I Heard They Play Speed Metal In Hell

It's been 150 years since Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species. There is, I hear, a re-release of Darwin's classic, including a brand spankin' new introduction co-written by the star of the switcheroo flick Like Father, Like Son, and Growing Pains, MEGACHRISTIAN Kirk Cameron.

Apparently, Darwin's book is in the public domain, so anyone can write a version of it if they want. Kirk says that he's doing a new intro with the intention of presenting a balanced view of Darwin's work. Apparently a "balanced" view means saying 'this book is bullshit' in an introduction.

Ok, so he wouldn't say "bullshit".

When I was a bit younger and a church-goin' person, I fell victim to just about the worst thing that could happen to a God-fearin' fella. I was sitting in church one sunday morning, thumbing through my Bible (I think the sermon had to do with something in Luke), when I experienced only what I can call a "reverse revelation".

It was at that moment when I suddenly stopped believing in God.

I can't explain it any other way than to say that it was sudden, like a bolt of lightening from the heavens. Really, at that moment I felt like it must have felt for Saul on the road to Damascus, except for the fact that I was suddenly an atheist. Sitting in church, no less.

I didn't feel too bad about it, though. While I was sitting there (beacuse it would have been rude to just get up and leave during a sermon), things became clearer and I finally understood. The heavy load of doubt had been lifted. I no longer felt the gulit of wrestling with my doubt because it had been revealed to me that the thing that I doubted did not exist. It was like God did me a little favor in whispering in my ear, "I'm going to tell you something, but don't tell anyone else here. I don't exist".

I thought that I should have been feeling something about not believing... guilt, worry, a sense that I was doomed to hell... nope. Nothing. I didn't feel bad about it at all. That morning while I was sitting there, receiving the most amazing news that I could have ever received in my life was the most singular moment of clarity that I had ever felt the entire time that I had even gone to church. All these years later, I still feel the same.

When it first happened, I thought that the problem might have been the church that I was going to. But each time I went to another one, the feeling was the same. I had even tried dabbling into "alternative" religious practices (yes, including Wicca, and no, it had nothing to do with that movie The Craft. But given my size and gender, Wicca would seem a natural choice). As if I were hit by the backhand of God, God said to me, "why are you insisting on doing this to yourself? I don't exist!!" I finally had to admit to myself what I already knew.

I was an atheist.

The funny thing is, is when you make the discovery of your non-believingness, none but the most millitant atheist wants to admit that that's what they are. Many of us cling to the badge "agnostic", believing that it's better to "keep our options open", than to say that we flat-out don't believe that there is a God. It's better to say that one is non-practicing than to say that one is non-believing. Eventually, however, the charade catches up with us when we realize that we aren't aganostic at all, that it's not a matter of not believing that no major religion has got it on what God is, but a matter of the fact that we believe that there is no omnicompetent being that occupies any role in the galaxy (I decided to use a definite description instead of saying that "God does not exist" for some positivist-leaning butthead saying that I've made a negative existential claim, which is something that I cannot do). Still, after many years I hadn't given up the hope of eventually believing in something. The idea of having no belief seemed like being lost, or worse yet, it smacked of disingenuity. The accusation towards many atheists is that we actually do believe in God, we're just acting out. It's not wanting to believe in God that the atheist is guilty of, not actually not believing in God.

But I knew what I felt. I felt that He did not exist. I had tried to get back the feeling that he did but failed. I had drifted from Christendom into agnosticism, theism, deism, and finally tried my hand at paganism. It was toolate for Pascal's wager and I was too disillusioned to take Kierkegaard's "leap of faith". But something still nagged at my, dare I say, soul. It wasn't long before I found myself with a copy of the Satanic Bible in my hands. I don't think that the average misanthropic teen escapes high school without at least one encounter with the late Anton LaVey's paean to the Dark Prince.

For those who are unfamiliar with LaVey's tome to the Devil, the Satanic Bible includes the Nine Satanic Statements, the 9th of which reads: "Satan has been the best friend the church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years!" LaVey says that, while in his youth, he worked at a carnival, and on Saturday nights he would see the men leering at the young nubile dancers. The same men, who when they returned to the carnival grounds the next morning for the tent services, would stand next to their wives and children singing hymns to God. He saw the hypocrisy of the men who indulged their flesh on Saturday night and then begged for forgiveness on Sunday morning. LaVey says that he saw how the devil was used to manipulate people into believing that all things physical were inherently evil. But as he saw it, wanting physical pleasure comes natural to people, so how can what is natural be sinful?

After reading LaVey's book, I didn't come away an atheist (namely because LaVey's "satanism" is more akin to secular humanism than actual diabolism. So one conceivably, can be a Satanic atheist), but I did see one big point to consider: namely, that LaVey's Ninth Satanic Statement works in reverse.

It's easy to say that God has been the atheist's (humanist, satanist) best friend for all these yers, as he is the one that they've been railing about for all this time!

*although I know at this point that the Wiccans would say that since their religion has nothing to do with the Christian God, that he is not their best friend. If you don't believe this, just cruise on up to your local Wiccan and tell her (because it will almost always be a her) that Wiccans are like devil worshippers. If you don't know how to spot a Wiccan, just look for the "goddess" sized young lady with the flowing hair (she'll most likely look like a heavier-set Tori Amos) and the gossamer dress if Wiccans worship the devil. Sit back and get ready to hear about the 3-fold rule and the "burning times".

After reading Christopher Hitchens' god is not great, Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Julian Baggini's Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian", and a handful of stuff by Michael Shermer, I realized that while I may be an atheist, I am a very Christian atheist. I realize that an atheist is only an atheist if he does not believe that there is no god. So far as our culture is concerned, that god that I maintain does not exist, is a Christian one. And like Christopher Hitchens, the god that I believe does not exist is not only Christian, but decidedly Protestant as well. I quote Hitchens, "I know enough about all religions to know that I would always be an infidel at all times and in all places, but my particular atheism is a Protestant atheism". As a product of the Protestant tradition, my atheistic values tend to echo exactly what I learned in Sunday school. I shouldn't kill or steal, or bear false witness. I believe that hard work will be rewarded, and that if one has a relationship with god, it is a personal one... And that the Pope is a sham. I cannot escape my Christian values even if I try to leave them behind. I find myself quoting Jesus on the subject of taxes or who we should treat the poor (heck, I even found myself referring to the feeding of the multitude when discussing health care). I still celebrate Christmas and prefer to hear traditional christmas hymns to the contemporary Christmas jingles by Michael Bolton or Boyz to Men (although I do like Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime"). I say "bless you" when someone sneezes, and I still write the word God with a capital G. And unlike Richard Dawkins, I wholeheartedly disagree that raising children in a religion is the same as child abuse. I always say that my hypothetical children are Christians. They gotta get their morals from somewhere, right?

We are all influenced, in one way or another, by the dominant culture. And whether I like it or not, I live in a Christian dominated/influenced culture. I can choose whether I accept the fact and move on, or whether I waste time protesting putting up "happy holidays" signs at Target. This is why I am, as I tell my friends, the most Christian atheist I know.

Although I find those who believe in God a little delusional, I understand that I can't be rid of him. I may say that I know that he doesn't exist, but there is a world out there full of people who believe that he does. And so far, I'm outnumbered billions to one. Nietzsche may have been correct when he wrote that God is dead, but like Elvis, there are still a whole hell of alot of people out there who go around singing his songs.

