Freedom and Meaning

I) Imagine you wake up in a white box outside of conventional space-time. A drip feed is keeping you alive by pumping nutrients directly into you, with absolutely no waste products. What would you do? How would you decide what to do? Nothing you do would have any context; there would be no means of discerning one choice from another. For eternity you would be trapped. Perhaps the only choice available to you is whether to tear off the drip-feed and wait to die, or hold out for the hope of escape (which is of course futile, as this is an evil analogy!)

A less evil analogy could be as follows. Imagine you have been invited into the control centre of the universe by an omnipotent being. Before you is a vast computer containing a million switches. There is no way of knowing what any of the switches do, and no way of seeing the aftermath of pressing them. Again, there are no meaningful choices to be made here, and you may as well leave.

A final (slightly more evil than the above but less evil than the first) analogy could be as follows. Imagine you are a sentient mind in a vast box the size of a star, with thousands of liquid-metal tentacles spiralling out from your core. The universe is now your oyster, but would you return to Earth? Would you seek out other creatures like you? What would you do? How would you decide?

II) Context is necessary for meaningful choice, and thus for freedom. We cannot choose without a context to act within. This context is not only our environment and space in the narrative of the world, but also our physical limitations. We understand the universe through our bodies. We are creatures which were generated out of the cosmos and this puts us in common with other creatures. We are human beings, and though we may take this obvious fact for granted, it is an essential part of how we choose and what we choose. Simply put, choice is not something “pure and detached”, but “messy and involved”.

The context common to all of humanity, for all of history, is that we are in relation to nature. The natural phenomena of Earth is a gift which exists before we do, and which we have played little part in generating. We have followed plants and animals through time, and they have intrigued us, given us something to fear, impressed us, or all of these things at once. We have always lived in a world with nature.

A world without nature would be disastrous in and of itself, but also for its effect on us. It would deny us the intuitive pleasure gained in just observing, say, a tree, with no conscious purpose as to why. We cannot articulate why it feels meaningful, but this does not deny its meaningfulness. It demonstrates the remaining mystery of our being, that we are not only the mind which perceives; there is more at work inside us. If we were to destroy nature in its entirety (a scenario which is possible as our technology and greed grows exponentially) we would be destroying the background of every human civilization in history.

III) We are forced into the world, naked and hungry. We are forced into the small personal narratives of our day-to-day lives and the meta-narratives of breathing empires, woven so tightly together that without intending it we can effect distant narratives. We are forced into a language, which creates for us a boundary, or foundation, of word-thoughts. We are forced into a morality, absorbing the values drummed into us whether we like them or not. We are forced into a world-view consisting of all the information we uncritically absorb in our pre-philosophy days. As children we make decisions despite our lack of understanding, and this is our original sin, not some spiritual fall, but our immature actions.

None of this means that our personality is decided for us, nor our choices. For if you accept that context is necessary for there to be meaningful choices, and thus some form of choosing will, the fact that we have circumstances is what grants us freedom.

The fact that we cannot decide entirely what our “fate” will be, that we cannot immediately overcome subconscious forces and bend the world around us is all a necessary part of our freedom. Our will to choose may be messy, it may contradict itself, it may be ponderous and take time to unfold, but it is there. Indeed, it is precisely the time that it takes our choices to manifest inside a context that makes our choices meaningful. Rapid choices which are instantly fulfilled run against our nature. Rapid choice, like rapid change, eventually exhausts all possibilities and leads to a stagnation from which nothing good might be salvaged.

IV) What happens in this nightmare scenario of too many choices, too many entrances, all of them leading nowhere? What happens when we have infinite expectation, no boundaries, no real communities? We are living it.

It is known as Consumerism, although this is a euphemism for materialistic nihilism. Obsession with commodities, rampant and endless desiring, with no meaning even within oneself. This mindless hedonism is divorced from any narratives, it is atomizing, separating, and fundamentally unrewarding. It is fleeting, empty, unattached, and nothing sticks inside the soul. It is the bad form of individualism, an unhealthy individualism where the individual is defined by what they can have and not what they are, a mark so staining that it makes all individualisms seem wretched. Taken to extremes it destroys all connection to the past and all concern for the future, all meaning divorced from its context. The worse it gets the more powerful it becomes; this goallessness is what keeps the wheels of consumerism turning; it thrives on the void inside us and spins an illusion of symbolic rewards to account for it. It is the destroyer of narratives, the generator of irreverence, whose war-cry is “I don't care about anything but my own little buzz”.

It is a negative form of nihilism, where all paths lead nowhere, and there is not even a personal notion of truth. If we say that free will needs to be utterly free to be called free, then we are paradoxically left with the destroyer of freedom.

