Friends are Electric

I consider myself to be an animist, although not in the traditional sense.  I do not necessarily believe that the rocks, the trees, the muskrats have a spirit of sorts within them.  I would not discount the potential for this to be the case either, however, nor discredit someone else for having such a literal belief, but it is not mine.  My animism is related to the traditional.  It stems directly from how I view the world, and where I view my own and humanity’s place within it.

Allow me to explain.

I am, as much as anyone else alive today, a child of reason.  Through science especially, but more truthfully through all aspects of my education, save one exception which I shall come to later, as well as most of my thinking until rather recently has been either developing this belief in this.  To see the world in a rational, logical way.

Cogito ergo sum. I no longer hold with this, but I understand why many do.  There is certainty in it.  By the nature of perception, I can be sure of nothing, I can prove nothing, save that I myself perceive. I can be certain only of my own existence.  This certainty is satisfying, anyone who has a basic understanding of science, for example, knows that science cannot be used to prove anything.  The whole of this Cartesian reason is just like science, nothing can be conclusively proven except, of course, your own existence.

There is truth to this, for what its worth.  When you strip away all the adornment around pure reason, you arrive at Descartes’s  statement.  To be a child of reason is to define yourself, to define your being, everything that you are, based solely on your ability to think.  To reason.  To know.

This works for some people, I am not like that.  Even when I thought I was, when I tried to live through reason alone, I knew on some level that it was not so, that it was a completely unsatisfactory way to live.  While thinking, reasoning and knowing were important to me, they were not me completely.  They were, to put it mathematically, necessary but not sufficient conditions.

Then, after going on like this for years, knowing on an unconscious level that Cartesian pure reason did not work for me, came the change in my education.  That change was a single course taken during a single term.  But it was pivotal in my development.  It was existentialism.

Like Cartesian reason, existentialism can be reduced to a simple principle.  Although at present I lack a universally recognizable Latin phrase, it comes down to I act purposefully therefore I am.  In existentialism, you define yourself through your actions.  Whether or not you believe that purpose exists to them, whether you are yourself capable of knowing or understanding that purpose, or whether it only exists if you yourself invent it is irrelevant, merely shades of the colour of existentialism.

When first learning about existentialism, when I was developing my ideas of it in my head, I adopted the belief that there was no universal purpose to anything and that none of any sort existed.  This was as unsatisfying as Cartesian pure reason.  Beyond that, it was even less practical.  While not strictly an existentialist, Nietzsche’s Übermensch was supposed to take every action in a purposeful way, that is to be conscious of every action and decision.  How can one be purposeful when the actions themselves are supposed to lack purpose?

So I softened by existentialism.  I still rejected universals, especially a universal purpose behind anything, for I did believe and agree with Nietzsche when he spoke of the death of God at our hands.  But why could there not be  a more practical, personal purpose?  Not just purpose which we created to comfort ourselves, but a real, tangible purpose which was individualized.  Such a thing as a measure of our actions was satisfying to me, and I remained with this colour of existentialism for a time.

However, like Descartes’s pure reason, existentialism did not provide me with a complete world view.  Even the colour I preferred was lacking.  It was interesting to think about, enjoyable to practice for small periods of time, but in the end completely unsatisfying.  Even though I had defined purpose within it, to me it still felt as though purpose was lacking.   From the point of view of pure reason, I could only be sure of my existence through thinking, from existentialism, through my actions.

The problem is that I’ve never been concerned about whether I exist or not.  Whether I can prove it with reason or not, whether I can justify it through logic is irrelevant.  Common sense tells me I exist.  My own existence  is something I consider self evident.  Common sense tells me that the people around me exist, whether or I can prove that they think, which I cannot, or whether I can prove that their actions are taken consciously, which again I cannot.  They still exist, to pretend otherwise is foolhardy and is the seed of many wrongs.  These rational structures, Cartesian reason and existentialism, fail because by rationalizing the reality around them, trying to justify everything, they fail to grasp what is important.  They get caught up in irrelevant details, like futilely attempting to prove that a given being exists.