Tuesdsays With Maury

If there is any bit of television that makes me think that deja vu is real, it's the Maury Povich Show. Every time I tune into the show I swear I'm watching something that I've seen before: some bird has dragged in a number of equallly morally suspect young men (some of whom are related to each other) to have Maury erveal which fine specimen of erudite gentlemen is the sire of her child. By the time they figure out which one is, Maury has DNA tested half the guys in BFE Kentucky. Although I find the whole matter disgusting (I mean really, if there's one thing that a woman should be keeping track of, it's how many guys that she's balled in one week), I can't tear my eyes of the spectacle. And I'm so delighted when some dude is on who insists that he's never even had sex with his cousin's girlfriend ( he's usually the one hurling the most insults about her easy virtue) turns out to be the father. Spectacular! Watching the moment of revelation almost beats the fact that I've spent an entire afternoon not doing anyting even remotely constructive, like working for an actual paycheck. It's not that the entire experience is without shame --at least on my part. All the while I'm watching, I keep asking myself "why are you watching this crap?". When did Maury Povich's bi-weekly "you are NOT the father" show become something that is acceptable to air on broadcast television? I look at the parade of trash talkin', baby makin', semi-illiterates on Maury and I ask, from under which rock did these people crawl?!? Now, I'm not calling these people substandard to be insulting, I'm sure that when they're at home, some of them are really wonderful people. But what gets me mad is the fact that these people aren't just cartoons that entertain and then disappear as soon as the show is over. They're real people, who exist among us. And if that's the case, I think, then we, as a species, are in a bad way. I think while I'm watching, that there is no such thing as dignity anymore. Or modesty, or decorum, or shame. And I say shame on myself for watching the show in the first place. They wouldn't be there airing out all of their dirty laundry if there weren't an audience to watch. In an interview on NPR, Chris Hedges said that our culture has been emptied out and replaced by fantasy. He says that the worse that reality becomes for us, the more we run to distractions; what Hedges calls "pseudoevents" like, gossip, trivia, celebrity breakdowns, and the eroticization of our culture. When I was getting my poly sci degree, I had this professor who would go on rants from time to time about how things like Girls Gone Wild are ruining society by breaking down the barrier between the public and private spheres. He said that when we take our private business into the public arena, we make things that shouldn't be acceptable to do in public (like showing your boobs and other areas) acceptable. Once we've broken down that barrier, he said, there's nothing that is inappropriate. That's degrading to the culture, he concluded. I gotta say that I don't disagree. Everywhere is casual friday. You don't have to look around too hard to see it, either. Cell phone calls that are way too personal and way too loud, prominently displayed undergarments, people wearing pajama pants everywhere, celebrity sex tapes dominate what we see in the media and on the street. I used to think that eventually things would get back to "normal", that is, people wouuld see that they're making fools of themselves in public and start to behave. So far it hasn't happened. I used to think that acting stupidly on television would be an embarassing enough experience that people wouldn't do it. Apparently it's not. Because every week there's a new batch of ladies on Maury gene testing another batch of suspected fathers. They seem happy as clams up there on the stage. The point it seems, is that the important thing is to be on TV. So long as cameras are on them, they don't care why -- it's just to be on TV! They can go back home and watch the show when it airs and be local celebrities for awhile, jsut like all the other floks who make their living being professsionally famous. This seems to be the point of the whole thing. It doesn't matter how you get on the boob tube, so long as you get on. We get so fascinated with ourselves that we don't see what all of our narcissism is doing to us. In the movie Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle called it "morbid self-attention". It's getting so wrapped up in yourself that you fail to see that you're destroying yourself. Because when we look at ourselves we fail to see the world around us. And if you're always looking at yourself, then you're never looking at what's going on in the world. I remember when the whole President impeachment thing was going down, and Monica Lewinsky was making the rounds on the talk shows. Did it matter to anyone that she got famous for putting the president's weenie in her mouth? No, it didn't. Least of all, it didn't seem to matter to her. She never said "gee, I wish I had gotten famous some other way. This was is something that I should really be ashamed of". In our fame-based culture, you used to actually have to do something to get famous -- invent something, be good at something, cure some disease, act, dance, write, or sing (or all if you're a quadruple threat, like Justin Timberlake). There was an idea that notoriety had to be earned. Now it seems all you have to do is get on TV. Unfortunately, this is extremely easy. All you have to do is be freaky enough or better yet, have someone post your freakiness on YouTube, and you're set. You can be famous. So you can give the pres oral, it doesn't matter. Monica Lewinsky was going to be famous, and we were going to see her being famous no matter whether we objected or not. So is every other freak out there. That makes me think of a character in the movie The Ring, who tells a reporter to ind her own business and stop trying to find out what happened to his daughter. She tells him that she's trying to help. his response is one that I think applies to the Mauryization of our culture. He tells the reporter that they "take one person's tragedy and force the world to experience it... spread it like sickness". I think that shows like Maury Povich's have the same effect. I would think that Maury, if you asked him, would come up with some reason why having these people on his show benefits the public. He wouldn't realize that what his show does is spread an infection. It's a culture destroying infection. One that makes the obscene reasonable and feeds us nothing of any use for our minds or souls. Its's all bread and circus. And we all know what that did to the Roman Empire. Chris Hedges says that our culture has devolved into a culture of moral nihilism. Funny, that I think that ultimately Hedges and the founder of nihilism (that being Nietzsche) would conclude that our culture is headed on the path of destruction. Nietzsche says that our society is so screwed up because of the "plebian bias of the modern mind". Nietzsche laments the triumph of the common and the vulgar over the Noble and the Good. For Nietzsche, the ruination of society is in the triumph of the slave over the master. Nietzsche blamed the shift on Christianity, which places compassion among the most desired qualities of man, as the "slave" morality that has weakened the power of the master class over the rabble (that is, over you and me). Christianity elevated the poor, the weak, the meek (you know, all those inferior people who deserve to die), to the status of equals of the rulers. They did this, he says, because they had grown resentful of those who rule. So the slaves had to create a god that would tell the rulers that they must treat the slaves as equals, have compassion for those who cannot do for themselves. For Nietzsche, this is the wrong way to go. Although I don't connect Christian ethics to the cultural degradation of society as Nietzsche did, I think he is right on one point, that is, that our culture has bee overrun by appealing to the lowest common denominator. When people get famous for blowing the president, there is something wrong with us. If we don't have something that is the "better" morality to show us what is morally right, we'll continue to slide down towards the abyss of the Maury P0vich show as a way of life. A little overstated, but it's true. Back in the 60s, John Lennon famously said that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus". He was blasted for what he said, but in a way he was exactly spot-on. He was repeating what Nietzsche had said about God. For Nietzsche, we had killed God by replacing him with science. For John Lennon, he noted that his fans were more into the music of the Beatles than they were into gong to church on Sunday morning. Lennon was right in suggesting that celebrity often fills the role of god. When we talk about celebrities, we call them "stars". Stars, of course, are in the heavens, where God lives. We look t the TV to see the stars -- to see our cultural gods. This is the victory that Nietzsche was talking about, and what Chris Hedges meant when he says that our culture has been triumphed by spectacle. The victory (in our case) of the pseudo-famous and the fame wannabees over those who really should be looked at (meaning people of fine moral standing). Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you want to see it, I'm no Nietzsche. I'm not terribly eager to throw off all this spirit-destroying slave morality and live according to the will of the masters. I've got a feeling the the Ubermensche show wouldn't be all that entertaining. I mean, there would probably be no chance of a fist fight breaking out on stage between a couple of two-timing lesbians.

And Now Here's Something I hope You Really Like

You ever see a movie that just blows your mind?

Some people think that a movie needs lots of special effects or lots of bare boobs to be good. This is just not so. Sometimes the most amazing things you'll see are in black and white, and need no more than a psychotic little girl with steel-toed shoes and a fierce determination to win a penmanship medal.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Bad Seed.

I'm not talking about the updated (I think 70s) version. I'm talking about the original 1956 film adaptation based on the Maxwell Anderson stageplay (based on the novel by William March) starring Patty Mc Cormack as Rhoda Penmark, 8 years of tow-headed evil, and Nancy Kelly as her more than frazzled mother. The Bad Seed may be responsible for launching the sub-genre of "devil child" films, which includes The Omen, The Exorcist, Problem Child, Clifford, and this summer's enfant terrible tale Orphan. It's one of those monster movies (and Rhoda is indeed a monster) that you don't think will stay with you, but it will.

And it does.

The scary thing is, is that Rhoda is the devil you know. She comes off like a pigtailed sweetie who'll exchange a basket of kisses for a basket of hugs, but inside that child a murderous beast is lurking. When Claude Daigle wins the penmanship medal, that Rhoda thought she had rightfully earned, she clobbers him over the head with her shoes and takes the medal as the boy drowns by the pier. When she returns home, she asks her mother for a peanut sandwhich and tells her mother that watching the boy die was "exciting". The thing that is all the more disturbing is that we've all met potential Rhoda's during our lifetimes (they turn out to be those people that we went to high school with who think that Faces of Death is a cool movie and continue to do so long after graduating from high school). She doesn't look like a monster at all. She looks normal.

That's the thing with alot of serial killers, they look normal.

And make no mistake, Rhoda Penmark is a serial killer.

When the handyman LeRoy runs afoul and crosses Rhoda's path (by accusing her of having to do with Claude Daigle's death), she promptly sets him ablaze. When Rhoda decides that her elderly neighbor Monica needs to hand over her lovebirds now, she plots to kill the old woman (we know this when Rhoda asks her mother how long lovebirds live). We also know that Rhoda may have killed another elderly neighbor when the family lived in Wichita.

At the heart of the drama is psychology. The Penmark's neighbor Monica is a psych junkie. Her rambles on about inherited evil and the exploits of some of history's most notorious killers, including the evil murderess, Bessie Danker. When Rhoda's mother, in a flashback sequence that would make Dr. Phil envious, discovers that she is the daughter of Bessie Danker, she wigs out, fearing that Rhoda might have inherited the evil (she eventually atempts to kill both Rhoda and herself).

That's funny.

Not ha, ha funny, but funny.

Of course, when we talk about things like inheriting a certain disposition, or the idea that one's future is determined by outside forces, we slip into the realm of the philosopher. The idea that a person's outcomes are determined by outside forces (genetics, environment, etc) is determinism. The Penmark's neighbor Monica seems to subscribe to the psychological theory that certain psychological tendencies are passed down from parent to child. As a fidgety parent will have fidgety children, likewise a serial murderer will breed killers. Monica seems to favor what we would call a reductionist view of human nature. Our behavior can be predicted by looking at the various mental and physiological processes that take place within our bodies. If a parent passes what Kurt Vonnegut called "bad chemicals" to their offspring, it is highly likely that that child will also exhibit the same tendencies as the parent. Freud said that "anatomy is destiny". This is what Monica seems to believe as well. We know that mental illnesses tend to run in families (this is also bolstered by twin studies that find that twins raised apart tend to share physical and personality traits in common). We find clusters of manic depression, depression or schizophrenia in families, as do certain organic disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease. So, if we believe as Monica believes, the child of Besssie Danker would be a natural born killer. So, ir would not be beyond the possibility that the granddaughter of Bessie Danker would have inherited some strange personality disorder that causes her to kill.