V) True freedom, therefore, requires a narrative, individual self-discipline, patient cultivation, a rock to push against, harmony with nature, a community to belong to, a great but not infinite variety, a little wildness, a cause to fight for, a truth to seek, a foundation to stand upon, and, of course, a lot of philosophical thinking.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

A letter in response to arguments against Determinism

"It is unthinkable to me that a living being can be compelled to move by something outside of itself. Influenced, certainly. Threatened, certainly. But utterly dominated to the extent that it is no longer separate from that which would control it? This is surely impossible."

Is it really that impossible? A few weeks ago in the Philosophy Takeaway there was an article on "Twelve Years a Slave" where the author seems to complain that the slaves did not stand up for themselves, to free themselves from the tyranny that was their existence, that they had a choice but failed to take it. Whilst this is all very well said, I don't believe that many did have a choice - for many it was either get on with life as it was or get beaten or killed, mauled by dogs as they tried to escape, whipped if they attempted to express creativity through writing, genocide for those that planned an overthrow of any kind.

Biologically we are predetermined not to put ourselves at deaths door (of course there are always exceptions to the rule which we will go into later). I assume the level of fear for these people kept them down, they did not have a choice - the ones who did rise up, what made them do this? Was it simply a choice one day? Or was it something that made them snap, that caused them to do this?

You put your hand in a hot oven. Your biological reaction (determined) is to remove your hand as soon as possible, you do not physically have time to think of a reaction, the person in themselves makes no choice - it is determined. Only if that person in themselves has trained themselves to not react - (what we must look at is the reason they trained themselves to do this) do they not remove their hand from the oven - only if they are determined not to. The very phrase 'determined to do something' in itself implies choice, a decision - but a decision does not just pop out of nowhere - even the smallest one. The burning protesting monks are determined to make a point, but what socio-political-religious beliefs have contributed to them doing this? If that monk had all his memories removed, was put into a different body, even had a different brain - would he still burn himself? I don't think so. It seems you have an idea of a sense of self that is more like a soul, a mind, as you put - free will. Where is this free will, how is it independent to our biological functions, to our memories, emotions, reactions, relationships?

In your second point you claim "deterministic theories are often used to take away responsibility from certain groups in society" and go on to say that this cultivates failure Surely here you are allowing for determinism itself, you are saying that our actions are determined by determinism itself. There is a round circle of cause and effect. You are claiming the point you are trying so hard to argue against. You are saying people are forced to take welfare, when in your opinion we all have free choice - thus contradicting yourself.

In order to say whether determinism negates responsibility we must first derive what responsibility is. As far as I can tell responsibility is a feeling, a feeling of ownership - "I am responsible for what happens on my deals at work" - which can turn into feelings of guilt "I feel responsible that I knocked that old lady over" or feelings of happiness "I feel responsible for putting a smile on my child's face." If this is the case then determinism in no way negates responsibility, it creates it through cause and effect - if we did not have these - then we wouldn't have the emotions, the feelings that come with responsibility. But what about those pesky criminals I hear you ask? Are they not just victims to their circumstances? Of course this is one logical conclusion. But if we stop locking people up, stop punishing people as they couldn't help it then there would be bloody murder. Responsibility has evolved to protect society, locking people up is supposedly a deterrent, it is meant to rehabilitate those that could not see how their actions affect people and trying to cause them to next time look at the affects. I'm not saying it always works or is a good system - but these at least are the aims.

"The fact that there are people from privileged backgrounds who rally against such privilege, the late Tony Benn being a prime example, indicates that we can never remove the individual's reaction to their surroundings from the equation; we can always reject our surroundings once we are mature enough to do so. As much as we are influenced by our surroundings so too can we influence them in turn."

How is this maturity determined? The fact that someone goes against their background does not imply a sudden change of free will. One does not simply change one’s mind one day, there must have been factors that made him do so. Those who believe in determinism are not saying that things will never change, that every day will be the same, that because things are the way they are there is no escape, that there will never be a chain of events that cause us to develop as a society in one way or another. The woman who leaves her abusive husband does not just choose to leave him because she decided to, she does so because she has finally had enough, that he has done something that has gone too far, that her friends or family have convinced her, or quite simply she has reached her level of tolerance.

