Posts Tagged ‘philosophy’

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Homosexuality and Political Office

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Today I have spent some time reading Welcome to Everytown: A Journey Into The English Mind by Julian Baggini. In the book, he uses his experience of living for six months in England’s most typical postcode in order to make sense of the English mindset.

His experience and reflections are often insightful, but one observation seemed particularly apt in light of recent political events. Consider this:

It’s easy to think that homophobia is a thing of the past, like racism. But both assumptions are demonstrably false. Things have certainly got better, but true equality is still elusive, Britain didn’t get an openly gay member of parliament until Chris Smith in 1984, and it is still common for gay politicians to hide their sexuality. Nor can you blame them. A BBC poll showed that 39% disapprove of homosexuals in high office, and only 48% approve. There is clearly a religious factor hereL 44% of religious people disapproved compared to 26% of those with no religion, But either way, it is a very large number of people for a supposedly tolerant society.

David Laws was recently forced to admit his own sexuality following revelations about his parliamentary expenses. It’s a shame that he felt he ought to cover it up in the first place, as you’d hope that it would be nothing to be ashamed of. Financial wrongdoing aside, it is lamentable that anyone might feel they need to conceal their sexuality from those known to them, or to the wider public.

You’d hope that we, as a society, will become increasingly tolerant to the point where it simply won’t matter.

***

(Welcome To Everytown is written by Julian Baggini, and was first published by Granta in 2001. The extract above was taken from p.89 of the hardback edition).

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George Orwell on History

Monday, March 1st, 2010

In chapter III of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell describes Winston’s thoughts on the recording of history, which casts me back to my days as a history undergraduate. In the same way that Winston has no idea if the year is indeed 1984 or not, the only reason that I know my degree is as recent as two years ago is that we record time everywhere. My days as a history student in York seem to be an aeon ago.

In this passage, George Orwell picks up on something which I find to be strikingly true about the study of history. He says:

For how could you establish even the most obvious fact when there existed no record outside your own memory?

This is a potent question. How can you?

This point, put in the succinct style which Orwell remains so famous for, can be demonstrated with plenty of commonly-heard examples. For instance, The Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 witnessed Henry VII take the crown from Richard III – but where exactly is Bosworth field? This is much disputed, because nobody ventured to record and re-record the exact mark of its location.

To go further back, The Hanging Gardens of Babylon – which sound like a quite breathtaking construction. But where exactly were they located? Not a trace remains, to the point that historians can question their existence.

Of course, one can’t trust any record of history which is written down – many records are contradictory. The problem is that the memory truly cannot be trusted.

How many times have you been sure that something has happened, and yet it has been proved not to have done? (Contrast your memory of certain goals in football games with the reality, viewed again on a replay years later).

Meanwhile, imagine if Watergate had been successfully covered up. It may never have happened according to the pages of history. It would have died with the memories of its culprits. No doubt plenty of conspiracy theories which exist are, against heavy odds, actually true. I often think that Watergate might have become a conspiracy theory had the right people been silenced. With no cemented evidence, it is quite possible that something which happened did not, in fact, happen.

This is the fragile nature of history, and is exactly why a tyrannical regime like Nineteen Eighty-Four’s Party could easily master it and use it as a form of social control.

Just a thought, which ultimately leads to my wider belief in solipsism. What can you actually prove?

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On Human Greed

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

One of the things which makes human beings stand out as exceptional creatures is their ability to deny their own nature for the common good. Look at people who abstain from sex; they tend to believe that sex is something special which needs to be guarded, so they repress their own desires to (in their eyes) benefit society.

I have often argued this above point to praise what humans are capable of. Whilst promoting the power of humanity, I have often stated that a human’s ability to deny their own natures for the good of others makes them remarkable. However, there is a more cynical and arguably more realistic way of reflecting on this issue.

There are many humans, particularly those in positions of power, who are aware of the damage that satisfying their desire for wealth has on society. Knowing that they are playing an active role in perpetuating inequality, they remain content to earn a living via ways which are socially irresponsible.

It would not be wise to argue that the recent crisis in the banking sector was caused by stupidity. Few bankers could really, having consulted even their own meagre consciences, denied that their job is socially useless. By and large, “fat cats” have been aware that they were making an extravagant living by running the masses’ future prospects into the ground. It didn’t matter to them, because they were satisfying their own disgustingly exorbitant appetites for material possessions.

Likewise, there are hordes of intelligent journalists who write articles for odious publications like The Sun, The Daily Express and The Daily Mail who are fully aware that the opinions they print, carefully constructed to persuade the gullible, are completely ludicrous and designed merely to cash in on petty prejudices. They know that they are making it increasingly impossible to build a fairer and more compassionate society, but choose instead to taste the rewards of quick remuneration and respect from people that they have denied a proper education.

