Survival Society, Self-Fulfilment Society and Quixotic Society

Well, I have just returned from a Linguistics Colloquium in Spain, where I gave a paper on Description Logic, at the University of Alcalà de Henares, the place of birth of Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. So why not talk about Quixotism or Quixoticism or perhaps Quixotry for this week’s Issue? Not least when I have only just come back, so having little time to prepare this paper.

Well, in my articles on Liberalism, I was working up to the issue of the freedom to do as one wishes, so long as nobody else suffers. This differs from economic liberalism, which in its extreme form justifies suffering at the altar of the market. In fact a society has to balance the interests of survival and self-fulfilment in an environment where one doesn’t necessarily know how much activities freely pursued causes suffering for others.

We might capture this uncertainty by a risk pyramid: here we show safe risks at the bottom and the more speculative at the top. Some people say that men are expected to take risks while women provide a more secure environment, perhaps a source of role differentiation, for better or worse:

Here we can see that survival will relate to a lower level of risk than self-fulfilment. A right-winger may look at this and say “doesn’t this prove that survival is more important than self-fulfilment?” Well, we might also say that we need security for the weak and vulnerable, not just for major investors.

But along with Tony Blair, we know that there can be a Third Way: and that is of course The Quixotic Society. This is the immediate reaction to events as you choose to see them. And of course this is what the market economy is all about: you are focused on the immediate equation of supply and demand, and for each of these you are free to act according to your whim, whether this is sound or not.

And by satisfying the immediate need to equate supply and demand, one can ignore how much one exhaust resources to extinction. In this regard, windmills need not be at all risky, since they use a renewable source.

Well, to balance all these factors, I shall post here a flow chart which I designed recently, which sort of marries all three considerations. At least, sticking to the flow-chart balances survival and self-fulfilment. And the Third Way tends to break the rule: represented mainly by the amber, it is not a happy medium: it is OUT!

The third choice also leads to the amber light: perhaps it is for those who tilt at windmills knowing they are windmills. They may or may not be Sancho Panzas.

But it is the essence of modern conservatism (and others) to create scapegoats. Tilting at windmills! As the great man himself said to Sancho Panza:

“Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.”

My bold: in effect, Quixotic Society claims to be opposed to its enemies and what they stand for, but perhaps it is the contrary - it nevertheless needs them.

Martin Prior


From Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter - 57

Stewed - A poem

You never saw the inequality, or the folly of chasing a rainbow,

woe,

while you were eating bread and cheese and lusting after mammon

the fat cats in their white maybachs

were chewing on lean gammon, topped with creme la more

and the more you chased, the less time they wasted on you,

boo

how do you feel when you've been down at heel, and they're wearing shoes by choo, skin cared for by la roche,

did you ever feel that posh?

Well it's just a waste of feckin time, I'll only ever get what's mine by kicking down the built up shells wherein the rich man sits and dwells while counting out his ill got gains,

and me,poor me wrapped in the chains of misery and have not got,

I'd have all rich men shot,

but who would take their place

who'd be poor in my master race? not I

but then I'd die as well

I'd be locked inside the shell counting gelt

opening one more notch upon my belt, I'd be fat, a cat, another rich man, rat man, take what the man can

I can imagine it

drowning in shit and surrounded by money.

Ain't life funny when you've got it all, you've got sod all and in some big hall,you hold small balls

and that ain't a laughing matter.

John E. Smallshaw

Desire and Individualism

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” - Epicurus

How better to start an article on desire than with a quote by Epicurus - called by many the happiest man who ever lived. And before we continue, let us not equate the 'man' in his quote with an actual, male man. Epicurus was one of the few ancient Greek philosophers to teach women and slaves. Now, to deploy some counter-intuition!

The culture of desire we find ourselves in is often labelled 'individualistic'. This seems intuitive - a desire fulfilled means someone is getting what they want. Yet desire is not an individualism. Desire comes from outside of the self, and depends on an intrusive external object to manifest itself. It is not a creative flourishing or self-expression; desiring something and getting it does not make you a unique individual. We do not choose to desire things, we merely choose between desires. This means that desire can, and is, engineered from without.