So I exist.  And you exist.  And the world exist.  So does the rest of the universe.  I don’t need to see it, don’t need to touch it, to know this. The existence of these things is as self evident to me as the nonexistence of other things.  Does god exist?  As a universal system of morality, perhaps.  As a flesh and blood being, or a being of some other literal composition? No.  That is, however, for another time.

Here, however, we come to the seed that is the centre of by animism:  Things exist.  But, of course, existing is not in and of itself satisfying to me, since both by Cartesian pure reason and existentialism I existed if I was careful.  Of course, now other things exist, but what of it?  Is that enough?  Is simply existing sufficient?  It is conceivable that a pill could be formed which contains all the nutrition a human needs for a single day.  Would being sustained by such a thing be as satisfying as living, sustaining yourself on real food?  Both are, from the point of view of existence alone, equal prospects.  Eating is not done just for sustenance, but also for enjoyment.  As is being not just existing but living.  What then is the seperation between existing and living?

I spoke of the death of god.  Its death applies here.  There cannot be a universal separation between existing and living.  My separation involves purpose.   Is there purpose to anything?  I would answer yes.  What of meaning, can an action have meaning?  Can a natural occurrence have meaning?  What of emotions?

Here is where I depart from the rational belief structures drastically.  My animism, like the more traditional variations of it, is spiritual in nature.  I cannot, nor shall I try, to rationalize it through any logical means.   To do so would be contrary to its nature and would render it as unsatisfactory and empty as the other systems I talked about.

My belief is that there is purpose, nothing grand, nothing specific, but purpose nonetheless.   The purpose of existence, with life an important part of it, is beauty.  Not perfection.  Not facts.  Perhaps nothing even tangible.  There is beauty in the natural as there is in the human.  Human imitation of the natural can possess beauty, as can creations of a purely human nature.  To be utilitarian is not to be beautiful, although utilitarian objects can still possess their own beauty. Again, god is dead, these are personal, not universal, in nature.

The purpose of life is therefore beauty, the enjoyment, creation and study of it.  Since the natural world possesses this beauty, the natural scientist, for example, can lead a purposeful existence.  This is important to me as, while I am not a scientist nor am I even training to be one presently, it is a position I have always respected and admired.  The artist, be their medium visual, aural, written or dramatic is therefore on par with the natural scientist, as they study and create their own brand and style of beauty. And we are all on equal footing when we take it all in and enjoy these works.

The only morally reprehensible act, therefore, is the intentional destruction of beauty.  This must, of course, be taken with common sense.  The destruction of an insect or a weed is not on the same level as the destruction of a greater beast, such as a human.  Destruction for its own sake is unforgivable, but if a greater beauty could be formed from the initial destruction then perhaps all can be forgiven.

“The cut worm forgives the plough”, as a wise man once said.

My animism substitutes the spirits found in more traditional animism for beauty, but keeps the most important aspect intact: that people, like animals, are just part of the environment in which they live.  That any action taken has consequences, and while I won’t have any sort of ceremony of prayer for what becomes my food, I will be certain to attempt to minimize the harmful or negative responses to my actions.

For now, the final word on this also belongs to William Blake,  “the fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees.”  My beauty is not the same beauty you see, and we should try our best to respect that and not force our own beliefs on each other.

There are exactly five Nobel Prizes awarded every year, with one more masquerading as a true Nobel Prize.  Our friend Alfred specifically set up three of these five prizes to reward scientific developments which have benefited human kind.  In the case of the peace prize, an individual or individuals who have furthered the cause of world peace, and with literature, those who further the understanding of what it means to be human.  Whether these awards have always reflected their original purpose is open to question.  This is not the question for the moment, however.

There is another prize, one which ostensibly seems to be awarded for scientific achievement in a field of study.  Of course, this field is as unscientific as the study of history, but few realise or are willing to accept that.  I speak, of course, of that mighty social science, economics.

There is no doubt that  the prizes in medicine, chemistry and physics are all rewarding true scientific achievement.  But what makes these fields scientific and economics not?  I would argue that it is the nature of what is being studied.  Medicine, strictly, would not exist without purposeful human study, but the subject of their study, biological organisms, would.  The same can be said about chemistry and physics, as prior to humans both played the same role they do now in the universe.  Economics, however, is entirely different.  It is emergent from human behaviours.  It is not separate and independent from humanity.  In short, it is not universal.

