Friends are Electric

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.

Collective punishment is banned by international law in times of conflict.  Rightfully so, one is responsible for their own actions but certainly not for those of another.  War can never be civilized, but it can be made easier for those unfortunate enough to have it find them.

Collective punishment is not legal in Canada.  For the same reasons.  We would all be against the punishment of an entire city block for the actions of one resident, or the punishment of entire towns for the actions of a few.

But yet, it exists.  Not in the violent  sense mentioned above, not here and now at least (whether the war in Afghanistan is an incidence of collective punishment itself is a question worth discussing).

Insurance, automotive insurance, is an incidence of collective punishment on the basis of age and sex.   The onus, instead of being on the companies themselves to prove that the person is unsafe, is on the driver to prove that they are competent.  This would be understandable, with age as an approximation of experience, so long as those older people just beginning to drive are also subject to the same fees.  And if sex did not factor into it.

But it does.  And so the situation is one of collective punishment against young people in general, with young males punished to a greater extent.

Statistics, is claimed, proves that these groups are more likely to be in an accident and are thus more costly to insure.  This may be so, but it is the company which must show that a particular person, not a general person, is a greater risk and thus warrants a greater rate.  Sexism is unacceptable under all circumstances. Age discrimination is equally unacceptable but a lack of experience is, in this case, I believe a defensible cause for an increased rate.

Current norms are unacceptable, whether or not one could truly qualify them as a case of collective punishment.

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.

This morning, in my mailbox, was this delightful message from our local Member of Parliament, Peter Braid.  Before I continue and, so to speak, remove the muzzle on myself, I should point out that in the grand scheme of things, Peter Braid has done a fine job here in Kitchener-Waterloo.  He is, as far as I can tell, not the problem with the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).  However, it is difficult to really determine things for sure since Mr. Harper keeps all of his MPs quite quiet most of the time.  The problem with the CPC is Mr. Harper’s autocratic leadership style.  That, however, is a low hanging fruit for another time.

The main message reads:

In these tough economic times, standing up for families is more important than ever.  The Conservative Government is delivering on its commitments to families.

We understand that everyone is stretching to make ends meet.  Our Government introduced measures that give families a break, long before the global recession hit, and now Canada’s Economic Action Plan is making sure families get the support they need.

We have delivered a new child tax credit, the Universal Child Care Benefit and a break for families that enroll their kids in amateur sports.

The marriage penalty in the tax system has been removed.

Registered Education Savings Plans have been strengthened, so families can plan better for the future.

All of these measures have helped put Canada and Canadian families in a strong position to weather the storm, and set the stage for a promising future.

The Conservative Government is also helping young families get a head start on buying their first homes, by providing up to $750 in tax relief.  We’re also providing first-time home buyers with more flexibility to buy or build a home.  They can now withdraw up to $25,000 from RRSP savings to do so, an increase from the previous limit of $20,000.

These measures don’t just help first-time home buyers; they also stimulate our economy by boosting demand for housing, which is a key driver of economic activity in Canada.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit is an important foundation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.  We are lending a hand to families who want to improve their homes as their most significant investment, and at the same time, giving a boost to tradespeople and businesses that produce and sell building materials.

This year, as we fight the global recession, families will be able to claim a credit for eligible renovations worth up to $10,000 and receive up to $1350 in tax relief.

Right across the country, Canadian families are benefiting from this tax relief by improving kitchens and bathrooms, building new decks, laying new carpet or even putting on new roofs.

This activity is putting contractors, carpenters, and all kinds other trades people to work.

It’s generating local business at everything from hardware stores to lumber yards.

In turn, the entire Canadian economy reaps the benefits.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit, and the other new investments we’re making to stimulate the economy, are designed to create and protect jobs during this period.

All these measures reflect our belief that by making life a little easier for families, we can build a stronger Canada.

I found this to be a laughable piece, and will now take you through it, paragraph by paragraph.

In these tough economic times, standing up for families is more important than ever.  The Conservative Government is delivering on its commitments to families.

While this is pure false populism and thus disgusting, there is technically nothing wrong with it.  It does, however, set the tone for this entire piece.

We understand that everyone is stretching to make ends meet.  Our Government introduced measures that give families a break, long before the global recession hit, and now Canada’s Economic Action Plan is making sure families get the support they need.

I’d call both of these points entirely false.  The first is certianly, the second might be a matter of opinion.

Firstly, I recall Mr. Harper saying something to the effect that Canadians should be buying stock right now, since it is such a good deal.  He said this during an election campaign after the crisis had really struck.  An election campaign which he ran largely without a platform, and thus, without a plan.  The fact is that the crisis really started to strike noticably a few weeks earlier than this, and to the best of my knowledge nothing was done about it for quite a few months owing to a prorougeing of Parliament.

It has been pointed out to me that technically, from an economist’s standpoint, a recession starts after two quarter years of negative growth.  So the recession would not have started until later than when things went bad.  I call nonsense on this point, if this is the argument the CPC is using then they have failed at communication.  Use regular style english, not professional jargon, when communicating.