People do surprise us however - people moving up either financially, in society, spiritually, artistically, intellectually, and so on. A genius (which you have claimed is proof against determinism) is always an intellectual surprise. You account for this as free will, a determinist will account for this as the fact that we don't know all the facts. You take the case that if there is an increase in unemployment an increase in robbery will follow. This is a well known statistic, but of course we cannot just say our actions are determined but also our opinions. Not only is there a circular determinate that this will possibly give people more of an idea, more of a belief that this an option for them - causing them to do it; as a society we will be surprised by the exceptions to the rule as we have been determined to believe this. These exceptions may feel themselves to have other choices; they may just feel themselves to choose not to. But dig deeper and ask why has this person come to the conclusion that they can do something else, and why am I surprised by that. There are many ideas we have to take time to rationally consider and throw out, if we have the opportunity/capacity/are inclined to do this.

Another point is that we do not know everything yet - to make a completely correct statistical judgment of what is going to happen in the future you need all the facts of every possible situation. At this point in time this seems like an impossibility - but once we called the weather God's will, and now we are getting closer and closer to predicting what it will do next.

Even if free will does exist - you have admitted that interactions can influence people. If we were not to encroach on anybody's liberties then we would not have relationships at all, nobody would ever do anything as they'd be worried how it would affect someone else. With determinism, yes you are part of one big stinking whole, bad things happen, good things happen - it does not mean we should just sit in bed and go well whatever happens, happens. We are part of something; our actions mean something, even if they are not chosen. We are still conscious, this consciousness is just made up of lots of things that have happened to us, that have determined our hopes, our dreams, our limits and our responsibilities. They will inflict (hopefully positively) on the consciousness of others. We should ride the waves of cause and effect and if you're that way inclined, hopefully put our own mark on the world that causes it to be a better place.

Rhiannon Whiting

Six Points Against Determinism

I) It is unthinkable to me that a living being can be compelled to move by something outside of itself. Influenced, certainly. Threatened, certainly. But utterly dominated to the extent that it is no longer separate from that which would control it? This is surely impossible. Each conscious living being has its own inner-world. Each living being experiences the world in a way that is shared, but nonetheless unique to it. We are all intertwined, undoubtedly. But we are not all One.

We cannot say, therefore, that it is possible for any outside influence to dominate us; to make us act in a way that was unavoidable, or absolute. Any environment allows us some element of choice. To succeed in any environment requires us to meet it half way. The work is never done for you. Even in the most perfect conditions imaginable, you will still need to be driven into action from within yourself.

If we generated an economic and political system which was fairer (and less stupid) than our current grotesque chimera, we would still see some people meeting life half way and others not doing so. We must always include the 'chance-element' of individual human will.

We should strive to understand the influences which shape our character, and we should try to evolve society into a more equal and moral body. But this does not mean that we can engineer away all of the toxins of Man through a mere system change. Many are the social and material determinists who would say otherwise.

II) Deterministic theories are often used to take away responsibility from certain groups in society. The consequences of such thought might lead to the most supreme elitism: we have the ability to decide our own destiny, they do not. Are we not then granting certain generalized sections of society a free pass to be self-pitying and self-hating? By offering people the chance to fail and deny responsibility, are we not cultivating failure?

By maintaining a system which steals away responsibility from anyone (particularly the poor) we are justifying the woeful institutions which sustain their conditions. By reducing and simplifying the experiences of such groups we are not only lazy thinkers, we are allowing the lazy 'solution' to triumph: “They cannot look after themselves, so they must spend their lives on welfare. See, we are doing our part by considering them!” (Middle Class Liberal 1A, The Book of General Middle Class Liberalisms). Yet we must surely have realized by now the psychic and spiritual poverty which can exist regardless of our material conditions.

Even if welfare pay-outs were to the tune of a million pounds a week I would oppose them, for they would not be able to fulfil the need to feel useful and personally responsible for one's own actions - two necessary conditions for flourishing esteem. They would still deflate and flatten the human spirit!

For a person to be governed from above is insult enough. For a person to be grateful for a subsistence wage is equally upsetting. But for a person to be forced to suckle from the teet of a faceless institution, where grown adults are treated like school-children, is the greatest of insults. And an insult against one individual is an insult against individualism itself, for true individualism must be a universal principle to be just. This is why we must consider the suckling State to be a debilitator, preventing the growth of any empowering consciousness by drip feeding us just enough to survive.

III) “If only I had been born into better conditions; a better school, a better house, with better parents. I too could have been a parasitic Chief Executive of a parasitic corporation.” If this sentence sounds familiar to you, then you are surely in the minority! Advocates of determinism will speak of the most 'successful' members in a society and use them as examples of how economic and social factors shape our chances to succeed. These same advocates of determinism are often, without speaking too generally, of an egalitarian stripe, and are trying to convince us all that our position in society is determined, and that 'success' can therefore be engineered.