If the ability to desire something were determined from within me, I could look at, say, a tissue and desire it! Yet the tissue is already mine, it is not separate from me. In the shaky language of property, I 'own' the tissue. Where is its mystique, its appeal? The tissue has none. I desire only the superior tissue - the iTissue 5G, with its multivarious (but ultimately futile) gadgets. This new, special tissue lies beyond my grasp, and that is precisely its appeal. Once something is claimed, tasted, possessed, it loses appeal, revealed as the charlatan it is. So, it cannot be said that my desire is individualistic, because once obtained the desire creates no inner-fulfillment. It is only when a desire is unclaimed that it can promise fulfillment.

By comparison, if I wanted a lute I could get one, but I would need to work on playing it. The lute would be the beginning of an endless journey of self-discovery and creation. My desire to become better at the lute is vague, an adventure through mist. It is a journey that can be entirely unique to myself as an individual. My creative urges on the lute would be spontaneous, seemingly emerging out of nothing; out of my self? Only I can fulfill this want to become a master-lutist! Whereas the desire for the iTissue 5G is direct, highlighted and colourful like the petals of a flower. Like a bee I would have to buzz along a certain prescribed path to then obtain the snazzy tissue of my dreams. Most people can fulfil this desire, ending up in the same place as everyone else, and so it does not differentiate them from other desirers.

To continue on from the previous point, the word 'individualist' is bandied about and hurled at those who are possessive of material objects. Yet to participate in rampant desiring (i.e. consumerism) is not 'greed', it is artificial 'need'. It is the lack of individuality, rather than an expression of it. It demonstrates the individuals inability to complete themselves. It is the most obvious form of conformity available to us today! It may be disguised as an individualism - promising uniqueness or identity for example - but this is a mere deception. Desire operates at the level of 'Man the herd-beast'. Desire is encouraged by our environment, it is generated by masses (if I had to simplify the history of Man into a single sentence, I would proclaim: 'He has one. Therefore I want one!')

This herd mentality obscures the true quality of the things we desire. Desire obscures quality, it does not indicate it. Things that are desired are desirable because they are desired. A thing will be talked about because it is talked about. This is herd, not an individualism. Furthermore, things can become ultra-desirable by virtue of being exclusive, to make one feel special for obtaining them. This is an equally spurious reason to desire something. To bring these general claims into reality, let us consider the following.

Advertising in the previous era would emphasize that by obtaining a product, this would raise one above all competition; towering over the meagre herd, offering a step-up into this dream-world of glamour and envy. Today's advertising tends to be different. It promises to share an experience with our herd (such as a party-inducing bucket of factory-farmed chicken) and to demonstrate just how much one is enjoying oneself among said herd. Both are deceptive ploys, and both are overly concerned with the herd. Again, it does not sound terribly individualistic to me.

This demonstrates how desire is dependent on what others think and feel. It is thus further removed from 'individualistic greed'. Intuitively, it is much easier to explain rampant material possession as an individual not considering what everyone else thinks. This I believe to be the wrong way round; it is someone all too conscious of what others think and feel who wants more than everyone else. Yet there is another reason why desire cannot exist within a healthy individualism: self-control.

For desire is not 'used up'. The faster one fulfills desires, the more one wants. For instance, suppose I desired a pair of new socks once every week. I would become accustomed to obtaining one new pair of socks a week. Without that one pair of socks, I would feel frustration, and emptiness. Yet suppose that one pair was not enough and I lost my discipline. I now purchase two pairs of socks a week. I now need more socks, and more, and more. When the novelty of two pairs falls away, I will need three, then four. Eventually, I am obtaining five new pairs of socks a week, and I become accustomed to this. Obtaining more socks hasn't made me want less socks, it has made me want more. Desire operates in cycles of wanting, followed by acquiring, followed by brief fulfillment, before returning to 'want'. Paradoxically, being able to get what one wants faster, simply leaves one desiring more, as the cycle of 'want' and 'acquire' is shortened.