Economics is a social science.  Social sciences are quite unfortunately named, since they have little if nothing to do with science.  Which is not to belittle them, merely condemn them to a specific sort of operation, ideally closer to that of the humanities than the natural sciences.  However, that is a discussion for another time.  Being a social science, economics must understand that what it pretends to be is false, that it is not, as said above, universal and is, more importantly, not fundamental.

Not fundamental.  No other social science, humanity or indeed natural science places itself on such a pillar of self-importance.  Economics claims that only economics is the lense which we can judge our actions, plans and programs.  Perhaps other fields would make such claims if they were in a position to, but certainly we would recognize the absurdity of judging everything through the principles of  anthropology.  It is not that anthropology has nothing important to tell us, quite the opposite really, it is that a single lens view of society is an impossibly terrible way of running things.

The reason why no other social sciences have Nobel Prizes?  None of them have rich backing organizations.  That is how this prize came about, a Swiss bank funded the prize, a Nobel Memorial Prize.  I would argue that they did so to increase the credibility of the field as a science, rather than as just one of many social sciences which we attempt to understand our society with.

A final point on the relevance of a prize in economics: other fields attempt to describe laws of nature, but the way nature functions does not change based on these laws, not true for economics.  For example, gravity works as gravity no matter how we describe it, be it Newtonian, Relativity or some future Quantum-Gravity theory.  Economics does not behave this way, if a new mindset takes over, the way the system itself functions can change.  This is because it is an emergent system which requires humans, or something similar, rather than fundamental to the nature of the universe.

To put it another way, why do we not read poetry anymore?  Most people give up on poetry the moment they finish their last English course, be that in high school, college or university.  Is it that poetry lacks the ability to convey deep and important meaning between human beings?  Is it that we have developed newer and better ways of sharing this message?

Or is it just that society has chosen a different form of writing to be the medium by which we exchange thoughts and emotions.  Poetry has its place and is still of great value, but it has been long since supplanted by the novel as the primary literary form.  The novel too will be replaced as the primary, but never shall it fully disappear for some messages are best for it.

A response to a currently circulating article from 2003.

The premise is that American’s don’t like jazz because they are a visually focused, ADD society which has lost its ability to appreciate high art.   The argument takes on the fact that much pop music is vocally driven and assigns the reason for this to the fact that American’s cannot relate to music without it.  The author extends this to the appreciation of visual arts, where he makes the claim that Americans cannot appreciate art which lacks something which they recognize.  That, for instance, Voice of Fire is less liked than Creation of Adam because the later is easier to understand due to having recognizable figures from stories well known to those viewing the work, while the earlier is much more abstract and minimalistic and thus much more challenging to understand.  Ignoring, of course, the relative fame of each work.  Take Mondrain’s Composition 11 in Red, Blue and Yellow and  Le Radeau de la Méduse by Théodore Géricault for a similar comparison.

The argument presented is tainted by an all too common nearly anti-American elitism which we of other countries often take.  The first hint of such taint is the lack of discussion of music in other English speaking countries, such as Canada, Great Briton, Australia, New Zealand or even India.   The author likely lacks personal experience of these countries and places, so he can be forgiven on this front.  It must be noted, however, that singling out the United States is a ploy often driven by the rest of the world’s subconscious loathing-envy relationship dichotomy with the Americans.  If nothing else, a quick look and presentation of sales numbers in the UK would have been in order, as such information is available.

Moving on from the subconscious, let us return the heart of the matter. American’s don’t like jazz because they cannot accept and understand abstract art. The abstract was the central feature and philosophy of the modern movement in the arts; musical, visual and performance.  It was a reaction to that which came before, the romantic.  No one considers jazz to be part of the modernity movement, however, but the generalities still stand.  Jazz was less structured than the romantic music which preceded it, while still maintaining similar instrumentation.  In the arts, the modern replaced with abstraction the vivid, photosimilar paintings of the previous period.