Yet surely it makes more sense, if one is an egalitarian, to see the so-called winners in the capitalist system as the ultimate losers - people who were too callous or unimaginative for anything more than accumulation of power and material wealth; the basest and lowest desires available to us. Far from being privileged and enviable, the so-called Great Man or Woman is a soulless slave to their own desires, one who despoils other people's chances for their own twisted ideals of self-worth; one who sees no value outside of monetary gain; the most pitiable and empty creature imaginable, one whom I struggle to call a complete human or feel even the remotest love for.

The fact that there are people from privileged backgrounds who rally against such privilege, the late Tony Benn being a prime example, indicates that we can never remove the individual's reaction to their surroundings from the equation; we can always reject our surroundings once we are mature enough to do so. As much as we are influenced by our surroundings so too can we influence them in turn.

To be successful is not to be a parasite or a dictator or a slavering monster. To be successful is to be just, to be fair, to be creative and to love liberty for all. These virtues of character are available to anyone, and as such any determinist who claims that success is out of the hands of each individual ought to re-examine their own criteria.

IV) Deterministic predictions can be useful in a broad sense. ”If there is an increase in unemployment, an increase in robbery will follow.” This is useful to know, especially if you are in a position of political power. Although it does not mean that the increase in robbery is due to the actions of people being determined by their social and material conditions, only that they are choosing a new means to fulfill their basic needs (there is after all, the percentage of newly unemployed in the example who did not turn to robbery). Our choices may be limited by circumstance, this is a sad and unjust truth, but there are always choices to be made.

Furthermore, these kinds of predictions often assume that the values people have absorbed, or chosen, are some kind of fundamental law of reality. An increase in robbery will follow an increase in unemployment if and only if the people within a society accept the values of that society (i.e. acquisition of material wealth, work ethic, shame and praise, and so forth). I highly doubt a group of newly enlightened zen buddhists would turn to robbery if they faced unemployment!

Deterministic predictions are not so useful in a narrower sense. The nearer we close in on an individual's character, the harder it becomes to make any form of predictions. To introduce a scientific analogy, gravity seems all well and good when you are dropping a hat onto a table, but examine it at a quantum level and it becomes harder, if not impossible, to predict the motion of its infinitesmal components. The more complex the prediction, the less likely it is to be fulfilled. The vaguer and broader the prediction, the more likely it is to be fulfilled. This could put the determinist on the same par as a tabloid horoscope if they are not too careful!

V) Genius! Genius is not predictable. Of necessity, it 'transcends' (or rather just pushes out) the boundaries. Genius indicates that the world is not static, and not entirely predictable. It is in flux, and sometimes it allows an out-and-out genius to flourish and benefit us all. How many men and women of genius will emerge in the next fifty years? What will they bring to the narrative of humanity? Who knows!

VI) To close, let us consider a (possibly) utopian scenario. We can imagine a state where everyone is free to act so long as they do not harm the liberty of another, recognising that liberty springs from society, and society requires equality. In this truly free state, can it be said that anyone's actions are determined by their environment, social and material conditions?

Selim 'Selim' Talat

A critique of Friedrich Nietzsche

“You would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”
―P.G. Wodehouse, Carry on, Jeeves.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) is probably the world’s most famous – or should that be infamous – philosopher. Born in the small, German and humble village of Röcken with a Lutheran Pastor as a father, no less, he would write a series of scathing, revolutionary philosophical works: Nietzsche is one of the most controversial philosophers in human history. On the one hand, his style is captivating, passionate and aphoristic; conversely, his detractors allege that he is anti-Semitic and a misogynist.

It is my attempt, in around a thousand words, to give you, my delicate reader, an insight into his opinions in a biased and subjective a way as is possible – for Nietzsche wouldn’t want me to anything but true to myself, admitting my prejudices, as ridiculous as they are.

Was Nietzsche a misogynist?

From some cherry picked quotes, yes. Nietzsche can certainly appear to carry a sustained hatred of women in his philosophy. For example, “One-half of mankind is weak, chronic-ally sick, changeable, shifty.” One doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce which half of mankind Nietzsche is referring to; what we must consider, however, is this: is his contempt genuine? If so, does this diminish his epiphany inducing aphorisms?

I want you all to know that I have no pretensions about appearing as a psychiatric expert, and pop-psychology is very tiring. Nevertheless, the fact that Nietzsche was raised by women (his father died from a “brain ailment” when he was five) would have had a profound impact upon his attitude towards women.