These cycles of desire cannot be overcome in their entirety - we are desiring machines. For this reason, I do not call desire an individualism; desire does not represent our individuality (and to paraphrase Max Stirner somewhat, they hardly belong to us at all). An understanding of ourselves as creatures of 'yesterday-today-tomorrow' could help us understand where our desires come from, and such an understanding provides us with greater self-control. Yet nothing can extinguish desire itself, no matter how much we wish to. The pursuit of relinquishing desire is itself a painful task. The biblical saints used to go out into the desert to escape material temptation - something even I would balk at! Desire in and of itself is no evil, no guilt, nor shame. As imperfect beings we are bound to have a few vices. It is merely the means of obtaining our desires - namely how much harm they cause on the way - that should provoke ethical alarm.

My conclusion is simple. Being surrounded by desire is not an indicator of individualism. To be put-upon and judged is not the breeding ground of self-development and a healthy individualism. Freedom to be a self-mastered individual is freedom from rampant desiring. We should not measure happiness in how often we obtain what we desire; whoever dies with the most toys dies the emptiest.

How soon once one has possessed something, is one possessed by it?

Selim 'Selim' Talat

A note on why one should not necessarily like 'like'

Normally one puts a title in capitals, but no, I’m not talking about Liking, like in Facebook, but the adverb. And I am partly prompted by a petition that came to my Inbox, saying ‘Keep Page Three’. Basically sex workers fighting to keep their jobs. As I said in the Philosophy Takeaway 'Gender' Issue 38, on “Sexism, Logic and Intuition II”:

“I don’t believe in banning Page Three: if in our idealistic monogamous society the numbers don’t match, let the remainder of dividing by two pursue their needs privately and unobtrusively, perhaps towards the end of the paper.”

Now why should one not necessarily like ‘like’? Basically it is ambiguous between ‘like in some respects’ and ‘like in all respects’. I shall give some examples, the first from the above mentioned article:

“Let us know get to the substance of the issue: certain activities are regarded as ‘treating women as objects’. Well firstly, an argument condemning activity between consenting adults on the basis of a simile is a very questionable ethical argument. Many things have a resemblance to something else: if I lift somebody up from the floor, in a sense I am treating somebody as an object, so one must go directly to the basis of the similarity that causes concern.”

But you are only treating people as objects in some respects, and as I say further in this paper and in Part I, it is the manner in which it is done and the disrespect with which it is done, not the fact of doing it. So if we express it proportionally, we might have something like

contests:women :: people:objects

this is a useful way of expressing many instances of ‘like’, but it is not necessary, for example, if John looks like his mother. However the remainder of the examples can be fitted into this form, and I shall use these as sub-headings.

Chancellor:economy :: housewife:household

Another important ‘like’: our economy is like a household, you always have to balance the books, and if they don’t balance, you must cut your cloth. Well aggregates are always like their components... in certain respects. Thus flocks of sheep are like sheep, in certain respects. Sheep undoubtedly say “maa’aa’aaa”, but do flocks?

Well, both economies and households must pursue their goals in an efficient manner. But is an ‘efficient manner’ the same for the whole and its parts. Now both must make ends meet in the long run. And a household may well have to cut its cloth in the long-term. But a national economy can print money!!!

Now if you feel that an economy and a household are alike in all respects, then clearly Mr Osborne should go to jail. Indeed so should Gordon Brown a long time ago. But in certain situations it is more efficient than austerity to clear a deficit by printing money. So when two things are alike in some respects, they may be unlike in other respects, for example their efficient functioning.

Vice-chancellor:university :: manager:business

Professors have of late an additional burden to their already over-worked commitments: vice-chancellors sailing in/parachuted in from the business world. Now of course nobody should use two paper-clips when one suffices. But the idea is very vague, and I would wish to have a chat with the professor of business studies: in all likelihood the new Vice-Chancellor wants us to worship at the altar of business.

This means paying VCs an exorbitant salary to ‘attract them from industry’ and suspending left-wing students and/or lecturers on the pretext of some sort of ‘inefficiency’. And closing down departments whose subject business doesn’t understand: or merge them, for example fine arts with paint and dye technology. Obviously painting pictures is like painting doors, so let us open doors to the real world.

So we treat ‘like’ like we want. Finally, some rather controversial current affairs:

Jews:Palestinians :: Nazis:Jews

Another example is the frequent comparison of Israeli treatment of Palestinian with Nazi activities. This causes considerable indignation: the Israelis have never sent people to gas chambers. Again they are not alike in all respects, but in enough respects for it to be unacceptable. – so the argument goes.