This may be ok for the hard-core determnist, but some people may say no way, they don't believe that our destinies lie in our genes. We are not merely the products of our anatomy, but we are influenced by other things outside of ourselves. Ultimately, the choice to kill or do anything else is made by the individual -- not an impulse that we are incapable of resisting. In philosophy, this is the classic debate of free will and determinism.

When we think of Rhoda, we ask if the little girl perhaps suffered from a broken moral compass - that she may have been unable to legislate morally. But when we watch the film, we see that Rhoda has a moral code -- a strict one at that. Her code is strictly egoist. She wants what is best for her. If others stand in her way, that's their problem.

When I watched The Bad Seed, I thought that the biggest philosophical question that stood out was whether our decisions are a product of free will or if our decisions are determined. But when I looked closer, I discovered that I was thinking about ideas of divine retribution (it ultimately takes and act of God to stop Rhoda Penmark), ideas of karma and justice, and how we should treat mentally ill children? I asked, when God struck down Rhoda, did she get what she deserved? When her mother Christine tried to kill her, was her action morally correct? Would I have felt differently about it if Rhoda wasn't a child? Was Christine morally obligated to kill her daughter? If there is a real child like Rhoda who has killed or we think may be capable of killing, how are we to deal with that child? In the interest of the greater society, are we obligated to detain them? alter them chemically (like how criminals are "rehabilitated" in Demolition Man?)?should we euthanize them for their own good? Just a few of these questions popped up when I was watching The Bad Seed. I'm sure than there are more to ask. There are a couple of different versions of the story (including the original novel) so I'm sure that each interpretation will stir up a new set of questions.

So my advice is Netflix the movie, nuke a bag of popcorn, and indulge in wishing that God would strike an 8 year old child dead and gleefully cheering when he does for a couple of hours.

But you might want to be careful next time you promise a couple of birds to the neighbor kid.

Especially if you live anywhere near staircases.

White Ford Polanski

Ithink that Chris Hedges says this so much better than I ever will so to hear him say it better, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch0fl0m60Oo And now for my pathetic take on something important... You know when someone is supposed to be important. It's when you call them only by their last name.

Nietzsche, Reagan, Christ.

The world of entertainment is no different. We know the greater than famous only by their last names. Which means, conversely, if one is not great we would say the whole name. For instance, if I am watching Die Hard 2, I'm watching a Renny Harlin flick. But cinema belongs to Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese, Hitchcock, and recently, Tarantino.

You get the idea.

One of the great ones has drawn some attention to himself these days, but not for his filmmaking.

Polanski.

I'm in no way a movie expert but I've been told that Roman Polanski is a pretty heavy-duty movie director. They say that before I die, I'm supposed to watch these movies: Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and Chinatown -- all directed by Polanski. Well, I've seen Rosemary's Baby (and unfortunately its sequel, which may have started that horrible Hollywood tradition of following up fairly decent movies with sequels that you wouldn't show to someone you really wanted to hurt). For those who don't watch cinema, Polanski is probably more (well) known for being the husband of Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969 by members of the Manson Family. These things made Polanski famous, but recent attention given to the director has focused on something that made him infamous. Namely, the 1977 drugging and rape of a 13 year old girl at the home of fellow famous person Jack Nicholson following a photo shoot.

Polanski admitted that he gave the girl champange and quaaludes (now that says 70s!), and eventually pled guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor.

As a culture, we tend to look somewhat negatively at people who have sex with kids.

Knowing that this is so, and that he stood to find himself on the bad end of the law, Roman Polanski fled sentencing and went to France, a country that does not have a full extradition treaty with the United States -- thus avoiding spending any time behind bars. After 30 years of avoiding his sentence, Polanski was arrested in September of 2009 while on his way to the Zurich Film Festival.

Better late than never.

In a not-so stunning move, the Hollywood community stood up and rallied to Polanski's defense. Some of Polanski's fellow Hollywoodites signed a petition calling for his immediate release. Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Woody Allen, Debra Winger (who you almost have to ask "who?" when you hear her name), and Whoopi Goldberg (who, thankfully informed us of the difference between rape and rape rape) are among the stars who have called for Polanski's release. Even the governments of France and Polanski's native Poland have called for Polanski to be set free. Many, including the Swiss and the Los Angeles DAs office, haven't been swayed by the pressure from our fine moviemaking community. Some have gone so far as to dismiss the chatter as Hollywood's rallying around one of their own, no matter how awful the crime (funny, I remember a considerable lack of this reflex when OJ was accused of double murder). Although Whoopi Goldberg's remark may have been another example of celebrity-induced boneheadedness, she brings up a point that most assuredly many have pondered since Polanski's arrest -- was what he did really a crime? Not only that, but if it was, has the passage of time lessened the offense?

Did time heal these wounds?

Some of Polanski's supporters (and some people in general) say that attitudes were different in the 70s. I suppose that this sentiment has something to do with the fact that, at the tail end of the sexual revolution, sexual attitudes, even concerning children was more laxed than they are now. So, some say that determining whether an actual crime was committed has to do with whether a child is able to consent to sexual activity.

Psychologists say that children much younger than 18 are morally aware (thus responsible) for their actions. Chlidren as young as 9, according to psychologists, have moral distinct sensibilities.

A 13 year old is, according to Freud, in the genital stage of development -- a stage wherein children begin to initiate romantic and sexual relations with members of the opposite sex (or same sex if that's the way you roll). Traditionally, common law recognized that children as young a 14 could be held legally accountable for their actions. And anecdotally, we've all either seen or heard of the kid who neither looked nor acted like a child. So, in the minds of some, a child of 13 is more than biologically capable of deciding of she wants to have sex with a grown man.

But this assertion doesn't sound right to some people (myself included). It can easily be stated that there is a difference between biological maturity and mental maturity or moral awareness. When we say that someone is "mature", we're including the idea that he is capable of rational decision-making. Rationality is connected (if not required) to the ability to consent to any activity. So if we bring up the idea of rationality as required for engaging in consentual activity, we must ask when is a child rational? When can a child make decisions concerning sexuality.

I've decided to take a look at what Kant says about rationality.

Kant says that moral judgments are products of reason or the rational mind. Rational beings possess rational minds. And having rational minds, humans are rational beings. Rational beings possess a free mind and are capable of deciding according to their free will ( meaning that we are free moral agents). Moral agents must be treated as ends-in-themselves, that is, we are obliged to treat others as rational moral agents and not as a means to our own ends. Although Kant says a great deal about what free moral agents are, he spends little time telling us when a person is a free moral agent -- he doesn't specify at what age a person becomes a moral agent. It is obvious to us that an 18 month old child does not share the same moral capacity as his 28 year old mother. But, if we look at the toddler's 6 year old sister, the distinction between the moral awareness of adults and children aren't so clear. We can see that a child of six possesses some capacity to perform moral judgments. But, according to Kant's view is "some" enough? I think this is Kant's answer: Kant says that when we interact with others, we must treat them as if they are rational beings -- irrespective of whether the individual is in fact a free moral agent.

So, if psychologists say that children as young as 9 can render moral judgments, and Kant suggests that we treat people as if they are rational moral agents, then Whoopi Goldberg may have a point.

Roman Polanski is not guilty of rape rape.

But this still doesn't sit well with me. I still feel like he has done something wrong for which he should be punished. But I realize that, despite my gut feelings, the supporters may be right. But then, I remember one, small, detail. He drugged her.

We know that when it comes to sexual activity and the law, a person who is inebriated or mentally diminished cannot legally consent to sexual activity. This is why if you give a girl a roofie (even if she said that she wanted to have sex with you hours eariler), you could find yourself facing rape charges. The fact that she was unable to consent to sexual intercourse at the time that the activity took place meant that you performed an unconsentual sexual act with a drugged person. You could not only find yourself facing rape charges, but also charges for administering the drug (I think in some states it's considered poisoning). Kant's idea of rationality requires that a person be fully engaged in their decision-making ( which means that in addition to being sober, a person cannot be forced or coerced into moral judgments according to Kant). If a person is under the influence of drugs, Kant would say that the person is not fully capable of using their ability to reason. By drugging the girl, she became a mere means to Polanski's ends. So, in this circumstance, she could have looked Roman Polanski in the eye and demanded that he make her a woman, but the fact that he filled her full of booze and ludes made her unable to participate in the act as a free moral agent.

So Whoopi is wrong. He is guilty of rape rape.

But still there are others who would hold that Polanski's arrest is unjust. Debra Winger stated that Polanski is being punished by a "philistine" legal system. The French Culture Minister said that Polanski has been "thrown to the lions". They feel that he is being treated like a dangerous criminal when he is not. They argue that he is a good man and a humanitarian who has not hurt anyone. Treating a good man like a hardened criminal they say, is a makes a mockery of the concept of justice.

Of course this claim forces us to look a little at what justice (exactly) means.