He moved to Naumberg, where he lived with his maternal grandmother and her two unmarried sisters. As well as this, he had a younger sister. The young Nietzsche’s world would have been turned upside down – not by a piece of paper and a pen, as he would late profess – but by the death of his father, compounded with a replacement of his father with multiple female authority figures.

On another note, Nietzsche never married. There are rumours –but that is all they are – that Nietzsche contracted syphilis from a whorehouse. However, Nietzsche’s illness in later life may have been due to other medical reasons. We can only clutch blindly at straws to discover evidence of Nietzsche’s misogyny. What isn’t in doubt, however, is the fact that Nietzsche was an extremely solitary man, and that he was sexually frustrated as an individual.

Away from such speculation, one could read Nietzsche’s philosophical rants as cathartic honesty. Many of us think ridiculous, illogical, angry and prejudiced thoughts; Nietzsche, a modern genius, would have recognised his ridiculousness, but embraced it, rather than hiding it for the sake of social cohesion.

Was Nietzsche an anti-Semite?

The very short answer would be “no”. The long answer is “no, but this, and then no once more.” It is important to note that at the time of Nietzsche’s adult writing, a certain fashionable hysteria around what used to be referred to as The Jewish Question (not to dissimilar from modern Islamophobia) was part of the Germanic intellectual zeitgeist. His work really could have been much more damning of the Jewish people, and his criticisms are weighted and considered.

Amongst Nietzsche’s work, much praise for the Jews is included, “As a consequence of this [history], the psychological and spiritual resources of the Jews today are extraordinary.”

He also stated in reference to the Jews, “to whom we owe the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world.”

However, it must be noted that these quotes are from his earlier writing. His later philosophy was much more damning:

“Christianity, growing from Jewish roots and comprehensible only as a product of this soil, represents a reaction against the morality of breeding, of race, of privilege-it is the anti-Aryan religion par excellence.”

Nietzsche definitely believed in race, but not in the same sense as Adolph Hitler: “Every nation, every man has disagreeable, even dangerous characteristics; it is cruel to demand that the Jew should be an exception.”

To summarise, in my opinion, Fredrick Nietzsche criticised everyone, especially German society -- more than any other ethnic group. He thought that German society was weak; the moral values which dominated Germany at the time, that is to say Christian moral values, were repugnant to Nietzsche, because he thought it rose what is flabby, common and average as something of value. These values, of course, were drawn from Jewish background. This comprises some of his distaste towards the Jewish peoples.

However, his damning criticism of German society was far greater than his agitation against the Jews. Should we hold the Jews above everyone else, and say that hatred towards them is somehow worse than hatred towards Christianity, or his own people? Why should Christianity be an easy target? Are we indoctrinated to think that the Jews are lesser than the Christians, and therefore have to be immune from criticism? I don’t promote anti-Semitism, but I do advocate an even hand of criticism.

Nietzsche’s writings were manipulated by his surviving sister – an admirer of Hitler and the Nazis – and then, in turn, by the Nazis themselves. What is important to note is that they were manipulated to fit in with Nazi ideology. His earlier criticisms of anti-Semitism were airbrushed out, and his view of humanity, centred on elitism, fitted in well with Nazi racial superiority.

My admiration of Nietzsche:

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, unfortunately, has been blighted by history and has been misrepresented, time and time again. Fundamentally, I would like to have written about his literary style to a greater extent. Of course, having only around one thousand words to write about the revolutionary Friedrich Nietzsche is very limiting – but I would hope that I have allayed your fears and prejudices, and thus you are ready for a broader appreciation of his writing.

Samuel Mack-Poole

The seamless inquisitor

Oh doom and gloom,

Born without a silver spoon,

When will you let the lovely light flood the solemn seas

And at what time will the rain no longer torrent the wilting trees?

When will the birds incessant singing stop,

And return to the grace of the natural clock?

Can you imagine a mind free from sorrow,

Or a heart as free as the paths of tomorrow?

Oh grey in May,

Who equally abhors each day,

When will the winds of wrath subside for goodness sake

And at what time will the high tides dissipate to form luscious lakes?

How long will you stop the flowers from bloom,

And return the madness from the mourning moon?

Can you conceive a life without misery,

Or a vivacious body not struck by melancholy?

Ellese Elliott

The Confluence

 

Have you ever been referred to as a consumer? If you have, then you have been insulted. And worse than insulted, you have also been targeted by powerful men for moulding; socially-engineered into something less than you are. You have been belittled and dehumanized, reduced from a Whole being into a single part. You have been made into a statistic to be scientifically examined, reduced to an ever-hungry mouth for the producer to feed. As the producer is a parasite seeking to profit from you, being referred to as a consumer is not so different to being referred to as prey. Greedy prey, stupid prey - the fly who saw the spider's web but crashed into it all the same.