Both bankers and journalists of this kind are aware of how their indulgence damages society, but see no reason why it is their responsibility to do anything about it. Knowing fully well that humans possess the ability to be selfless, and that selflessness would remove swathes of people from situations of gross injustice, they continue to reap the rewards of a corrupt system whilst strengthening the system itself. Put simply, they choose to be selfish over being selfless, in complete awareness that it harms more people that it benefits.

This causes an ever-growing obstacle to progress, and is highly depressing.

To summarise, it is a wonderful thing about humanity that some people repress their own selfish desires to look after the interests of others, but a more depressing thing that people who know the advantages which could be gained from this, use their cunning to instead profit from and perpetuate a stupidly unjust model for society.

This links to an ongoing debate I have with a friend, who fears that imposing a hefty rate of taxation on high-earners would cause a ‘brain drain’. I wonder if this is only true if you equate braininess with desire to profit materially from your braininess. I wonder if a great chunk of the greedy (yet influential) would leave for a less taxing nation, leaving a remainder of altruistic and intelligent people who previously had little influence but have a greater desire to improve everybody’s lives as opposed to their own.

We have to find a way to build a society where it is in one’s own interests to do what is in the population’s interests as a whole, in the short term and the long term. A society in which it is entirely pointless to simply look out for one’s self. This is why governments need to be strong and deny the ruling class (and let’s not pretend that there isn’t one), of the undue influence which they use to maintain their grasp on resources, power, and essentially, happiness.

High taxation would benefit the masses. It would scare many wealthy people off, but we’d be better off without them. For a while, it is quite possible we’d be materially worse off by doing this, but in the long run, it would build a brilliant foundation for a society where it is simply ridiculous to tolerate the levels of greed which are essentially encouraged and worshipped in our current society.

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‘Utopias’ is back!

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

I must admit to a mild and nagging dissatisfaction resulting from my life as an undergraduate. True to form, I went to university with wildly high expectations; I was anticipating some kind of oasis of informed debate about all sorts of interesting things, but the reality was that most people were more concerned with last night’s ’shennanigans’ in Ziggy’s nightclub than discussing divisive aspects of historiography. Naive of me to begin with such outrageously elevated hopes, I’ll admit. Meanwhile, the university itself was frequently guilty of treating its students as customers from which to make profit than as their greatest potential asset.

However, I took one module at university which did live up to my expectations, and allowed me a taste of the fervent discussion I had hoped for. This module focussed on the juicy topic of utopia. What can be more strikingly interesting than historical and philosophical reflection on the quest for an ideal society? Not much, I would argue. The debate was massively encouraged by the blog which was set up by Sarah Rees Jones, the creator of the module, for precisely that purpose – and it was to my great surprise that I received an email today asking me to take part in the 2010 version. Anybody who knows me well may well have heard me singing the praises of this course of study, and there are many reasons I remain grateful to Sarah for creating it.

A look around the room I am currently sat in (my bedroom in Cambridge), reveals a collection of William Morris patterns attached to the wall above the fireplace, and a book of his patterns on the mantlepiece itself. The bookshelves to the left are swollen with the books from the module itself, but predominantly with all of the philosophy books I have enjoyed since my appreciation for philosophy was ignited during the Utopias module. William Morris’s presence is bolstered by a battered old copy of his utopian novel News From Nowhere (amusingly priced with extra ‘war costs’ of 1/8) and a large biography of his life.

I have often reflected slightly warily on the nature of a history degree from the University of York. The experiences of some of my co-historians made them feel that the academic staff didn’t have much time for mere undergraduates, although I think these lecturers must have been in the minority. I will always be keen to assert that a couple of individuals should undoubtedly be exempt from such criticisms. Namely, my then-supervisor John Cooper (who endured some of the implications of my suffering from severe depression during my first year of university), and Sarah Rees Jones. Sarah has that rare talent for being able to respect others’ opinions even if she is inclined to disagree with them.

Sarah, with something of the humility she always displayed, seems reluctant to believe that I intended to send an email expressing my gratitude to her for creating this module in the first place. This is not surprising – so few people ever thank others for their efforts, so why would I do so two years after I studied a module which she created? The least I can do is a blog post whilst I sit back and look forward to hearing interesting new discussions.

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Rowan Williams’s Interesting Definition of Faith

Friday, December 18th, 2009

The fact that I am not a Christian, and that I do not believe in ‘God’, are things I have consistently put down to a lack of ‘faith’ on my part. Of course, this attribution hinges entirely on my definition of faith.