We ask, what is justice? Some suggest that justice is each getting what he deserves. Others say that justice is equal treatment under the law. Others say that it is acting according to one's virtues, or that justice is whatever the ruler says that it is. Kant's theory of retributive justice holds that those who harm others ought to be harmed in return. In short, you get what's commin' to ya. But, Kant states, the punishment must be proportional. If an offender commits a minor offense, the punishment must be minor as well. If he commits a major offense, then we must punish him accordingly. In this way, Kant's justice is much like justice under Roman Law which held that "the constant and perpetual will to render to each what is his due". In our system of justice, prison sentences are either long or short, depending on the severity of the crime.

So, using Kant's theory of justice, we can say that Polanski knowingly and willingly gave drugs and alcohol to a child and then had (forced) sex with her ( did I mention that she says that she initially put up a fight and that she said "no" repeatedly?). Kant says that, as autonomous moral agents, we are to repect Polanski's actions. If we fail to do so, we are not giving him the proper respect that is required for him to act as a free moral agent. Since he acted freely, we are bound to respect his actions. And since he acted in a manner that was (and is) against the law, we must give him the proper punishment for his crime. Failure to do so is not only harmful to Polanski, but also harmful to us as well.

(Here's the thing... his pals in Hollywood think that they're doing a good thing by saving their colleague from a corrupt justice system. But in reality what they're doing is preventing Roman Polanski from being responsible for his own actions. This is what over-protective parents do when thay want to save their children from every harm in the world. Ultimately, all these good intentions serve to do more harm than good, as the act to protect is less protective than it's paternalistic, thus robbing an individual the ability to make their own moral choices).

So, using Kant yet again, we must see to it that Polanski serves his time.

But, for every Kantian there is an equal and opposite Utilitarian waiting in the wings, ready to say his peace. A utilitarian may say that punishing Roman Polanski now is of little use. So much time has passed and he hasn't done anything like that crime since. Polanski is not a threat to anyone and that sending him to prison would be a waste of time and money, and it only goes to dredge up old memories that even the "victim" has suggested that we let go. To punish him now would be a negative (as it detracts from the common good, and it wastes resources that could have been spent bringing real criminals to justice, and by incarcerating Polanski we're locking up a productive, upstanding, creative member of society). On the first notion, that too much time has passed, and that to do anything now would be useless, Entertainment Weekly contributor Chris Nashawaty put it like this: Roman Polanski may be a great director but he's still a convicted felon. The fact that 30 years has passed has not made the crime any less morally repugnant. If we wanted to argue that time lessens offenses, we can use the same argument to release Manson family member Leslie van Houten, and likewise argue that it was morally wrong to keep a dying Susan Atkins in prison (there are those who would argue that the passage of time has not made the Manson murders any less morally repugnant --even if Atkins was dying). The utilitarian not only has to consider those who are directly affected by the crime, but everyone who stands to be affected (which in te case of the justice system means everyone). If Polanski is released without serving his sentence, the utilitarian must consider the negative effects of that decision as well, including the possibilty that the integrity and reputation of the justice system might be damaged if people percieve that the legal system is unjustly weighing in favor of Polanski. We see justice is a matter not only of conviction but also of serving the sentence. By fleeing before serving his sentence and possibly getting away with not serving one at all the public may lose confidence in the system's ability to administer justice equally under the law ( as there is already the popular perception that there is a different system of justice for celebrities). Letting Polanski go may seem like the utilitarian thing to do, but may in fact do more harm than good.

And it's this point of two systems of justice that I would like to end.

Rawls held that we could bring fairness into society if we pursued justice from under a veil of ignorance. Rawls believed that if we made laws that benefitted everyone and reduced inequality that we could maintain a just society.

There are those who believe that this idea is complete bullshit.

When we watch TV and complain that OJ "got away" with double murder, or that Leif Garrett paralyzed his friend in a car accident and served not one day behind bars, or that Robert Downey, jr., pulled off a B&E and we were supposed to feel sorry for him, we often say that it seems that there are two systems of justice -- one for the rich and famous and one for everybody else. And seeing Hollywood types like Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg rallying around a convicted child rapist only goes to show that some of our beliefs about a multi-layered justice system are true. We think that the fact that Roman Polanski is a celebrity earns him better treatment than the average barber or computer programmer or some poor undocumented dude who some kid says that he touched her in the park on her way to school. If Roman Polanski were anything other than Roman Polanski, we say, he'd be behind bars before you can say Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby? sucked eggs. Perhaps this is why: maybe the real problem is not that there is no morality in Hollywood, but that the famous operate under a different system of justice than everyone else does. Perhaps their view of justice is Aristotelian.

According to Aristotle, some people, because of their character or virtues deserve more. Unlike Rawls, who seeks to minimize inequality, the Aristotelian thinker sees inequality as a mere fact of life. Some people are, by nature, better than average. Inequality is natural. I remember Sharon Tate's sister saying that her former brother-in-law is a philanthropist. And we see that if she is correct, he is not only philanthropically-inclined, but as an artist, he gives his art to the people. By doing his natural talent, he is enhancing the lives of all -- he contributes to Happiness. Aristotle called these types of men magnanimous. And of magnanimous men Aristotle writes, "... since he deserves most... for the better man always deserves more, and the best man most".

And perhaps this is it.

It really isn't a matter whether a child consented to have sex with a man more than twice her age in the home of a mega-star in 1977. It doesn't matter whether she gleefully and rationally entered into sexual relations with Roman Polanski. What matters, we see, is that people like Roman Polanski are just different than people like me and everyone who isn't famous. If he had played his cards right, he should have looked the judge squarely in the face, announced that he was better than everyone in the courtroom, and walked out. I'm sure that it would have worked.

I don't see whay he's hesitating to do it now.

And if anyone believes that I actually think that he shouldn't be behind bars, I need only say that I may be an egoist, but at heart I am a Kantian.

They guy shouldn't know what sunlight feels like for some time.