We must not be satisfied with being a feeder, a mere sucking mouth against the teet of hedonism. Ignorance is never bliss, it is uncertainty and frustration, the inability to see beyond the next fix. Ignorance means being unable to make and understand choices; it is the enemy of freedom. We need truth and enlightenment. There is more to us, which we must dare discover; a balanced being, a whole being, a free being.

It was only when reading the work of the world's first self-proclaimed anarchist that I came to realize all of this. And it starts somewhere extremely simple. How we are addressed shapes how we become, in the same way that being praised or insulted might raise or lower our esteem. Proudhon referred to his audience as 'citizen-reader', and it sent me into an upward spiral of thought and discovery.

The confluence -

A confluence is the point where two or more streams form into a single river. How many confluences make up the whole of us is perhaps beyond categorisation. In fact, even categorising things into neat little sections is suspect, as life and being is never so simple. Nonetheless, I will endeavour to present three large and definite tributaries which make up our totality. Ideally, we would all have an understanding and appreciation of these aspects, rather than being trammelled into any individual one. Understandably, we specialize in various places, and are not equally spread across all aspects of our being.

Economic - There are invariably those who value money above all other things, like Dragons upon their golden hoards. For these sorry people the term consumer might fit extremely well, for the concept of a consumer is a creature which exists wholly in the realm of economic transaction (Homo Economicus). They are the ones who want to get things with absolute certainty and familiarity, moving as the crow flies without appreciating the journey. They are easily malleable, and can be satisfied with any conditions provided they get their reward at the end of it.

They obtain their monetary rewards by doing what they would not like to do because they have the promise of spending it on something they want at the end of it. Monetary gain is the consolation for what is often dreary and unimaginative labour. Perhaps we all need to be cajoled into action sometimes and led along by the carrot on the stick a short distance. But to live exclusively for the weekend is to sacrifice five-sevenths of ones life to the machine.

Money is glorified beyond the sum of its parts and becomes a thing of value of itself, rather than a piece of paper used to promise the bearer such and such a sum. It also becomes the main unit of comparison and competition, such that one can never be satisfied with how much one has, for there is always someone with a little more. Thus the value of money is symbolic, rather than useful, and one's attachment to it is not the attachment to one's tools or actual needs, but a symbolic attachment. It is to build oneself on an imaginary foundation (and we call such people 'realists'!) To be disdainful of such a one-dimensional money-clutching character is not elitism - it is simply being something more than an unimaginative creature!

I should like to think that the hypothetical hoarding Dragon I have described above does not really exist. I should like to think that the bulk of our species is somewhat more subtle, and that economic realities are not the be all and end all of existing on this Earth. To the enlightened, economics is but one tributary leading into the river of totality. Economic calculations are a necessary head-ache but one which we would all rather was done away with it. Spending power might illicit the occasional burst of joy, but this would not be an addiction, but an occasional vanity.

Political - Everyone should be political. Not because there is much gain in it, but rather to prevent suffering losses for it. At least in our present epoch of representative democracy (demagoguery), politics is very much a case of damage control. It is equivalent to self-defence.

What is the value of a voice? What is the value of a vote and a movement? I should answer that these things are as valuable as the 'economic' category above. Just as obtaining things by exchanging currency can cause good feelings, so too can discussing things. The difference of course is that discussing important things is free.

The power is there, waiting to be taken, and it costs nothing but effort and time. We should long to have a share of power in government and public affairs, as it is in our interests to do so. The disillusionment with a crooked system (see any currently existing system) only feeds into that system. One of virtuous and balanced character should strive to create something new if the existing surroundings threaten the virtuous. This also is a political action.

Spiritual - The concept of spirituality is one stained by misunderstanding, misuse, and mistrust. Understandably so! Our first introduction to spirituality often comes through dogmatic religion, which drives the dissatisfied toward atheism. Conventional religion is so flagrantly repulsive that it encourages us to denounce spirituality as dangerously stupid, for the most dogmatic of priests oppose all other aspects of human being (such as scientific endeavour) which they consider threatening to their little bubble of perverse power. This might also lead to rational and open-minded religious people being 'tarred with the same brush'.

The necessity of a specific God, or belief in a certain set of scriptures, is also a problem for spirituality. There is nothing worse than competitive religions. Only tolerant religious groups should be tolerated! For that reason I believe spirituality requires total openness and should be proclaimed as an universal individualism. It is a deeply personal experience where, paradoxically, the personal vanishes - for self and all often become interwined during such experiences. But the personal does not vanish forever, and the individual is still left to interpret and ponder their experience, and that is what makes such a spiritual moment special.