In architecture, modernity lead to buildings with high utility and little ornamentation.  Architects were some of the first to react to modernity itself by reintegrating aspects of ornamentation to increase the aesthetic appeal of their structures, transforming the understanding of the movement.  It was not that unadorned buildings did not function perfectly appropriately for their purpose, it was that the statement they made was insufficient to these first post-modern architects desires.  Post-modernity is the name of the age recently closed, where the artists decided that they no longer held with the idea that you can communicate everything through abstraction alone.  Abstraction has its place, but just because you can reduce something further does not make it necessarily desirable.  I say post-modernity has passed since this is the consensus that is currently forming, although considerable debate exists as to whether post-modernism existed at all.  We would likely find the author of the article in question would be one who denies the post modern and by extension its passing.

What is the meaning of all this?  In short, the experiment that jazz represented has been replaced.  We have moved on, which is not to say that jazz, like pure utility, has no place.  Its place, however, is no longer the main stage.  Jazz does not fit in what, for lack of a better term, we shall call the post-postmodern.  To pretend that jazz is no longer commonplace because we are too unintelligent to properly grasp its meaning is pure and dangerous fabrication.  If we lack the capacity to understand it, it is because it no longer resonates as it once did.  Contemporary musicians have jazz, what came before and what came after to work with.

The purpose of the artist is not to create mocking works which the common human is incapable of understanding for the sole purpose of this elitism.  The artist does their best to present the feelings, interactions and images they experience in a form which they feels best expresses it.  Separating form from purpose is a meaningless endeavor doomed to create emotionally dead works which are, quite honestly, boring.  Art in the style of Composition 11 in Red, Blue and Yellow created now might rightfully be accused of elitism, since we have moved on.  The same with traditional jazz.  It has its place, and certainly a too direct comparison of musical and visual arts leads to false results, but I feel as though the comparison stands.

In short, humans, the world and the arts have all moved on.  Criticizing any of the above from moving on is foolhardy and wrongheaded.  There is nothing wrong with not moving on, it is not necessary.  I often wonder why certain types of alternative rock from the 1990s had to cease being produced, but I do not attack those who fail to grasp the greatness of many of these works and accuse them of being intellectual light weights.  I may question their taste, however.

And a final point, the classical, and I use classical to mean premodern orchestral music, form of musical appreciation is outdated.  I believe that the popular music, popular to mean all that has come since jazz (excluding country) form of appreciation is superior.  Traditional folk music is meant to be played and enjoyed through participation and by just being in its presence.  People would be doing things, preparing foods, talking and preforming other similar tasks during the performance.  This is closer to the popular music form of presentation, which involves plenty of background noise of people enjoying more than just the auditory experience of the music itself, since music has always been about much more than just the sound.  There is nothing wrong or wrongheaded about listening to music in silence, taking it all in.  There is also nothing wrong about experiencing it as something else, as a background sound or as a participatory experience.

An idealist is someone who follows a set of beliefs blindly, with no regard to the real world, and hopes to have the world adopt their ideas.  There is usually negativity in the word, as someone who is an idealist lacks meaningful contact with the real world where they actually dwell.

I think that this is moderately backwards.  Certainly there are some traces of idealism in those who, often correctly, point out how we as humans could be better.  These people, however, are not the truest idealists.  Nor are they the ones deserving of the condescending undertone of the term.

The true idealists in the world today are those who seriously think that we, as individuals, as a city, province, country or world can continue to live the way we live without consequence.  Without change.  Without taking active part in this change.  The idealists are those who preach the preeminence of the market’s god-hand in deciding fate.  They fail to grasp the true interconnectedness of things, the fallacy of universals and the way the world really works.

It is up to those who understand, or at least understand better, to call these people out on their idealism.

A carelessly quick survey of a random assortment of websites would make it seem that, in order to be happy, we have to try and become something else, to change ourselves in some way.  Most obviously in the form of body enhancement advertisements, but these are some of the less dangerous and least concerning sources.  Certainly they are irritating and stupid, but most of us recognize them as such.