fish slapping dance - Google Videos

fish slapping dance - Google Videos

Much Ado About Molehills

It's been some time since the Kanye West crisis at this year's MTV Video Music Awards. I tried to not think about it, but seeing that I've got that philosopher thing goin' on, I found that my will was not as strong as I had hoped. I know that there are more important things to think about than the hullabaloo over Mr. West's unsolicited comments during Taylor Swift'sspeech, but I felt that I might as well throw my two bits into the hat. So, here is my two bits. First off, I know that I am in no way making up the notion that, if there was any place where a celebrity (or one who thinks that he is) to "act up" it is at an awards show, in particular, one hosted by MTV. The VMAs , I presume, is the place where we would expect to expect the unexpected and even the unacceptable so far as behavior and famousness goes. I recall with great fondness Madonna's steamroller impression during her performance of "Like A Virgin", Prince's peek-a-boo pants, Howard Stern's Fartman appearance, or Marilyn Manson's ghostly white, nearly translucent tuchus on the VMAs singing "The Beautiful People". (that was back when we were actually shocked by people like Marilyn Manson. Oh, how the times have changed!) I don't think that the suits at MTV ever envisioned that their awards show would be the place where decorum would be a popular idea. I don't think that they entertained the idea that their show would surpass the Grammys in distinction or preeminence. The VMAs have always been a place where the famous draw attention to themselves, mostly by behaving badly. The Grammys meant class, the VMAs are the land of the publicity stunt. Somehow there is this big to-do over Kanye West. Maybe it's because his comment hasd the unfortunate trait of having taken place at the end of a string of public outbursts that have become progressively more irritating in the minds of the public. I think that the fed-up-ness began with Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Big Game's halftime show (Now, for my money's worth, if she had just announced that she intended to show some boob the whole thing would have blown over. It's not the break-in that got Nixon, it was the cover up), and reached a head with Rep. Joe Wilson's shouting "you lie!" during President Obama's speeche to Congress. People are already pretty irritated with loudmouths who shout stupid things in public as it is, and Kanye West did was just another example of a tourette's-esque public display of screwheadedness. In a semi-defense of Wilson, I will say that a liar should be called oue when he is lying. But like we're told by our mommies and daddies, there is a time and a place for doing so. Shouting it during the President's speech is neither the time nor the place. You can wait until you're on Fox News to do that. But that is not what Taylor Swift was doing. I mean, she wasn't addressing the General Assembly at the UN. She was getting an award at the MTV Video Music Awards for cripes sakes! Does anybody remember Courtney Love threw her compact at Madonna and nearly beaned her with it while Madonna was talking to Kurt Loder? (Madonna looked really pretty during that interview, too). Anyway, far be it for me to disagree with Katy Perry, but Ms. Swift is not a "kitten" nor was what Kanye West said akin to stomping on one (by the way, if the Supreme Court rules anytime soon on the matter, it might not be illegal to videotape yourself stomping on one for fun). It was MTV, people. If no one remembers, this is the network that gave us Buzzkill, Jackass, "Puck" from Real World:San Francisco, and Tila Tequila. And really, this latest Kanye-can't-keep-his-trap-shut incident isn't his most egregious public display of moronocity. Here's a taste of what the Napoleon-sized, self-proclaimed savior of music has said in other public places: * in 2004, after losing an AMA to Gretchen Wilson, Kanye West stormed out and informed the media that he was "definitely robbed". * in 2006, after losing an MTV Europe VMA to Justice vs. Simian, Kanye West stormed the stage while the winners were accepting their award and declared that his video was the winner. * in 2005, during a Hurricane Katrina benefit show, Kanye West (famously) declared that President George W. Bush "doesn't care about black people". (Ok, he wasn't entirely wrong on that call -- if anything, it's that he was too specific). * Mr. West has insisted that he be addressed by incorporating his name into the name of Martin Luther King, jr. Yes, we can agree with President Obama that Mr. West is a "jackass", but when you look at what he did, it was really no different from other celebrity outbursts, like the recent Christian Bale rant. There's something (for better or worse) that expects such behavior from celebrities and other famous people. Our media has an entire sub-industry that is devoted to stars behaving badly -- TMZ, celeb mug shots on the Smoking Gun, Star, People, The National Enquirer (and an infinity of other tabloids), Extra!, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood -- all of them run like flies to turds to show the latest video of some notable mouthing off. They keep acting up and we keep watching. Now, I could say here that for some the whole ordeal isn't about the fact that Kanye West interrupted someone's acceptance speech. Some may say that his jackass stunt actually livened up the show. I think that, for some, it wasn't a matter that he spoke, it was who he interrupted that is the problem. Think about it his way: if Kanye West had charged the stage while Violent J from the ICP was on the podium accepting an award for video of the year, I think that no one would have cared much. I definitely think that Terry Moran wouldn't have asked the president for his opinion on the matter. If cute, kittenish Taylor Swift is interrupted, the world is throw off of it's axis. If an overweight, outrageously made up shock rock/rapper is cut off not an eye blinks. I realize that a part of the problem (the problem underneath the problem) is that we've got a big, gaping problem of moral inconsistency that we have to deal with. We expect that celebrities will make asses of themselves by flapping their yaps, yet when we do, we act as though the behavior that we expected (and even encourage) is unacceptable. This is what I think: In some ways, Kanye West and Rep. Wilson are alike. Politicians and celebrities are public people (although I think that George Clooney might object to my assumption). Yet, oftentimes we hold each to a different standard of behavior. If Rep. Wilson had yelled during the VMAs. his outburst wouldn't have been a problem. This is because we think that it is perfectly acceptable that a non-politician famous person yells out whatever they feel like nearly wherever they feel like saying it. The nature of the fame is different for a politician than it is for a "star" (although it seems that that line is constantly being blurred, as Tom DeLay is appearing on Dancing With the Stars). Thomas Nagel wrote in his essay "Ruthlessness in Public Life" ( an essay about individuals who hold public offices, but I think that it can apply to any public person), office holders (and I say celebrities in general) are "insulated in a puzzling way from what they do: insulated both in their own view and in the view of most observers". This kind of insulation, Nagel says, is "strongly attractive". Holding a public office Nagel says, confers a certain amount of power. Likewise, we often tend to assume that being famous gives an individual, among several things, money and power. That power affords a person to insulate themselves, not just physically from the public, but morally as well. They are apart from normal society, housed in a self-re-enforcing environment where they need not trouble themselves with the usual call for mannerly and orderly behavior that those outside that environment have to abide by. Entertainment Weekly contributor Mark Harris says that former SNL regular and star (and creator) of 30 Rock, Tina Fey, calls this environment "the Bubble". The Bubble, Harris says, quoting Fey, is "that magical zone in which, because you have everything you want, you start believing that you earned it, then that you deserve it, then that you deserve even more". On the outside, we see it. We lament that famous people "get away" with things that ordinary people don't, not just acting loke an ass in public. (For example, I remember some of the reactions to Robert Downey's "goldiocks" incident -- he committed a B&E-- and how some felt that he had been handled too preciously by the court). Celebrity drunk drivers, hit and runners, even those who have killed people (and I'm not just talking about OJ, either) get away with crimes when others (i.e. not famous) do not. Jay-Z stabbed some dude in a club. Is he in prison right now? With celebrity, we say comes fame, and with fame comes money, and with money comes power. With power, we conclude, is the ability to not be treated like everyone else. Harris says that the Bubble has an "arrogant sense of predestination".Nagel writes that the exercise of power "is one of the most personal forms of self-expression". Given the two views together, it is not difficult to understand why a celebrity such as Kanye West felt that he could interrupt Taylor Swift's speech. As a celebrity, he may have felt entitled to his fame, and that as a famous person (with some amount of power) he cannot hold back from expressing himself whenever he feels that he needs to. His "art" depends on his self-expression. As an artist, he cannot, therefore, hold back when he gets the urge to speak. And, given an intimidating entourage and a flock of adoring starfuckers, a celebrity is free to run his mouth anywhere, anytime he wants to his heart's content. Of course, the response would be that not everyone enjoys hearing what these "artists" have to say. It's obvous, by the response to Kanye West's comments both in the star community and without, that what he did was morally objectionable to some. To this I say that that is true. But that just goest to show what the problem is -- our own moral inconsistency when it comes to celebrities. We alternately say that we expect famous people to rant in public, yet we condem them when they do. I ask, why do we do this? Nagel writes, "this would not be so unless there were something to the special status ... in a role. If roles encourage illegitimate release from moral restraints it is because their moral effect has been destorted". We are offended, yet everybody wants to be a star. We live vicariously through the lives of the beautiful people. We encourage them to be morally incorrect because we have placed the role of celebrity in a place where it is immune from moral scrutiny. If celebrities acted the same as us, there would be no reason to look at the stars and admire their beauty and differentness (from us). We are transmitting the inconsistency to them, as we praise them for what they do wrong (or at the very least we excuse the wrong). We say that a part of being a celebrity is getting to act in a manner that normal people cannot. We alternately (and arbitrarily) reward and ostracize stars for their behavior. In turn, I believe, this leads to even more bad celebrity behavior -- as the stars do not know what kind of behavior will be praised or condemed. Until we figure out what way we want to deal with celebrities, and then consistently do so, behavior like Kanye West's will continue. If anything, it's Kanye West who is acting consistently. He's a consistent jackass, but consistent nonetheless.

You Never Forget Your First Time

I remember that, during my childhood, I spent alot of time alone. Perhaps too much time alone. My mom worked evenings, and my older brothers weren't interested in hanging out with a kid in elementary school, so needless to say, I had plenty of time to enjoy my own thoughts. My most amusing friend for most of my childhood was the TV. All I can say about all of that now, is thank the heavens we had cable! Which is where I found the first TV show that I can say, most truly, that I fell in love with. I was a teen and tired of the crap that was called "entertainment" on the networks ( this was before Fox came along), and so I was eager for new visual stimuli. My ritual, at that time, was coming home, dropping my backpack at the door, jotting down to the living room, and popping on the TV. It was important that the TV went on before I had even relieved myself after a full day's schooling, or even stopping by the fridge to get a snack because the TV had to be on MTV as quickly as possible. (I could lay into some derisive commentary about how I remember when MTV used to show music videos, but that rant has been overdone. Besides, Tila Tequila is by far more entertaining than any Adam Ant video ever was or could hope to be). I had to see the newest Bell Biv Devoe video or see what new catch-phrase "Downtown" Julie Brown had for us to imulate. Now, I'm old enough to remember when MTV was a 24-hour video network, but I'm young enough to remember when the network started moving non-video content into its programming. One day, after setting down my bag, and turning on the TV, I saw something that I had never seen before: a 1970 sketch comedy show imported from England was on my TV srceen. It was called Monty Python's Flying Circus. There are plenty of firsts that we all remember: first kiss, first you-know-what, first love, first DUI arrest... those firsts that we say shaped who we are now -- the ones that, even when we're in the old folks home, we'll never forget. I can recall exactly which episode aired that day when I was converted ( I use the word "converted" because that's exactly how becoming a Monty Python fan becomes a part of who you are and takes over your soul). It was episode 33 "Salad Days". What I remember most about that episond is my alternating amusement and horror at the close of the title sketch. I'll say nothing more about it here other than to say that its ending is "Peckinpah-esque". The next day, I asked my school chums if they had seen what I saw the day before. None had. And this was to be a frequent experience I would find in my conversion. I've come to realize that Monty Python is the least popular popular thing I've ever encountered. Most people either say that they've never heard of it, or (and unfortunately the more frequent response) say that it's "British" humor and (as is the case with alot of British humor) not very funny. Unfortunately, a side of effect of conversion is the need to tell others what one has experinced. I felt like a Christian trying to convince the pagans that they should accept Christ. Ok, that's a little much. But at the very least I could sympathize with the various Andy Kaufman and Frank Zappa fans who had tried in vain to convince me that Kaufman and Zappa were entertaining. Andy Kaufman is not funny. But, I had experienced the miracle of Python. I needed to share it with others. I would randomly break into "The Lumberjack Song", recite lines from classic sketches like "Dead Parrot" or try to explain why "Fish Slapping Dance" was so funny. I found myself yelling "Dimmesdale" "Semprini" and "Albatross" in public places. Nobody understood me. Nobody wanted to understand me. I felt alone. I had this wonderful thing and the jr. high scum that I hung out with didn't appreciate what true comedy was. The funny thing is, is that unlike much of the things that I liked when I was younger ( take Knight Rider, for instance), I haven't outgrown my love of Monty Python. When I was younger I didn't understand all the philosophy-oriented humor in the sketches. All these years later, I understand why the Wittgenstein jokes are funny (and what a Wittgenstein is in the first place). I still appreciate the poop humor and the showing of the naughty bits, and the John-Cleese-shouting-at-the-top-of-his-lungs sketches, but there's so much more that I get now that I appreciate the show on an entirely different level. I can say about Monty Python's Flying Circus what I can't say about too many other shows -- watching it makes me realize that I've actually learned a few things in my lifetime. This October marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of the Fying Circus, and I'm certain that in those forty years, there were many latchkeys like me that were converted then and are still true believers now. I know that somewhere out there, some kid who spends too much time alone will see "argument clinic", or blancmanges playing tennis and experience a conversion just as I did. We'll all embrace our inner village idiots (or upper-class twits, if one prefers), always look on the bright side of life (which is my ringtone, I'll add), and learn to appreciate our philosophy without so much rat in it. Which is more than I can say watching the A-Team did for me. FIN

