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.

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.

What is the purpose of an education?  Forget for a moment post-secondary education specifically.  Much more generally: Why do we go to school?

Well, early on we go to school because its the law.  Why is it the law?  Democracy does not function with an illiterate population.  Truly, one of the major reasons why the residents of what would become Canada pushed for self-government is because individual farmers lacked the resources to educate their children on their own.  They needed the whole of society to support the education of a child.

Did they want an education for their children so that they could work?  In part.  They wanted a better life for their children and wanted a better society to live in.  Work is part of that, but not even the most important part.  Educated masses were the goal, for educated people are more difficult to push around.  It was a way to preserve gains.

Fast forward.  Why do we go to university? To get work? Hardly.  Work is important, and many of us have deluded ourselves into thinking that the goal of our education is a job at the end of it.  Like those who believe they are voting for a party or prime minister, they are not exactly wrong, just confused.  With government, we elect someone to represent us and indirectly select a governing party and prime minister.  With school, the work which comes after is not the goal but a desirable side effect.  The goal is to make citizens of students.  Citizens who can think and question.

Thats how it is.  As for how I think it should be, I believe that the government should only concern themselves with citizenship. Specific technical skills should be left to vocational training, which itself should be handled by the industry or professional organizations.  For example, provincial professional engineering organizations should run engineering schools, which may be associated with universities or collages, but not necessarily.  Vocational training should feature apprenticeships, much like many collage vocational training programs already do.  The focus should be on the utilitarian technical skills rather than abstract knowledge, which belongs in the realm of citizenship focused schools.

The confusion of schooling for knowledge and schooling for technical skills is something I view as negative since it downplays the importance of citizenship in us all.  It is something we should focus on repairing.

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.

To anyone who lives within Canada, resentment of Toronto is a known but potentially strange phenomenon.  If you are not aware of it then you are probably from Toronto.  You may also live near another major Canadian city, and resent it for much the same reason which I theorise.  I personally hail from Northern Ontario, which is important as we probably have the greatest resentment for Toronto in the entire country.

As the title suggests, I believe that colonialism is to blame for these feelings.  Toronto is the economic capital of Canada.  Any reasonable person would admit this fact.  It follows that many international companies have their Canadian head offices in Toronto, as well as many Canadian companies.  This means that a large percentage of the decision making power in the Canadian economy is located in Toronto.  When a factory, mine or mill is closed by the head office of a company, likely located in the city, it is other parts of the country which suffer.  So, by virtue of housing these companies, the city is seen as responsible.

Beyond this, companies tend to place all of the management positions in the city.  This makes sense from their perspective as it keeps their corperate headquarters localised.  But this has the effect of keeping many of the high paying, non-directly productive jobs in Toronto.  From the perspective of the rest of the country, however, it seems as though the city itself is parasitising the country, feeding off the success of others while contributing only to its own well being.

Both of these factors, the disconnect between control structures within the city and the front line elsewhere and the parasitic relationship the city has with the rest of the country feel very much like colonialism without the violent  physical oppression.  If you add the media control and the fact that the rest of the country routinely hears local news from Toronto as relevant to their own location, you start to get more of the cultural aspects of colonialism as well as the economic which have already been described.

People within Toronto are unlikely to have an idea about the goings on in the province outside their city.  This is akin to the way many Canadians feel when watching “Talking to Americans” or other such programs.  The cause is the same: the colonial power has no need to know of the goings on in the colonies.

Within Ontario itself, Toronto also plays the roll as political capital.   Again, the reasons why the city is so dominant is clear to anyone who pauses to examine the situation, especially with regard to population and distribution of population.  But, again, to those who exist elsewhere in the province, there is still a dictatorship from the city.  Unless Toronto splits party support quite evenly, the votes of Northern Ontario, for example, are mostly irrelevant.  Once again, the structure is logical but leads to issues.

Considering the above arguments, it is easy to see why the rest of Ontario has an antagonistic relationship with the city of Toronto.  It is a political, economic and cultural oppressor and colonial power.  Within confederation, the same problems can be extrapolated to how the rest of the provinces feel towards Ontario.  The same considerations apply.  As well, anyone living near a major Canadian city, especially a provincial capital, can feel themselves sweeped away by the domination of the city.

The situation, by pure reason, makes perfect sense.  However, this pure reason is not considering the effects this has on people who live in the country, both inside and outside these cities.  The people within are largely oblivious to the way the rest of the country views them, which is largely part of the problem.   This is ignorance, pure and simple, and ignorance is an attribute to be combated.  People living elsewhere have the problem of feeling less important or slighted by this ignorance.  The end result is further dysfunction within Canadian confederation.

For now, I present no solutions or recommendations to this issue.  Personal education would go a long way to mitigating these issues, but I refuse to hold my breath.  Just as Torontonians are blissfully unaware, the rest of Ontario takes joy from its resentment. It is a truly dysfunctional relationship, but it helps to define the cultural landscape in this province and country, and perhaps that is worthwhile.