Interesting to note then, that on the first page of the main section of the Cambridge Primary Review is an extended quote from Rowan Williams which includes the phrase:

Education is training in what you can trust and what you can share… Faith and hope are at work and they’re at work in the training of reason… Faith as the capacity to trust arguments which can be shown to be trustworthy.

And alas, Rowan Williams’s idea of faith is much different to mine. In fact, my idea of faith is that it runs contrary to reason. Faith – which to me is at best an optimistic and mildly-informed belief, and (more likely) at worst, blind belief – is not something which falls under the remit of reason. Reason is about forming your arguments based on premises which are empirically provable. Unfortunately, it is far from possible to prove empirically that there is a God, and the odds of it being the God described in The Bible are incredibly long. Everything appears to contradict the biblical account of the history of the Earth, and hence why we must supposedly worship God.

Faith is an interesting idea. The whole point of faith is that it constitutes an unwavering belief in something. No matter what the evidence seems overwhelmingly to suggest, ‘faith’ can be used to ignore these arguments. No matter how obvious something is, or how provable it is by reason, you can always play the trump card named faith.

Faith can eclipse reason. The two are different outlooks. It is slightly deceptive to suggest, I think, that faith is an essential part in training oneself to reason. It is not surprising to hear, as one would expect a high-up member of the church to defend the notion of faith, but to link it to reason in this manner is to clutch at straws to which faith is not entitled.

Of course, it is nonetheless massively important for children to learn about faith. It plays a key role in society. We just have to be very careful about how we present the idea. Children would need to be aware of both the Williams-esque perspective on faith, and opposing perspectives which are also held by many people.

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Jesus unwittingly sums up capitalist society

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

It’s been an on-off project of mine for the last year to read The Bible. Most people’s reaction on hearing that I’m reading it is a puzzled ‘Why?’. After all, I’m agnostic about the existence of a supreme being, and sceptical of the idea that we can know how it thinks humans should act. There’s no evidence for the existence of God, and faith alone seems a hollow delusion.

Anyhow, The Bible is a very important text. It has had a profound effect on humanity for over 2,000 years. Many metaphors and sayings which are commonly uttered seem to originate from it. It is a fascinating book (or set of books in truth), there’s no doubting that.

As a guide to living though, I feel that it’s wholly unsuitable. It contradicts itself, can be interpreted vaguely (one wonders if this is deliberate), and at times supports values which seem completely contemptuous. I should think that most people who call themselves ‘Christians’ by one denomination or another, have never actually read The Bible in full. My conversation with Christians so far supports this thought. I could probably count on two fingers, let alone two hands, the number of people I have encountered who have read it in its entirety. Yet, they claim to be ‘followers of Christ’ and have not read the main text about his life. They claim to believe in God, but can’t truly know about the way God seems to change its mind throughout the book which gives us his word.

So I’m reading The Bible so that I might know what God is supposedly saying, and what Jesus Christ supposedly did, more than those who emptily claim to follow them, and that I might enhance my knowledge of literary tradition on the way.

Much to my amusement though, whilst reading The Parable of the Sower in Matthew (13:1-13:23), Jesus seems to confirm a belief of mine about capitalism. I am often irked that in our society, it is easy to get more money if you already have lots to begin with, and impossible to get any if you have none. Jesus, talking about something else entirely (perhaps people’s strength of belief in his teachings), says

Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

Which seems to sum up very well the nature of our society. You were talking about something else, but nonetheless, well said JC. Just goes to show that The Bible is of constant use, even to non-believers such as me.

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The hypocrisy of calling someone judgemental

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Shouldn’t it be abundantly obvious that to call somebody ‘judgemental’ is itself a judgemental thing to do? Calling someone judgemental is naive, hypocritical, and a lazy way of disagreeing with somebody else’s opinion. I’ve been labelled with this supposed insult in the past, but don’t let it fool you. I’m no more judgemental than anybody who has ever called me it.

You get called judgemental most often when you make a pronouncement that something is morally wrong. This is why it’s so ironic to be judged as judgemental. How do you call someone judgemental without using an extreme dose of judgement? I’m not going to suggest that it’s wrong to be judgemental. Or even right. But there’s no way to avoid it – everyone is judgemental. Every opinion you have about another person, positive or negative, is based on your own opinions. Everybody has opinions based on their judgements. The correctness of these judgements cannot be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. There is no text which affirmatively proves which actions are morally positive and which are not. (Least of all The Bible I should add).