I wish here to purify the idea of the spiritual, including within it things we can immediately identify with: to aimlessly observe a white horse grazing in a gladden field; to be lost in a piece of music and to forget time; to see the logic in the absurd; to be part of the unexplainable life of the city; to use language in a nonsensical way; to create art in luminous splendour; to touch the nose of a cat with your own; to imagine one is a sorcerer of a lost race saving a dying realm; watching smoke rise from an incense stick recognising that it doesn't really go anywhere; these are all spiritual experiences.

The spiritual does not align with what is arrogantly called 'the real world', and it is not just a consolation used to maintain a regimented life. The spiritual must be purposeless when all around us demands 'as the crow flies rationality', and accumulation, and severity, and pretension.

Real poverty lies with those who are incapable of fully appreciating this side of themselves. The spiritual does not need to be mutually exclusive with other more 'practical' aspects of our being; they can all co-exist.

Close -

Like any Virtue Ethicist I stand at the foot of the mountain I have raised, dwarfed by its splendour, cast into its shadow. Is it an impossible task to be a balanced and virtuous creature?

Selim 'Selim' Talat

Meeting illogic with illogic

I was somewhat enraged by this poster, which I think illustrates something

on many levels. Apart from anything else, if you try and make constructive comments on feminism, the post-feminists and other rubbish comes out of the woodwork.

But in particular it illustrates the false assumption that if you focus on one thing in one situation, this is a negative statement about other situations. Take for example:

Feminist: Men shouldn’t rape women.

Humanist: People shouldn’t rape people.

Are we to assume women are indifferent to men being raped? Absolutely not. They might be the first to offer advice.

When we hear the clamours of Fathers for Justice, can we assume that they are indifferent to justice for mothers? Er, well... we may not be entitled to assume that, but one is very inclined to think this is the case.

Essentially we jump to conclusions that reinforce what we already believe.

And I am going to jump to the conclusion that the author doesn’t respect women.

I think feminists are right to focus on disrespect for women. Women don’t get enough and in ways men get too much. Unfortunately, while it is sometimes intuitively clear, sometimes it is far from clear what respect consists of. There was a time when it was felt to be sexist to say women should have greater representation in Parliament and on company boards because they have something special to offer.

Nowadays this is regarded more positively. Provided of course that focussing on this doesn’t imply we ignore other more ‘mainstream’ contributions they might make.

Martin Prior

Escaping the Dance of the End of History

The political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously claimed after the fall of the Communist governments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that human history had, in essence, come to an end. He did not mean, of course, that time had, in fact, frozen solid and that historians would not be able to write about anything after 1991. Rather, his argument was based on Hegel's idea that the history of humanity is a progressive movement with a beginning, a middle and an end. The end of history, Hegel said, is the point at which humanity reaches its apex of consciousness and hence has in it's grasp the ideal form of organising society.

For Fukuyama, the defeat of Soviet-style socialism and the triumph of Western liberal democracy inaugurated, essentially, a New Earth where freedom would reign for eternity through representative democracy and free-market capitalism. The flip-side of this assertion was, of course, that Karl Marx was wrong: the stateless society of communism where class conflict would be no more was a pipe dream, and we had no option but to embrace this joyous new world of liberty – a world of marking an 'X' on a piece of paper every four or five years and endless shopping at Wal-Mart.

Many have criticised Fukuyama's arguments, and this is not the place to attempt a point-by-point rebuttal. But I think it is clear that we haven't been living in a state of paradise since the end of the Cold War more than two decades ago. People are still going hungry, and in some cases die of starvation, even as others wine and dine at the Ritz. People are still paid poorly and housed precariously, and in some cases reduced to poverty and homelessness, even as others throw cash around and sleep soundly in mansions. People are still unhappy with their lives, and in some cases become depressed and despondent, even as others seem to be living it up and partying like its 1999.

For some, this sorry state of affairs is proof that liberal democracy is a sham, and that free-market capitalism is a scam. Yet one immediately hears shrill voices which say, “But what are we to do? Haven't we tried doing things differently, through the state, and failed?” “No,” others cry in response, “We're not talking about Soviet 'communism', but the welfare state and the 'public good'. Privatisation has led to inequality by allowing untrammeled greed to flourish! Yes, state-centric solutions can be bureaucratic and impersonal, but we don't have any other options.”

