average person there, though still a raving nut bag. He is typical of the mindset of the burgeoning tea party movement. His latest post is a rant against health care reform. He makes use of the argument that since polling on health care reform reflect slightly negative views of it by the American people that our government has done something bad by passing it. Not just bad but something something warranting violence. We are now in a position comparable to that of the colonists facing King George in the American revolution. Here's my two cents:

Whether you, as an individual supported this health care bill or not, what does the action of Congress tell you about what they think about the wishes of a majority of the people? It tells me that they could give a rats ass about what we think.

Well, our government is not (at least it shouldn’t) be run on the basis of opinion polls. You may recall that the public option polled well, so by your logic we should be upset with Republicans for promising to filibuster legislation with the public option in it. Health care reform was a primary platform of the Obama campaign, so no one ought to be surprised that reform is what we got.

In my opinion, though, I don’t think there could be such a thing as health care reform that could poll higher that 50% given the convoluted state of thought of the average person. People want high quality, affordable health care, available to all citizens while at the same time wanting lower taxes, a lower deficit and smaller government. Well, they may as well want their surgeries done by magic talking pandas.

The problem with health care is that it is not like any other good or service. It would be like someone suddenly showing up at your house one day and telling you that you have to by a car or you will die. You happen to have insurance for such an occasion, but of course, the insurance company losses profit by shelling out money for you to by the car, so they will find ways to get out of doing that. Government could probably regulate the “buy a car or die” insurance industry better, but no one wants that because it would result in expanding governments power. So just what type of policies would you support if you were a person in this position?

There are those in this country who feel that history is repeating itself, that the actions of our government bear a striking resemblance to the actions of King George, leaving the colonists no recourse but to take up arms against their government.

Obama is not King George and the Tea partyers are not colonists. The founding fathers saw fit to create a system where you do, in fact, have recourse if you are in the political minority. It is known as the democratic process: persuade a majority of Americans to elect representatives that vow to repeal the health care reform bill. That ought to be easy for tea partyers to do given the polling data you cited, right? If that’s the case then why should anyone need to resort to tactics that are utterly antithetical to democracy and would surely be condemned by the founders of this great nation.

In fact, I would argue that our nation has remained as strong and stable as it has because political minorities, in fact, do have peaceful recourse. It can be a slow and difficult process, granted, but that is not a valid excuse. Of course some minorities have had to fight for their basic political rights- the right of suffrage, for example- but tea partyers are not in that position. They should be condemned, in my view, for pretending that they are, thereby trivializing what a true fight against tyranny is really about.