We have delivered a new child tax credit, the Universal Child Care Benefit and a break for families that enroll their kids in amateur sports.

Amature sports are definatly a middle-class past time.  This is good for the middle-class, who were hit rather hard in the ongoing depression.  The only negative comment one can say about this is that it will not benefit those hardest hit.  This is a trend in CPC policy, and by extension in this pamphlet.  Moving on to tax credits.  A tax credit will only benifit those who would be paying taxes, if you are unemployed, you probably do not pay taxes.  Again, hardly helping those who need it most.

The marriage penalty in the tax system has been removed.

Now, until I read this pamphlet I did not know what such a thing was.  Apparently, to use their slant on the matter, it is descrimination against single-earner households who pay higher tax rates than an even split between the two with the same overall total wage.  Certianly such descrimination, which is what it is, should not be encouraged.  There may be issues regarding which persons work in a household which this solution glosses over, and I intend to find out more myself, but for now, I’ll give the CPC this one.  Well done.

Registered Education Savings Plans have been strengthened, so families can plan better for the future.

Good policy, but those who need assistance most lack money to save and are statistically less likely to educate their children.  Neither of these issues are addressed, granted, the later is a permanent problem and one can hardly blame the CPC alone for it.

All of these measures have helped put Canada and Canadian families in a strong position to weather the storm, and set the stage for a promising future.

This statement is true if you benefited from any of the above listed items.  If you were a middle-class family with money to invest and spend on leisure and had a single wage earner, you are benefiting greatly from these policies.  This does include a very large number of Canadians, and I will not take away from that.  However, one must remember that this is not everyone and that there are many Canadians who truly need assistance.

The Conservative Government is also helping young families get a head start on buying their first homes, by providing up to $750 in tax relief.  We’re also providing first-time home buyers with more flexibility to buy or build a home.  They can now withdraw up to $25,000 from RRSP savings to do so, an increase from the previous limit of $20,000.

Allowing people to use up any savings they may have to get the economy started up on the exact path that just lead to ruin, bravo.  Add more tax cuts which don’t help people who cannot afford a home or people who don’t pay taxes and you have more standard conservative policy.

These measures don’t just help first-time home buyers; they also stimulate our economy by boosting demand for housing, which is a key driver of economic activity in Canada.

Again: inflated housing prices help no one.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit is an important foundation of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.  We are lending a hand to families who want to improve their homes as their most significant investment, and at the same time, giving a boost to tradespeople and businesses that produce and sell building materials.

I’ve always disagreed that a home is an investment.  A home is the place you live and grow.  Perhaps it is idealistic of me, but I find it impossible to put a price on such a thing.  Much less allow it to cause intense inflation.  However, this does promote spending and does employ some tradespeople, so while I find this ideologically unpleasant, it may actually work.  Again, only if you already have money to spend and have any taxes left to pay after all these tax credits.

This year, as we fight the global recession, families will be able to claim a credit for eligible renovations worth up to $10,000 and receive up to $1350 in tax relief.

Right across the country, Canadian families are benefiting from this tax relief by improving kitchens and bathrooms, building new decks, laying new carpet or even putting on new roofs.

This activity is putting contractors, carpenters, and all kinds other trades people to work.

It’s generating local business at everything from hardware stores to lumber yards.

I won’t bother repeating myself on all this again.  It may work, but it doesn’t assist everyone in the country equally.

In turn, the entire Canadian economy reaps the benefits.

Time will tell, but I expect that it will have some benefits.  Just not equally across the board.

The Home Renovation Tax Credit, and the other new investments we’re making to stimulate the economy, are designed to create and protect jobs during this period.

All these measures reflect our belief that by making life a little easier for families, we can build a stronger Canada.

I won’t fault them on these last statements, this is just politician talk and any party would say the same.

In summation, the Conservative Party of Canada is behaving like a conservative party probably should.  I will not say that they do not have Canada’s best interest in their mind, since everything they have done does address the problems at hand, albeit in a round-a-bout and convoluted way which I find ideologically disagreeable.

I think my days of reading mail propaganda are over for a while.

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.

Who has respect for the artist who loves their own work as though it were perfection?  Is it even possible to respect such a being?

There is nothing wrong with someone liking their work.  Their work is a part of them, in the sense that they made it and that the making of it is part of their history.  Self-loathing is not an admirable trait.  But neither is vanity.

The artist should have great love for his work, but should not become so lost in this love that they forget that they are just a small part of something.  A love for self blinds people to the world around them and takes them out of it, and thus their work out of it.  From outside, how can the great works be produced?

Technical skill is not genius.   True works of genius may be fundamentally flawed. Pure skill may produce technically beautiful works, but they shall be devoid of emotion without genius.  The skilled operator can produce thousands of identical products, it takes genius to stand out.

One cannot forget memory when considering such things.  The past is important. Humans are not defined by thermodynamic state functions.  We are all path dependent as our past defines who we are.  Expecting one to ignore this is the utmost foolishness.

True genius is thus too dependent on the journey.  What can we love which is not of ourselves?