In days gone by, action was judged based on outcome.  The why of the action was entirely ignored.  No one thought about the why.  No one cared.  They were not thinking at that level.  This style of living is not inferior or superior, just different.

We no longer behave this way.  We, in the West especially, consider intention to be the highest truth.  Giving isn’t seen as a good since there is an intention of getting something back.  In the past, it wasn’t that this intention did not exist, it was that such behaviours were not consiously thought of.  Even in law, we consider intention to be superior to the action itself.  Intention can make or break a conviction.  But intention doesn’t change the reality of the event, just the colour of our interpretation.

In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche spoke of moving beyond intention as the judge of action.  His idea was that action, regardless of outcome or intention, was “good” if it was a conscious decision.  That the intentionality, not to be confused with intend, of an action or event determines its value.

Clearly there is some overlap between conscious action and intent.  Just as there is overlap between outcome and intent.  One can consciously act with an intended outcome.  Like much of Nietzsche’s though, such action required that those with a stronger will (will to power) should force theirs on those with less.  Like much of Nietzsche’s thought, he was at the very least incorrect, and at most outright wrong.

There is some inherent value in purposeful action.  Just as there is some value in the intent of an action.  But only the  outcome changes reality. We must not forget this last fact. What you intend does not change anything except how you justify it to yourself.  If you think you are doing what is best for people, and the outcome becomes highly negative, then you will blame some outside cause beyond your control.  Usually the complexity of people.

Know that what you intended to do does not change the nature of the world. Know that whether you consciously decided to do it or not changes things even less.  In the end, the action and the outcome are what matter.

Even Zarathustra went under sometimes.

The human mind clings to symbols like it grasps few other things. Symbols have intense power. Ask any person of religion how they feel when viewing their holy symbols, especially in trying circumstances. Or all of the ideas and violence that went into something like the Soviet hammer and sickle. These images contain much more information due to collective memory than their basic parts ever could.

People do get attached to symbols.  The feelings and ideas attached to them are very strong.  The same is true of certian slogans, musical tunes and moments.   Charlemagne did not have to go to Rome and be crowned ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, it was a symbolic act who’s value and purpose is far beyond the simple action itself.  It represented the subservience of European kings to the church and changed the course of Western Civilisation forever.  Mickey Mouse is the most famous being on earth.  This character is not human, not an animal, not anything, really, except a symbol.

A symbol’s power is not in its direct form.   The actual form is immaterial, its the meaning associated with the form which contains the power.  The form and the meaning, however, are inseparable.  A change in form may result in the loss of the meaning and thus of the power and use of the symbol.  And a symbol without any power is a useless symbol, it may as well be a transient piece of graffiti on a railroad car.

When modifying something as powerful as a symbol, one must consider what is meant by it.  Denying history is a certain road to failure, ignoring it is likely worse.  A symbols past is its memory and purpose.  A change in direction is a process which must take a prolonged period of time as adjustment to modified symbolism will not happen overnight.  If the Catholic Church were to change one of their most important symbols, the cross, how many years would the transition take place over?  How about a modern nation, changing their motto or animal representatives?

Any modification of such symbols must have abundant need and must be gradual in nature.  To do otherwise is to deny their purpose, value and to undermine popular support for such an action.  If such need exists it must be clear to all.   Symbols belong to the group as a whole and are not a responsibility of any one person or subgroup.  Their meaning exists from group consciousness, not any one individual.  Any one individual lacks the insight needed to understand that with which they deal.

Symbols are the primary means of human communication.  All language, visual art, music and literature are all entirely symbolic.  One cannot simply change things abruptly and expect the desired results.  Group ownership, memory and the power of the symbol must be accounted for.  To do otherwise is to destroy the power, purpose and meaning of the symbol, deny your own participation within the group at large and to fragment that which you meant to improve.

To question the purpose of art is necessary.  If art exists for its own sake then it has no use or meaning.  If art exists for the critic then, again, it has no use or meaning.

The purpose of art is to express the feelings of society, or a subset of it, in a creative form.   Not to show off technical skill.  Not to flaunt ability.  Technical ability may produce beautiful product, but that product is devoid of meaning.

Choose the flawed image of truth over the perfect image of nothing.

If, without degree or training, you cannot be moved by a work, it has no value.  Appriciation of the brushwork or the sound does not constitute movement.  Appreciation of technical skill is irrelevant to the meaning of work.  The most meaningful and moving of works are often those which lack professional skill.

Of course, genius with technical skill exists.  Just be aware of where technical skill ends and genius begins, and do not confuse the former for the later.

The meaning of art of all forms is to reflect upon the world around us, to provide a mirror into the proverbial soul.  The purpose is not to be a literal mirror, reflecting all seen with perfect detail.

To the citizen, enjoying arts: be wary of the meaning.

To the artist: forget the critic, true validation begins in the citizen.