Most debates today about how society should be structured revolve around these two viewpoints. In one corner, wearing a pin-stripe suit, is liberal capitalism. In the other corner, wearing a duffel coat, is social democracy. Cheering and jeering from the crowd are more extreme versions of these two fighters, including neo-conservatives and fascists, as well as state socialists and communists. Should anything drastic happen, these observers are ready (and waiting) to join in the fray.

 

As a result, a large majority of people today feel they have to choose a side. It's either greater freedom or greater equality, either a larger role for private initiatives or a larger role for the state, either a system built on self-interest or a system built on solidarity.

What if this were a false choice? What if I told you that picking either side would not change the underlying structure of our present-day society?

Before you start thinking that I'm about to go off on some sort of conspiracy theory, let us slow things down a little. I'm not about to say these two sides are like the Galactic Republic and the Separatists in the Star Wars prequel trilogy – that is, appearing to be diametrically opposed to each other but in reality both being pawns in a game controlled by Darth Sidious. I don't believe that there's some secretive cabal running the world and playing us off each other like puppets on strings.

What I would like to suggest, however, is the different political systems that we see today in the world – together with many of those that some would like to see realised today in the world – are not as radically different as they seem. To help us dig into this proposition, the political thought of the contemporary theorist Kojin Karatani is quite instructive.

According to Karatani, the society we live in today is made up primarily of three types of human interactions. Firstly, we engage in acts of reciprocity with those whom we feel we have something in common. This could be because we have the same parents or because we have a shared interest in real ale. The essence of reciprocity is that we are willing to help each other because we consider ourselves part of a particular 'group'. Conversely, we're far less willing to help another who is not part of this group. This dynamic is the basis of the nation, which is an imagined community of people who identify with each other because they have a similar culture, history and so on.

Secondly, one segment of our society is engaged in acts of plunder and redistribution. On behalf of 'wider society', this segment collects resources – especially from those who have most – and redistributes them to those who have less. This is, of course, embodied in the state, which is an institution that claims to uphold the interests of the public in its operations.

Thirdly, almost all of us take part on a daily basis in forms of commodity exchange. This includes obvious things like shopping for groceries, but also things such as paid work, because what is being exchanged is the labour of one party for the money of the other. Such is the lifeblood of capital, which is the form of commodity exchange that, although based on the exploitation of most ordinary folk by those who own and run the businesses, claims to be founded on free exchange between equal actors.

When we take all these three forms of human interaction together, we get what Karatani calls the unholy trinity of Capital-Nation-State. All three are mutually supportive, and so when one of them is called into question – for example, by a social movement – the other two can move in to re-balance the system. Although there are moments where the respective forces of capital, nation and state clearly clash, at the end of the day the continued existence of each one is bound up with the others.

Hence, returning to the scene of the prize-fight between the Right and Left of mainstream politics, we can see how the triumph of either one only reconfigures the interconnected relationships between capital, nation and state, but does not actually challenge the basic structure of the trinity. Under the welfare state, the influence of capital is diminished, yet it continues to play an important role in the functioning of the system even as the power of the state increases. A turn towards a liberal free-market has exactly the opposite effect in that it weakens the state but strengthens capital. And when resources are scarce and the economy looks grim, the inward-looking and often violent rhetoric of the nation comes to the forefront of politics (think of Golden Dawn in Greece).

Faced with this vertigo of the three elements of the trinity dancing around us, it can seem difficult to imagine what can be done to bring about a different world. Karatani, drawing loosely from the 19th century anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, suggests that the way out is indeed to exit and transcend this system by means of a fourth type of human interaction, which he calls association.

Association involves elements of the other three forms, but goes beyond them. It incorporates the mutual aid of reciprocity, but without demanding conformity. It aims for egalitarianism, but does not coerce like the state. And it sees some good in the idea of freedom of exchange under capital, but it refuses exploitation through wage labour and usury.

What is it, then? Well, it is not a blueprint meticulously designed, nor an utopia erected in the mind, but rather the labourious and non-violent task of building alternatives to Capital-Nation-State through anti-capitalist, anti-nationalist and anti-statist forms of exchange, living together and co-operation. It is not found in sexy, youthful politics that builds barricades nor in idealistic reformers who run for public office. Rather, it takes shape in projects such as worker-owned co-operatives, Local Exchange Trading Systems, time banks, local demurrage currencies, social centres and free universities. In other words, it is – to steal some words from Marx – “the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.”

If the ongoing climate and economic crises continue to worsen, we may find the need for alternatives to Capital-Nation-State more urgent and crucial than ever. Nevertheless, regardless of what exactly comes to be, it will certainly not herald the end of history, at least not in the Hegelian sense.

Soo Tian Lee