Yes, Mr. Rotten. I Get the Feeling I've Been Cheated

Thinking about all this health "reform" debate. There are people out there eho are saying that they want their "country back" (from whom, I ask), and that we have to get back to the Constitution, whatever that means. I listen to what some of these people are saying, and sometimes I feel that some of them have no idea what they are talking about. I'll be the first to admit here. I'm no scholar. I'm not an expert on the Constitution (although I've actually read it), nor am I in any position to dictate what and who can or cannot speak against or criticize the government. But, I do on occasion watch television, and I gotta say that there are some of us who really need to read before they speak. There's a sentiment out there (both here and abroad) that Americans (of which I am one) are stupid. All one needs to do to confirm this is to go to YouTube and look for "stupid Americans". When our global neighbors called former president Bush a "cowboy" they weren't being friendly. I don't think that most Americans are stupid. Misinformed, yes. Ignorant, definitely. Undereducated... my God yes! It may upset us to admit it, but there are people out there who are just plain apathetic. It's not that they're stupid people, it's just that they don't care. I don't think that I'm stupid. And I take offense to anyone who says that "Americans" (as a blanket term) are. What I know that I am, however, is I am undereducated. I don't think this was by accident, either. Call it a conspiracy theory, but I think that somewhere in my learning, someone decided that I had learned enough, and then proceded to stop teaching me and my generation. When I look back on my education, it started off well enough. Teachers stopped teaching. I know that it was this because I hadn't lost the want to learn (that didn't happen until high school). Sure, my teachers were nice people, but they didn't seem very motivated to do the thing that they had been hired to do (i.e. teach). By the time I got to high school, the want to learn anything had been bled out of me. No joke, during my US government class we watched The Price Is Right. This was the class where I was supposed to learn how to be a citizen, but instead I learned that the Navy guy always wins the final showcase. In fact, I don't remember reading anything beyond the Preamble of the Constitution during my entire stay in public education. Funny, because so far as I've been able to tell, the Constitution is the owner's manual for the country. The writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was an advocate of public education. In his Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, Jefferson wrote what he felt that the objectives of a primary education should be. Jefferson wrote, " To enable to calculate for himself, and to express and preserve his ideas, his contracts and accounts, in writing... to improve by reading, his morals and faculties... to understand his duties to his neighbors and country... to know his rights". Jefferson felt that the purpose of an education was to teach people how to be citizens. "To form the statesmen, legislators and judges, on whom public prosperity and individual happiness are so much to depend". I don't see how my teachers could have looked themselves in the mirror every morning knowing that they had in no way taught their charges how to operate such a complicated machine as the United States of America. Maybe it's because vampires don't have reflections (ha, ha). I know that, if a child fails to learn, that oftentimes that child is blamed for not learning. But I know for a fact that at least until I hit the tenth grade that I wanted to learn. I loved reading. I still do. I remember that, when I was in elementary school, I used to win all sorts of RIF (reading is fundamental) awards, and I did it because if you read so many books during the school year, you'd get to pick out a book (for free!). But to say that my teachers were the ones that were lazy would be too easy. It was something beyond that. It seems that the unwillingness to teach went beyond one or two lazy teachers -- it was systemic. Someone didn't (or doesn't) want us to learn. They say that stupid people are easy to control. That when a dictatorship takes over a country, they get rid of the intellectuals first because the intellectuals are the people who are most likely to question what the dictatorship is up to. But in a democracy, there's the idea that everyone is equal. That everybody has a fair shot at success, no matter from what class a person comes from. If we work hard and we use our noggins, we can succeed. This sounds great, but there's this little economic program that we adhere to called capitalism. And as we all know, one of the big ideas in capitalism is scarcity. If everyone gets everything, then nothing is scarce. When you have an economy driven by want, people gotta want what they ain't got. Which menas some people ain't gonna get. So we can say that we're a meritocracy and that all it takes is elbow grease and the right education to get ahead, but the problem is, is that somebody out there has to clean the toilets and wipe gramp's butt at the nursing home. There has a disincentive to achieve built in the system. There has to be something that lets some get ahead and holds others back. But the real kicker is that nobody can know this. So we tell kids either a) that they can succeed no matter who they are or where they come from, or 2) (and I think this one happens more often than not) nothing. We simply stop educating them. Of course, we keep telling kids the old song and dance. The one I heard goes like this: Our democratic ideal are rooted in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment stressed a break-away from the beliefs of the dark ages (in superstitions and scholaticism) to beliefs in science and progress and that man is ruled by reason. Through his rational mind, man can progress. This sentiment is most supremely expressed by Thomas Jefferson's statement in the Declaration of Independence "All men are created equal". Blah, blah, blah. We know now that when Jeffersin wrote that he was only a fourth telling the truth. We know that as the man wrote one of the greatest documents conceived from a human mind, he was probably looking out of one of his many windows at Montecello, with a full view of the slaves that labored in his fields. Of course, we know that in addition to Jefferson, that the Founders included the likes of James Madison, the "father" of the Constitution, and Alexander Hamilton, who, the more I read about, the more I'm a fan of Aaron Burr. Madison and Hamilton, who co-wrote the Federalist Papers with John Jay, believed that government was better rested in the hands of those who were fit to rule (think Plato's philosopher-kings, here), rather than allowing the people to rule. Hamilton wrote," ...our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep". Hamilton continues,"All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are rich and well-born, the other the mass of the people... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct permanent share in the government..." This is what Hamilton, the dude on the $10 bill, thinks of us. Democracy didn't get rid of the idea of an elite that rules while we, the rabble, sit passive like sheep, it merely hid it from view, and gave it a veneer of "choice". My favorite founder, Alexander Hamilton wrote," Can a democratic assembly who annually revolve in the mass of the people be supposed steadily to pursue the public good?". Not to be outdone, James Madison believed that "the more capable" should rule government, and that government should be led by a "benevolent philosopher". If the Enlightenment was at all inspired by the writings of the ancient Greeks, then for every Jefferson who wrote that the people should be educated to rule, there was a Madison or Hamilton who believed that to rule meant that one had to naturally be fit to do so. This idea hasn't changed. When i use the word "rule", I'm not talking about anything more than the ability of an individual to rule himself. Self-rule, believe it or not, is rooted in our ability to think for ourselves. And in turn, our ability to think for ourselves is rooted in our education. Of course, no one wants to admit that they believe in social Darwinism or that they believe in neo-platonist ideas of who is and who are not naturally fit to rule -- especially if one is a politician. So as politicians worry about campaign contributions, whether or not someone will uncover their secrets (whatever they may be) or the diatribes of Glenn Beck, so-called intellectuals need no be so quiet. Echoing the sentiments of Plato and Hamilton, Walter Lippman wrote "the public must be put in its place" and "responsible men... [must] live free of the trampling and the roar of the bewildering herd". People, according to Lippman, are "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders", who have no business getting in the way of those who run society, namely the elite. But things aren't so easily kept under control in the age of television and other multimedia. So how do you maintain an elite while people are able to figure out what you're doing? Simple. it is accomplished by the manufacturing of consent (Edward Bernays said that the engineering of consent is the "very essence of the democratic process"). You don't rule by the fist and the sword. You simply sway the public's interest from the important things, like paying attention to exactly who is running their country, to paying attention to the latest feud between Jon and Kate or what "Speidi" is up to lately. The Romans figured out that what the people really want is bread and circus. And that's exactly what we get. All the while, we hear that we live in a democracy and that we have the right to choose, and so long as we work hard and play by the rules, we'll get what we deserve. That's what we are made to believe. We're not educated with the idea in mind that we'll be better choosers in elections, we're educated so that we'll be better choosers of the next American Idol (I know, people pick on American Idol alot. So what? Do you think that Simon Cowell cares one damn that I hate his show?). When you live in a country where students at the University of Michigan riot because they stopped serving beer on campus (this actually happened), it's time to stop criticizing people like the French, who, when they riot, are actually rioting about something. The point is that it is exactly as President Obama said, when we are content with being uneducated, we not only shortchange ourselves, we undermine our country as well. If we are going to own this democracy, and if we intend to participate in it, it is our obligation to know how she works.To be the informed citizenry that Jefferson wrote about. To understand that, when Jefferson wrote "We the People", he meant all of us. We are not seperate from the government, but that the government is us. But then, none of what I'm saying hasn't been said before. But it certainly is worth repeating.