The dangerous types are those which attempt to offer the author’s wisdom.  As though any happiness, material success or whatever other desirable they are selling is not a product of all of their experiences and was instead caused by a few choices, be they insignificant or not.   The author is sincere in his offering and probably believes that the reader can become just like them by following these few steps…

That is not what I shall do.  My experiences (and here I go, ignoring what I said above) tell me that universals are false.   What works for me, what challanges me, what makes me actually happy with myself will not be the same things that work for you.  I spent years studying a topic I did not enjoy, it was hardly challanging.  Nor was it easy, but the mundainity of it all made it impossible to derive joy from.  Thats the case for me, many of my good friends find the topic to be quite the opposite.  Nietzsche was wrong about a whole lot of things, but he spoke true on the need to overcome universals and find what works for you, to see how the other lives.

So here is the challenge.  It is simple to state and impossible to implement.  Life is the struggle to do so, to me at least.

Live as you want, study and do what makes you happy.  Don’t let your pursuit of these things prevent another single person from doing the same.  Compromise, sometimes when you do not need to.  It makes both your lives better.

Do not be smug or judge other people for taking a different path than your own.  Their happiness is not a thing to be ridiculed.

That is it.  That is all.  As a first step I’d recommend reading a book, a real book.  On paper.  The medium is the message and the message of the screen is constant interaction and more information than you can ever hope to digest, the book is more calm and suitable for such baby steps.

I have never made direct mention of them before, yet I constantly have been discussing the foolishness of their ideology.  And of the many undesirable direct consequences of their ideology. And now a direct attack by those who seek to destroy what for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, citizens of the world have fought for.

The right to self determination.

This is sparked by an exceptionally ignorant editorial in this week’s issue of Imprint, the University of Waterloo student newspaper.   The editorial was titled No government is good.

What, exactly, is so wrong headed about this argument?  The first and most important problem is the argument that a non-functioning government is the best form of government, as though the people we elected to govern our nation are not up to the task  of it.

This idea has its source in a couple of deeply flawed ideas.

The first is the confusion between self interest and disinterest.   The former being what modern economics demands we operate solely by.  The later which democracy functions by.  Certainly economics is an interesting field of the social sciences, as important as any other, but it alone does not have the rights and responsibilities to run government, or any type of government policy.  Human beings are not solely self-interested beings, they are an irreconcilable combination of self-interest and group-interest.

Irreconcilable.  Combination.  Digest what that means for a moment.

Both factors are important for a functional human being.  Leave self interest for where it is best, and leave government to disinterest.  Society functions not based on the wild swings of the market but rather on the interactions of the human beings that make it up.  Interactions which do involve the buyer-seller relations described by economics but also the family, friends, neighbour, etc. relations.   When determining government policy, we must not enter with the thought “How can I get the best deal for myself,” but rather “What policies and practices are going to benefit society as a whole most.”

Ethics.  Operating for the greater good rather than the personal good or the private good.  When I am done school, self interest says that I should no longer care about education (unless I have children).  Group interest tells me this is the highest level of foolishness.  For social reasons as well as economic.  Certianly the old adage that the youth are the future does hold true and influences this, as employees and future employers as an economic argument but, more importantly for the fabric of society, education is the process by whch we train the next generation of citizens to act in the ethical fashion.

The second source of this ignorant argument is the corporatist.  The cult of the professional.

The ideology, which I am unsure if the writer even knows he subscribes to, is the principle that any task should be left to professionals and that the untrained cannot have an opinion, or an opinion which has an effect on the final outcome, about any topic which they themselves have no professional training or knowledge in.  Corporatism has its place, having an MBA decide the direction of pure scientific research would be foolish, since the MBA has no skills to help them.  Where corporatism is most dangerous is in government.

In government, corporatism has two important outcomes.  The first is that government must be run by professionals.  The environment ministry must be run by environmental scientists, since science is unbiased and impartial.  But are the scientists themselves biased?  And since they are scientists, they have no right to discuss policy with the natural resource departments, since environmental science is not the same as earth science.  And neither are the same as human resources, or finance or transportation.  Never mind the fact that all of these departments can be horribly interrelated to such a degree that any single specialist would never be able to see the big picture, the possible outcomes for other departments.  No, if you are not a professional in the field then your opinion has no validity.