In my instance, I am often to be heard voicing the opinion that nobody should ever have an affair. To me, it is always wrong. Whoever is the victim of the affair is almost definitely going to be hurt by it. People counter my assertion with the suggestion that escaping an abusive relationship via an affair is the ‘only’ option for some people, and that it cannot thus be morally wrong. I disagree. Firstly, if you have the liberty to conduct an affair, there are other ways in which you could sever a negative relationship. Secondly, even if someone else is commiting extremely negative acts towards you, does that make it acceptible to do something wrong to them? No. It just makes them more wrong than you. But you’re still both wrong. In fact, conducting an affair may well confirm to them the motivations which lead them to being abusive in the first place.

Alas, these are just my opinions. My judgements. The incontrevertible proof of them will most likely never be found, and the same is true for the opposing argument. But spare me the stupidity of calling me judgemental, and suggesting that your own opinions are based on anything stronger than your own equally weak judgements.

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Many Thanks, Bertrand

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

I have been an Agnostic for quite some time. I have never believed conclusively in the existence of a supreme being (let alone the Christian “God”), but I have also been aware that there is no current way to prove that such a being does not exist. With a lack of proof in either case, I must admit that I am an Agnostic. There is no way to be a committed theist or atheist which rigidly adheres to rationalism.

The other week when mentioning said religious status, it was implied that my Agnosticism was a ‘nothing’ belief. This is quite a common thing for people with Agnostic tendencies to come up against. It is also blatantly incorrect. Having a ‘nothing’ belief, or an indifference to the topic, is not what Agnosticism means. I am far from indifferent on the subject of whether or not there is a God. On the contrary, the answer to the question is hugely important. His/Her/It’s existence would have profound implications for how we must view the world, and what we’re doing on it.

Anyhow, it’s taken me years to pin down exactly how I feel about the existence of a God, and I feel I have now done it. Imagine how surprised and pleased I was to find that Bertrand Russell has already summed up my position on the matter with perfect clarity already:

Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.

Thanks Bertrand, you took the words right out of my mouth. Not enough to shut me up completely though.

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Ok, who thought up this terminology?

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

I thought I’d google ‘contemporary philosophy’ just now, in the hope of finding a nicely-worded summary of who’s who in current philosophical thought. Turns out to be a bit of a bugger though, as I’m sure anyone better acquainted with the periodisation of Western philosophy would have quickly informed me. Even though contemporary means something along the lines of “from the same period of time”, and thus “related to the present”, “contemporary philosophy” refers to the period from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. An internet search mostly reveals stuff about Bertrand blinking Russell, who died in 1970. This was not what I had in mind.

I have just realised how boring this post is. Forget I ever posted it.

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Philosophy (n.): See Baggini, Blackburn or de Botton.

Monday, July 13th, 2009

I absolutely love philosophy. I’ve never studied it academically but most of the books I read are philosophical ones. There’s nothing more fun than reflecting on other people’s inspiring reflections, and then realising in the process what your own ones look like. I’m always happy to get dragged into a good ol’ “deep and meaningful”, but have always considered myself a confused chap when it comes to my espousal of any philosophical principles. In my first twenty-two years of existence, I have flirted with many different styles of thought, plenty of which contradict each other. Most of this flirting took place in the last few years.

Lacking a little direction, and seeking to resolve the confusion, I have sought the wisdom of past philosophers. It’s no use being confused about everything without considering the efforts of people like Socrates, Descartes, Schopenhauer, and others who strived to make sense of this mess. That said, it would probably be an uphill task to delve straight into the original texts written by each philosopher, which is why Julian Baggini, Simon Blackburn, and Alain de Botton have earned my immense respect.

Each of these writers has produced plenty of material which serves to introduce and scrutinise the wisdom of key thinkers before them, and in so doing, they have asserted their own particular takes on the situations. I encourage anyone who is trying to come to terms with what on earth life on earth is about to read their books. In a friendly manner, they point you in the direction of the original texts themselves, and warmly invite you to dispute anything in their own summaries which seems discordant with your reality. I am currently of the opinion that, whether or not you agree with their every statement, they deserve a lot of praise for their endeavours.

They all write wonderfully, and seek to encompass the reader into the philosophical realm. During my three years of studying for a history degree, I found that in the majority of cases, academics were keen to write in a manner which excluded those who didn’t already possess an immaculate subject knowledge. They would use unexplained references and acronyms, and sandwich it in verbose language and impenetrable grammar, just to ensure that it was difficult to get at their arguments (for lack of knowing what they actually were) and impossible to rival their supposed expertise.

Messrs Baggini, Blackburn and de Botton do not take this approach to philosophy, which should rightfully be accessible to anyone who wishes to ponder the nature of their life. They welcome us in, and impart their knowledge. It’s terrific. I sometimes write little philosophical essays which I don’t publish, and if I could ever write to the standard of these three individuals, I would be very pleased with myself indeed.

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