Israelis:Palestinians :: Apartheid:nie-blankes

And many former victims of Apartheid say that Palestine makes the Apartheid system look like a Sunday picnic. Be that as it may, but it is not like a Sunday picnic in all respects.

Martin Prior

From the Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter 56

Don't Fear The Reaper

Art by Tom Moon

Up On Nob Hill

No Values
just statues of accountants who could never learn to count
and mounted on the spikes, where business is displayed and laid out for the world to see in naked abject poverty
are chief executives and heads of lesser known departments who never meant to cook the books
but fell for fortune and her looks and took that chance to spread their wings
and now the wind that whistles sings
and passes through their empty eyes, and flapping flesh drips off dry bones of arms that never meant to harm.

No charmed lives left in Holborn or in Chancery lane, where solicitors were in on the game of taking risks
and risks they took
another spike and one more hook for the fallen wig, who still seems regal but not as big as what he thought legal.

They bought but never owned the sky or stole it from the smaller fry who swam around the edges and the shadows in society
and we,
the ripped off, stripped off, sing dirges to their loss but me, I couldn't give a toss
let them burn and turn slowly on the spit
we'll roast and toast them,
let them boast then of fancy women, fancy cars and fancy meals in fancy bars.
These czars have gone the way of old
where bold men, bad men always fold in two
and the wind blew tears that fell to splash on piles of once extorted cash and though accountants cannot count
judges learn to mount the steps and put their heads in hangman's ropes and any hopes they entertain of clemency go down the drain along with
any gains they ever made.

Those who laid beside the wide boys of this world and opened eyes into another where they couldn't even bother to see just who they hurt
have lost their shirts, ripped off their backs, attacked by those that they attacked and now the axe is on the other foot where once a boot was kicked into my arse.

so good luck you shits
I hope your bodies fall to bits
and you end up burning in the pits
alongside the others that have sinned
in the end
no one wins
the voodoo dolls of life are stuck with pins
and the devil grins and hums his tune.

John Smallshaw

Reflections on Free Will

This article is motivated by some comments I read on a philosophy post. It seems everybody believes in free will. Has nobody ever read Schopenhauer’s essay on free will? It is a very important question because the belief in free will does have some very perverse effects. But how can the belief in free will have any perverse consequences?

First of all what is it we call free will? Basically, the capacity for one individual to make decisions freely, so that each decision, lets say: “Should I turn left, or right?”, could have been equally one or the other. I decided to turn left freely, but could have decided also to turn right, there is nothing that has made me turn left. The belief in free will is the unbelief of any kind of destiny that you wouldn’t be able to escape from. And because we are so fond of freedom, most of us believe free will exists.

Maybe free will got so popular because it was the negation of the inevitable destiny that many religions exposed as the only truth, leaving man with no hope to escape a difficult life, it was your destiny, you could just accept it. Christianity developed a crumb of comfort: the hope of a better existence in death… But even within the Christian church the question of free will was present because if it didn’t exist it meant that man couldn’t be taken responsible for his bad actions. And the religions of the book quite like to make you feel guilty, it is their best stock-in-trade.

So, apart from having read Schopenhauer’s essay, in which he demonstrates that free will isn’t free, I experienced life, and for as much as I look into it there hasn’t been anything close to free will. I find particularly representative of his essay (and of my experience) a short sentence he wrote: “Man can indeed do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants”.

But after all who cares? Everybody should believe what they want! How can that particular belief in free will have a negative effect?

So now let’s just consider what precisely motivates this article: the example of domestic violence. Haven’t you ever heard someone say that they didn’t understand why a person stayed in a visibly toxic relationship? Because there is no reason a human would freely choose to live in hell, is there? Would you?

In the most recent researches on trauma consequences, namely PTSD and Complex PTSD, what comes to light is that it conditions one’s future choices in life, one’s reaction to different life stimuli. Even neuroscience seems to point out against any possible free will as Donald Hebb theorised in his book: The Organisation of Behaviour: a Neuropsychological Theory.

So here is one of the perverse effects of believing in free will: free will implies that a person living in a toxic relationship chooses to do so, and they do, but was that choice free? Or was it a choice conditioned by past experiences?