...For They Know Not What They Do

I was watching season three of The Family Guy last weekend. As I am philosopher, I've trained my eyes to find the philosophic significance of any and all that I see on television. Now, initially, I enjoyed the episode "Petarded", because it was politically incorrect, and because. it's fun to mock the afflicted. But when I watched last weekend, I realized that there was more there than meets the eye. Lurking behind the juvenile "retarded" jokes was the age-old question dealing with moral inclusion -- namely, the question dealing with the culpability of mentally challenged people. In this episone, Peter is diagnosed as mentally disabled (he says retarded, because saying that is funnier than saying he's disabled or challenged). Peter, realizing that he's now mentally feeble, uses his challenged state to his advantage. He starts a Bible fight in church, he opens the occupied stalls in the ladies' bathroom -- all the while excusing himself by announcing that he's "retarded". Normally, we would say that Peter's behavior is inexcusable. if a "normal" person took a peek at us while we were in a public bathroom, that person would probably have an asskicking headed his way. (This is exactly what Sasha Baron Cohen does with his character Borat. By pretending to be ignorant and a little stupid, he gets away with things that we wouldn't tolerate from someone who we thought was normal. There is much more at work with the character, but I won't go it to that here). But, if someone is in a position that he is unable to control himself (or unable to understand what he's doing) we tend to treat those people differently. They do not share the same level of moral culpability as someone who is considered fully functional and rational. So what do we do with people who are not rational? Are they (can they be) responsible for what they do? The emphasis on rationality is one of the drawbacks when we consider human behavior philosophically, especially when we look at the behavior of people who clearly are not rational. There are those who are mentally handicapped -- born with or by way of accident -- who are not able to control or understand their actions (morally, consequences, etc). This is why we do not punish children as we punish adults (except in extreme circumstances) in the legal system. Children do not understand the full extent of their actions. Likewise, we treat people who are mentally handicapped in a manner tha is different than we treat "normal" people. But Peter isn't organically damaged, he merely believes that he's "retarded". What if someone isn't mentally challenged but believes that they are? They say that hanging around crazy people can make a person crazy. And certainly there is alot of anecdotal evidence to prove this to be the case. I don't remember what the name of the movie was, but there is this movie about this dude who wasn't mentally disabled, but was raised in an institution his entire life before someone figured out that he was normal. All I remember is that it was made in the 70s and it had Frederic Forrest in it (I should probably IMDB it someday). So, if someone said that you were mentally disabled (but yoy weren't) are you still responsible for what you do -- assuming that you are actually rational? Are rational people who think irrationally still responsible for what they do? We know that in Peter's case, even though he seems to take his diagnosis seriously, he's still morally on the hook for what he does (and CPS seems to think this as well, as they threaten to take his children away from him). But what about people who really are mentally disabled? Our attitude tends to be "it depends". When we see, for instance, a mentally challenged person who is accused of committing a crime, our first inclination is to ask how mentally challenged that individual is. If a person is merely "slow", we tend to show less sympathy for their condition than if a person were fully incapable of understanding their actions. If a mentally disabled person were accused of murder, we would ask if he demonstrated signs of knowledge of what he had done. We would ask if he ran from the scene of the crime or if he showed remorse for what he did. If he does, we would say that he understands that what he did was wrong, and that he should be punished. But then we ask, to what extent is to be the proper punishment? When Bill Clinton was runnig for president in 1992, he went back to Arkansas to preside over the execution of a mentally challenged man who was condemned for committing a murder. Clinton's decision to uphold the death sentence was blasted by those who felt that the condemned man lacked the mental capacity to understand what he had done. They felt that the punishment was excessive considerning the fact that the man was mentally handicapped. Questions of dimished capacity also arise when we think of the treament of children in the justice system. When a 6 and an 11 year old perpetrated a massacre of their classmates in Jonesboro, the question of whether a child as young as six can understand the implications of his actions came to national prominance. If a child that young can conceive of shooting and killing his classmates with high-powered firearms, does he have the mental capacity understand his actions and be held responsible for what he's done? If the child is not mentally disabled (meaning that besides his young age, he's normal), and we agree that all humans have the capacity for rational thought, then at what point is the child rational enought to be held accountable for what he does? Kant says that we should treat people as if they are rational, free moral agents (this avoids the urge to be paternalistic, which would, according to Kant violate an individual's autonomy).But if we treat all people as if they are rational, are we not treating people in a manner that they are not? The appeal of Kant's theory is that it is cut and dry. There is no room for ambiguity. But in real life, there is more ambiguity than we know what to do with. We're often left to wonder how rational a person is. A person may be able to function in society (even function without anyone else helping them), but they aren't fully rational people. I think of the character Lenny in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Lenny has the capacity to function in society. He's capable of holding a job, and does it well. But mentally, he like a child. When Lenny kills Curley's wife, the act is unintentional. He was trying to feel her hair, but he panicked when she began to scream. Nonetheless, Lenny murdered the woman. He knew he had done wrong, but also seemed incapable of controlling himself when he did it. (Much like how a child acts). What would Kant have to say about Lenny? When the men on the ranch learned that Lenny killed Curley's wife, they gathered a lynch mob to kill him. When we read this, it seems like their punishment for Lenny is unfair --it's not fitting considering that Lenny lacked the mental capacity to fully understand his actions. But, when Lenny's BFF George kills him, somehow when George kills Lenny, we aren't as offended. We understand that George didn not kill Lenny out of revenge, but for the need to protect Lenny from the gang (and maybe to protect Lenny from himself). When George kills Lenny, another ranch hand, Slim, tells George," Never you mind... A guy got to sometimes". There are those who say that this is why they see no wrong in executing prisoners with dimished capacity. It's the "rabid dog" defense. They reason that it is inhumane to allow a rabid dog to go around potentially hurting other people. We don't kill the dog because it is cruel or because we necessarily want to kill the dog, but because we are saving others from an animal that cannot control itself. To put a mentally challenged man behind bars for the rest of his life, they argue is wrong because he may not understand why he is being held (the reasoning being if he doesn't understand that what he did was wrong, how could he understand that he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison for it?). We worry about punishing mentally challenged people excessively, but we know that we cannot simply let them go either.

Two and a Half Conspiracy Theories

I'm a sucker for conspiracies. I'm not one of those types who offhandedly dismiss any and all 'they did it' plots as fanciful tales people think up because they can't deal with reality. I know that conspiracies can and do happen. I don't know who shot Kennedy, but I kow if there's a good tale to tell about who did, I'm so willing to listen. Which is why I am completely perplexed by the recent to-do about 9/11. I know that there are alot of theories out there about what happened and why. Some I think are worth looking at, others I think are the fanciful tales of people who not only have a difficulty facing reality, but probably have a equally difficult time leaving their homes. I am the first to admit that I don't know much, but I am willing to admit this one thing that I know for abosolutely certain: If you want to sure-firedly discredit any theory you take seriously, trot out Charlie Sheen to champion your cause. Ok. I enjoyed Platoon. I even liked Hot Shots. But really, if the "truther" movement wants to establish any credibility at all, they had better go with someone who carries a little more... well... I mean, look at the guy. He was a pretty hard-core drug user, and we all know that we have a hard time (collectively) trusting people who use. Any of us who has had first-hand experience living with a user knows that trust (for those who sue) isn't at the top of our lists. Let's not forget the gambling and the recreational use of whores. I don't want to throw stones here (although I am), but I think if Charlie Sheen's film career included more movies like Platoon and less like Men At Work, people would have an easier time taking him seriously. I mean, if Sir Kenneth Brannagh announced that we should look into 9/11, I think that some people would pay attention. Look, I'm not knocking his effort. I think that there are some things about the events of that day (and after) that do need looking into. Why did it take so long to get fighter jets up after the first plane hit the tower?Why was a private Saudi jet allowed to pick up members of the bin Laden family and shuttle them out of the United States (this after all air travel had been prohibited by the US gov't)? Was Flight 93 shot down? Why did President Bush say that he was no longer interested in finding bin Laden after he had announced that bin Laden was "wanted dead or alive"? What's with PNAC, and why did we have a "new pearl harbor" 9 months after the Bush Administration took office? There are a whole grip of questions that are worth asking. But not asked by Charlie Sheen!!! And really, it's not as if President Obama hasn't got his hands full with other issues. Not disincluding the recent resignation of his green jobs czar, Van Jones, because of Jones' signing a petition demanding that the government look into 9/11. I think that Mr. Obama already has his hands full with another set of conspiracy nuts already -- with the "birthers" n' all. I've said it before that I'm a fan of a good conspiracy. The problem is, is that although there are good conspiracy stories, there are very few good conspiracy arguments. I hear some of the people who believe that 9/11 was an inside job, or that President Obama isn't an American citizen, or that H1N1 is a plot to forward the eugenicist agenda and usher in the New World Order, on the radio, trying to convince the mostly non-believer hosts that what they believe isn't rubbish but warnings to be taken seriously. The problem is, is that they never argue their points very well. They're often shut down very quickly. They come off like hayseeds and yahoos who still 1) live with their parents, 2) lack a significant number of teeth and education, 3) are currently the product of or involved in a romantic relationship with a blood relative, or 4) all of the above. The problem, unfortunately, comes down to the fact that most people don't know how to argue well. This is a real problem for conspiracy fans. One tactic that they use is the scare tactic. This one is especially prevalent now (can you say death panels?). When someone uses a scare tactic as a method of argumentation, it's called argumentum ad bacculum (and it has nothing to do with Scott Bakula). The idea is that I suppory my conclusion by saying that if you don't accept it, dire consequences will follow. It goes a little something like this: After spending a half hour mapping out how the Illuminati is going to rid the world of 80% of the world's population (this mapping would be something like laying out premises for my argument) I conclude by saying "If you don't believe me, the eugenicists will shoot you up with mercury-tainted vaccines and kill you". That's pretty much the gist of the argument. It's believe me or die. It doesn't leave much room for a rebuttal. Of course, for anyone who may be off-put by my insulting either Charlie Sheen or truthers or conspiracy theorists in general, I say this with my tongue firmly planted in cheek. Well, except for the Charlie Sheen and the credibility stuff. FIN

