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.

Whether spoken truly or not, the above says it all. The folly of the attempted escape from Paris of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette may serve as an important lesson to those who find themselves beaten.

The bread riots were an important contributing factor to the outcome of the French Revolution, and in fact may be the single most important reason for its success.   The widespread starvation created a kind of class consciousness in the peasants of France, which pushed for changes to the way government was run.  Their starvation, in a sense, awoke them to their power.  The most obvious goal they sought was an end to their hunger.

To their credit, the monarchy did make an attempt to overcome the famine.  One cannot judge the people, however, for remaining angry at the failings of the monarchy.  Famine was not the only cause of the revolution, after all.  However rightly, the king was judged by the outcome of his actions (or queen, as the case may be).  And they had failed.  Naturally this increased ill will towards the royal family.  Ill will was already at quite high levels by this point, and justifiably the royals began to fear for their lives.

At this point the supposed statement was made.  “Let them eat cake.”  Evidence does not support that it was ever said, especially by Marie Antoinette.  The statement is used as evidence of the royal’s lack of understanding of the situation in which they found themselves.  What it means is that the royals, in their plenty, could not comprehend the suffering of the masses.  Since they had plenty of food, even very rich delicacies (the cake) they failed to see that others did not.  It is also important to note that a better translation of “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” would translate brioche as an egg bread, since it was not a cake as we understand it, but rather a very egg and butter rich bread.

Whether or not such a thing was ever said is irrelevant, since the next action of the king shows his complete lack of comprehension of the situation equally well.

The royals, while very likely blind to a great many things, were not blind to the danger of their situation.  They fled Paris for a monarchist stronghold near the border of Holland.  They dressed themselves as servants to a Russian  baroness and fled in a very luxurious stage coach.  When the party stopped to exchange horses, the king insisted on resting.  He was recognized and they were captured later that morning, just a few kilometres from their goal.  Why one would stop for a rest when fleeing for their life is a strange thing indeed.

An even more critical interpretation can be found on pages 499-501 of John Ralston Saul’s  Voltaire’s Bastards.

What does this all mean?  What is the lesson?  Aside from the obvious, of course, which is to hide as quickly as possible if you are wanted dead.

The real lesson is that if you find yourself in a position of authority you must be receptive to the needs and problems of the people.  The very worst type of  bias is the idea that what benefits you most must necessarily benefit everyone most.

A revisit to my dislike of Toronto

To feel belonging to a place is necessary in order to like it.  Perhaps not a personal, direct belonging, but at least some form of it.  Not necessarily the feeling of `home’, but something like it.  A place here can be a physical place, such as a city, town or any other point on a map.  It can be a metaphorical place, such as the concept of home.  It can be part of society as a whole.  In order to belong you must be able to imagine yourself, your place, in it.  Without being able to do so you will not be enjoy a place.

Clearly by the above statement and past writings, I cannot imagine a place for myself within Toronto.  I am not alone.  I have a place elsewhere for myself.  The problem comes when both groups, and both groups are guilty, fail to recognize that not all of us can imagine ourselves in the same way as everyone else, and thus, as we all really know, there is no universal place.  No clear ideal which everyone must achieve, where everyone must be.  The pleasures of life are not the same for everyone, and we all must respect that.

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.

I’ve written previously about my distaste for Toronto.  I’ve also claimed that this is not a mentality unique to myself, for truly it is not.  I explained one theory which I think provides the why to the action.

Now I shall refine that thought further.

I find Toronto as a physical place to be greatly unpleasant.  This is, however, just an opinion.  Many of us who grew up outside of the world’s largest cities would share such feelings owing to the total lack of anything natural within the city.  Certianly trees are planted all about, but never do they appear natural.  Even when a forested area is left, it is ruined by the excessive noise pollution of the roads which inevitably follow along near it.

This is not to say that the physical city lacks any attraction, since the ample opportunity for one to exercise boundless consumerism would be a desirable quality to many.  Any with an interest in urban architecture would also find their interests addressed within the city.  My argument is that these aspects of the physical city are insufficient to derive any enjoyment from, at least in my case.

There is the cultural city of Toronto as well.  One would be hard pressed to negatively write about this, and I shall not.  Pure cultural diversity is not the only thing that matters by a long shot, however, it can be a very positive thing.  I would say that Toronto as a cultural entity is somewhat positive in nature, if not wholly positive in nature.

The problem is neither the physical city nor the people who live in it.  The city itself is rather ugly and oppressive to me.  The people are friendly enough so long as you never utter the greatest blasphemy known to them, that Toronto is not the greatest place to live.  No, neither of these are the true nature of my distaste for this city.

The real problem is the idea of Toronto.  That, by virtue of living in Ontario at least, and perhaps Canada as a whole, one should be familiar with the street geography of Toronto enough to recognize a caricature of a map is the centre of the issue.  Toronto expects and demands awareness and seems unable or unwilling to cope with the idea that perhaps it is not the ideal form of life, eve for one person.  That, by living in the same province as the city, we should be informed of who the mayor is and what his daily actions are is an example of this.  (This last point is weakened by the fact that recent mayors of Toronto are eccentric enough to often warrant such coverage regardless of their city’s relative importance.)

I understand that Toronto is an important location and a very populous one.  I just find it impossible to care about where street x crosses street y and what shops can be found in such a local.  So please, a little understanding.

The whole of the sky lit up with that abhorrent electric glow.  In that instance I saw all.  To the north, looming oppressively, was that infernal sheet of ice.  Far off in the east was the sea.  To the west and to the south was my doom.

As the light faded, I tried to count their numbers,  It was a purposeless task, for just a few could end anything.  There were at least two dozen, probably many more.

These mighty warriors had all but eradicated my people, their relentless tools cutting our hardened flesh.  No defense seemed to affect them.  They always kept coming, kept moving, kept killing.

A lucky few survived. They did not hide, could not hide. They were sometimes old, sometimes weak.  Children were rarely spared, but never were they cut down where they stood.  They were more often trampled underfoot by the advancing forces.  Pointless deaths.

They always took our dead with them.  We have stories about their fate.  Cut to pieces, chopped into chips, burned.  Pure desecration of the dead.

The humans raised their axes. They had reached my side. It was over. I was over.  I did nothing as the blades slashed deep into my bark. Again and again they struck. I felt my trunk breaking under my own weight.

I fell.

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.

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.