And when people judge another based on this belief in free will, they turn a victim into a willing accomplice, when that person was just following the path that their past created. Sometimes a conjecture of events makes it possible for someone to untie the bonds that kept them in the hell they were. And sometimes there is no such conjecture. Does that make one better than the other?

Free will is just another of those nice ideas that people who have had an easier path like to sustain, because it flatters their ego to believe that they made good choices in life. It is perverse because it compromises the idea that we were all born equal, because it prevents a more empathic society. We are what our life made us, and we should be at least empathic with the people that have had a different path.

Alice S. Dransfield

Further reading – A Schopenhauer essay: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/human/chapter3.html

Loyalty, Patriotism and Nationalism

From New Zealand thru Scotland to South-East London

Dr Johnson once argued that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel, and we march into tricky territory immediately, because meanings of words subtly change. In his address of 1774, entitled "The Patriot", Johnson stated:

"It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities; who tells, that the last peace was obtained by bribing the princess of Wales; that the king is grasping at arbitrary power; and, that because the French, in the new conquests, enjoy their own laws, there is a design at court of abolishing, in England, the trial by juries."

Well, let us start by means of example: I am a New Zealander. Am I a New Zealand patriot? If anyone asked me this, I would be inclined to you 'Do you mind? Such a question is beneath my dignity.' I would automatically ask myself whether such a person was a scoundrel, who wanted to pursue some activity I did not approve of, and wanted to accuse me of lack of patriotism if I opposed or expressed disagreement with it. But if I were asked if I were "jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance" Well, I am a tad lazy, but I would say I am 'jealous and watchful' not of enemies, but the NZ government itself, which would often happily sell the family silver (i.e. privatize it) to overseas interests. But I wonder if this is the modern sense of patriotism: I would rather say loyalty, but I would certainly accuse any government that sold the family silver to overseas interests of being unpatriotic.

Any NZ government that allowed Mr Ruipert Murdoch to buy NZ Newspapers - even a certain weekly paper called 'Truth' - would certainly count as unpatriotic in my eyes. In fact any politician of any country that puts the interest of a wealthy international élite before the soundness of his/er country's economy is certainly unpatriotic.

But I also have Scots blood in me. Loyalty is a tricky word, since I don't live there, I live in England, in London in fact, though I regard myself as living in Britain not England, and see London as the capital of Britain. When you include the 60k kiwis, quarter of a million Australians, Scots, Irish and Welsh, London is surely the capital of Britain for most Londoners.

So loyalty to Scotland is a tricky word. Loyalty does not require you to be either pro- or anti-independence. But I am still enraged at some of the silly things that some of the English say about Scotland. Am I jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations [against Scotland], and to see publick dangers at a distance? Absolutely! Am I one who is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. Again absolutely, not least the March of the Mars Bars in Batter, sadly so dear to many a Scottish heart. And what about Nationalists: I have every loyalty to the idea that if independence is the right thing, the SNP (Scottish National Party) will be right for the wrong reasons.

But why do I not take the next step? After living briefly living in Scotland, I came to South-East London. Am I a Londoner? I do live in London. But my loyalty is really to South-East London. Would I follow the behest of Mr Norman Tebbit and cheer for a North London team? Where's that? Anything north of Waterloo Bridge does not exist. And do Bromley and Bexley belong to South-East London? Of course they do, and if they don't, we should jolly well take them over, after all we could do with their council taxes.

* * * * * * * * * * 

But normally the British don’t do nationalism: neither the English nor other British nations would associate themselves with this term. Probably those who says that the term is to be reserved for foreigners (at least non-English) are in fact nationalists, though I think the Conservatives see themselves see themselves as loyalists rather than nationalists. And perhaps it’s Gordon Brown rather than the Tories who would talk about patriotism.

In fact there was a clearly Europhile Belgian correspondent who described the Tories as the nationalists par excellence. Not at all, they were merely Eurosceptic, and of course’ jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations [against Britain], and to see publick dangers at a distance”. And this brings us to one of the most insidious phrases: a ‘Good European’. To my mind being a Good European is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Martin Prior

Philosophy Takeaway Newsletter 55