Requiem for A Tarman

When Thinking of ethics, there's always a problem that comes up, namely, given all the theories out there, how are we to decide what to do? Do we think of intentions or consequences, or what God wants us to do or duties, ourselves? There's this book out there called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. The point of the book is that we shouldn't get so wrapped up in the trivial stuff that ultimately means nothing that we miss the real important things in life. Unfortunately for many of us, our lives don't get beyond the small stuff. This is why, I think, philosophers think up so many strange thought experiments. We get to think up big stuff and bounce it around. But thinking up thought experiments and setting up all the parameters can be quite time consuming. Besides, when you do, there's always some joker that wants to dispute the circumstances of your thought experiment. Fortunately for most of us, we don't have to think up anything. That's what movies are for. There are plenty of philosophers who poo-poo the idea of using popular entertainment as a philosophical tool. The thought is is that nothing of any use comes out of the popular culture. This is simply not true. Whether we watch Disney movies, a buddy road-trip flick, or a romantic comedy, or we spend an evening with Truffaut, movies give us an ample glimpse of how philosophic theories work. Take, for instance, the movie The Terminator. At first glance, you've got an action/sci-fi flick. But if you look a little deeper, there's questions of artificial intelligence, determinism, time and time travel, existential questions concerning the nature of Sarah Connor's personality (she goes from wimp to tough chick, or is that who she was all along, since Kyle Reece tells her that she's a fighter?). There's really alot there -- plus, it's fun to watch. Which can't be said about watching most philosophy professors giving their lectures. The late Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, wife of Star Trek creator, the late Gene Roddenberry, said that, back in the 1960s, network censorship was so tight that, in order to get his ideas across, her husband had to be subversive. Barrett-Roddenberry said, "censorship was so bad in those days, that if he could take things and switch them around a little bit, and maybe paint somebody green... he could get some of his ideas across". I'm not saying or even suggesting that philosophers be or are being subversive ( lord knows what that would be like), but by looking at one situation/question/moral dilemma in one context or medium, we can see how it would work in another. That is to say, that watching a movie in which a certain situation takes place, we may be able to apply that fictional situation to real life. Although they are easily dismissed as cinematic schlock, zombie flicks are especially useful in the area of ethics. For instance, we may consider life and death -- what does it mean to be "alive"? , what is death?. By seeing how the undead are treated, we might be able to see how we treat those in our own world who are not quite dead or not quite living (people on life-sustaining machines, for instance). We can see how we treat those who are afflicted with certain brain disorders (that may produce mania or violent behavior) by looking at zombies. I was watching this movie called Automaton Transfusion a few days ago. While I was watching, I thought about how people treat the undead and how would we have to treat them if there were a real zombie plague in our world. After spending some time thinking about the question, I came to the answer that how we treat them depends on what kind of zombie we are dealing with. I thought that I would, for the sake of making the whole experiment worth considering in the first place, consider the zombies of George Romero and Dan O'Bannon. First, I agreed (with myself) that I would consider zombies people. This is important, because it may determine whether zombies are morally considerable at all. If a zombie ceases to be a person and is simply nothing more than a rotting trash heap, that ends the experiment pretty much right there. I don't think that there are too many philosophers that would argue that we have a moral obligation to a pile of garbage. When I startign thinking about it, I almost immediately thought of Peter Singer ( I'm not sure exactly why). Singer takes Jeremy Bentham's view that the capacity to suffer makes one morally considerable. Bentham writes, " the question is not Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"Although we know that the dead cannot be reasoned with ( as there are also many living humans that cannot be reasoned with), and that, with a few cinematic exceptions, none talk. But we haven't made it our habit to determine if they suffer. According to Singer, this capacity is a prerequisite for having interests at all. If, Singer states, an object lacks the capacity for suffering, we need not include it in our consideration. Singer writes, "it would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer. Nothing that we can do to it could possibly make any difference to its welfare". If we look at George Romero's quintology of his "dead" films, we see that zombies are no more than moving meat. They do not feel physically or otherwise. They are nothing more than self-propelled rocks. Using Bentham/Singer's criteria, we need not consider their welfare. This is in line with Singer's approach to individuals who are brain-dead or in a persistive vegetative state. People with those conditions are no more than individuals who have no conscious quality of life (oops! let's clarify things before we go slumming towards Hitlerville). Like a person who has no higher brain function (without any hope of recovery), a zombie does not experience life. If we "kill" either, what "life" are we depriving either of? In this case it may be argued that to kill either would be a better good. We would speak of ending their "suffering", but the suffering we're referring to is primarily metaphorical or our own. But what if a zombie could suffer? What do we do then? Do our obligations to them change? Perhaps they might. Dan O'Bannon's zombies in Return of the Living Dead are not the shambling moving meat of Romero's films, but zombies who exhibit Robert Fletcher's "indications of humanhood" (which are self-awareness, self-control, sense of the future, a sense of the past, the capacity to relate to others [if only to eat them], concern for others, communication and curiosity). O'Bannon's zombies speak, plot, and retain their personality enough to remind their girlfriend that if she loved him that she'd let hime eat her brain. O'Bannon's zombies, unlike Romero's, experience pain. In one sequence, a female zombie reveals that there is pain in death. She explains that eating the brains of the living is the only way to end the suffering of death. The secen takes place in a funeral home between Ernie, the mortician, and the female zombie who is strapped to an embalmbing table: Ernie: you eat people. zombie: not people, brains. Ernie: brains only? zombie: yes. Ernie: why? zombie: the pain. Ernie: what about the pain? zombie: the pain of being dead. Ernie: it hurts to be dead. zombie: I can feel myself rot. Ernie: eating brains, how does that make you feel? zombie: it makes the pain go away. For starters, that scene is just plain creepy. Second, it really makes me nervous about dying, because what if that zombie is right and it is painful being dead? But more importantly, does the fact that they suffer now demand that we include their needs among our own? If feeling one's own flesh rotting is painful (as one may well imagine), then we may be obligated to end that suffering. But wait, the only way to do that is to feed brains to zombies (this is the only way to end their suffering). That spells trouble for us. If we were good utilitarians, and we have as a prerequisite for moral inclusion the capacity to suffer, how do we deal with the needs od a brain-eating zombie? Is this a case where our uttilitarian ethics runs amuck? If logic dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and we may assume that (at least in some locales) the dead outnumber the living, then we might find ourselves, for the sake of consistency, handing our brains over to the undead. But this already doesn't sound right. I think back to my ethics class. We had an assignment to find a True Moral Theory. We had as a guide, several "desired" features which included: the theory must not have implausible implications, it must place realistic motivational demands on the agent, and it can'r be self-defeating. When we consider the matter utilitarianally, we find prima facie that we may have to indulge the needs of the zombie. But if we apply our desired features, we find that giving our brians to flesheaters is not only inplausible, there is absolutely no reason for giving up our brains that motivates us to do so. Lastly, by giving the brains of the living to the dead, eventually, the dead (because the dead is an ever-increasing number) will outstrip their food supply. Therefore, doing so is eventually self-defeating. Next, feeding our brains to zombies butts up against something called the sadistic pleasures objection. It goes something like this: a group cannnot achieve its excellence at the expense of another group (especially if that group is smaller). So, let's say that the main purpose of a zombie is to eat flesh. This, according to Aristotle, is its(a zombie's) excellence (characteristic function). If we give living brains to the dead, so they can flourish, and since the net pain of the dead outweighs the net pain of the living (remember, the dead outnumber the living), we would be achieving one group's excellence at the expense of the smaller group. A utilitarian does not ignore the needs of the smaller group, they figure into the greater good as well. This is especially relevant in the fact that a zombie does not need to eat brains to survive. Eating brains merely relieves a bothersome condition. A person zombie can "exist" with pain. A living human, however, cannot live without his brain. Of course, it's easy to see that living people shouldn't give up their brains so that zombies can feel better. But in the case of organ transplants or biotechnology the lines may not be so clear. If a good friend need a kidney to survive and I am a match, am I obligated to give my kidney? At what point am I obligated to give up a part of myself to help or save others? Am I obligated at all? Food for thought.