Of course, the parliament itself is dominated by nonprofessionals.  The people elect it, and the people are not professionals in the art of government.   This is either solved by having professionals select government or by having the people select from a list of certified professionals.

Either case, our right to self determination goes out the window.   Which is the second important outcome.  We lose our right to govern ourselves.

Which is what the article is all about.  We have no right to determine how we want our society to be governed.  We are to be reduced to a passive role where the only vote of any consequence is which brand of toothpaste we purchase and from which store.   A mere mockery of democracy where societies interest is confused with the interest of large companies.

Or, how students really buggered up with Radio Waterloo

No one would pretend that the ethical life was the easy life, nor the productive or efficient life.  The ethical life is simply the good life.  It puts unimportant things like economics in their proper place, subservient to the needs of society as a whole.  The ethical life serves the greater good.

The greater good.  Not personal desires.  Not self-interested behaviour.  The ethical life has not to do with these.  Nietzsche called such people nihilists, those who desire only warmth.  Warmth in his words is the physical comforts of an easy life.  The meaning of nihilist has changed somewhat since Nietzsche first wrote of them, but his point stands.  To truly live the good life is to live the ethical life.

We as students of the University of Waterloo are guilty of such nihilism.  Twice we had the chance to do the right thing and twice we failed.

How can I call support for Radio Waterloo the right thing, you may ask?  Never is the silencing of an independent media outlet the greater good.  Only through plentiful voices does society function in a sustainable manner.  The silencing of any voice, no matter how  small, is not something to celebrate.  It requires mourning and a serious look at how it was allowed to happen.

We allowed it to happen twice.  We caused it to happen.  All are guilty.  Those who supported the station failed to demonstrate how important any media is to society’s proper function.  Those against are guilty of using largely false reason and common sense  through economic arguments of personal good to directly cause the destruction of an organ of society’s function.  The vast majority are guilty of indifference.  These are perhaps the most guilty.  Certainly, they did not fall for the arguments of self-interest.  They ignored the debate entirely.  They are guilty of sacrificing something akin to citizenship for the bliss of ignorance, indifferent to the arguments of both sides and unaware of what was at stake.

As students we failed to live the ethical life.   I as much as any other failed.  We all share in the guilt of conspiracy to destroy the functional organs of society.

The nihilists march forward.

If their purpose was only to provide a snapshot reference of a language at a given time, one could successfully argue that dictionaries have a purpose which sufficiently justifies their existence.  This is not the current state of affairs, and the usefulness of dictionaries should be questioned.  Perhaps we should even go as far as to question the very existence of them.

Language is an organic thing.  It grows and develops naturally through continued use.  Words and phrases obviously fall into disuse with time, but the structure of language itself is also subject to change. The way we spell and pronounce words today is very different than the way they were done in the past.  Its the natural evolution of language.

Dictionaries function as repositories of `truth’.  They are used as the truth on the subject of language.  If common usage differs from what is contained between their covers, then common usage has deviated from the greater truth and must be corrected. This acts to prevent the natural growth and development of language as a whole.

Language is one of the most important aspects of culture. Dictionaries and their truths act to restrain the natural development of language, and thus of our culture as a whole.

The next time someone quotes a dictionary to prove a point, you would do well to question their motives and arguments. Agents of regressive forces should be resisted.

To those who are not familiar with the ultraviolet catastrophe, it was a problem with using classical physics to describe how a blackbody radiates energy.  As the wavelength of the light emitted approaches the ultraviolet region, classical physics has the amount of energy released rapidly approaching infinity.

Since we exist, this is obviously a flaw in the theory.  (People who adhere to certain philosophies would disagree that we exist, or at least with my certainty, but their ideology is akin to multiplying an equation by zero to solve it.)  The solution eventually became what is now known as Quantum Mechanics, and science progressed.

The real lesson from this is that no matter how much we think our theories describe reality, if reality disagrees, it is the theories which need to be changed.  Reality is. Theory just describes reality.  The physicists of the day knew and understood this, and actively searched for a solution.  They even eventually called the problem the ultraviolet catastrophe, acknowledging their error and its extreme nature.

All those applying theory ought to be wary of this.  When theory and reality diverge, it is not reality which needs to be fixed.