Thank you, Mr. Jackson

This morning when I woke up, I heard on the news that Farrah Fawcett had died. I have to say that it really didn't affect me, because I'm a) female, and b) I was too young when Charlie's Angels was on to remember anything about her being on the show. I think that My earliest memories of the show was when they added Shelly Hack. But this is all besides the point. My first thought, when I heard that she died, wasn't "how sad" or even " I wonder if she died with her family around?". It was, in typical ghoul fashion, "who's next?". They say that celebrities die in threes -- the old guy you thought was already dead, the obscure one and then the one from left field -- that is, the person you'd least expect to die suddenly. I quicly went over the lists of celebrities in my head -- Is Debbie Reynolds still around? When's the last time Lindsay Lohan made the headlines? Wow, I haven't seen Danny Devito in a movie lately, is Richard Branson still planning to try to go to space? That's dangerous, right?... Then I thought about the celebrities that I'd appreciate it if they died, and then the ones that I'd really feel bad if they did, like Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart (why do we always say their names together, as if they're a matched set or something) or George Romero. But then, my sister called me to say that Michael Jackson was in the hospital. I got kind of worried. I guess for my generation, Michael Jackson was about as big as you can get. If God was to go into music, he'd be Michael Jackson. I wouldn't say that I had the Jackson bug bad back in '83, but I was by no means immune. I definitely sported a "Beat It" t-shirt back in the day. I stayed up late to watch the premiere of "Thriller" on NBC's late night video show (the name of the show escapes me suddenly). I have a copy of Moonwalker. So, although I'm reluctant to admit it, I am a fan. My thought, when my sister called me wasn't he'd make the three -- it was, "My god, I hope he's ok". It seems that there are people that you don't want to die. It's weird, that when my sister called me again to say that he had, I didn't believe it. I kind of still don't. How can Michael Jackson be dead? I can imagine the deaths of just about anyone else -- my parents, some of my philosophy professors, that dude from my favoritte band, Kurt Vonnegut, even myself (and as an existentialist, I am quite prepared for that), but not him. There are some people that seem to exist in some other realm, somewhere where other people like me and everyone else don't. Some sort of land of immortals. Like once you reach a level of popularity you become transcendent. I don't know. It's really hitting me more weird than I expected it to. I feel kind of bad for eagerly awaiting the next celebrity death this morning. I just feel kind of bad altogether. I'm not going to say anything more than to thank Mr. Jackson for putting out some of the most infectious music that has ever been given to the human race (and I mean that in a good way). I've never seen kids get up and dance to any other music as quickly as I've seen kids spring to their feet the instant someone puts on "Billie Jean".

An Opinion From A Meat-eating Non-vegan

For My money, the best thing to happen to vegans is the factory farm. There's not a day that goes by that I don't hear someone, on the radio, on TV or in my face prattling on about how bad it is that we still live in a world where people still eat meat. What nonsense. I've noticed lately, that this sentiment seems to be spreading. I see a whole crop (yes, I meant to use the word crop -- totally intentional) of anti-meat eating business out there. Books like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, (and who can forget that wonderful Skinny Bitch?) movies like Food, Inc., websites like "Meet your Meat", philosophy professors (in general), and all those other folks who like to say that they can't eat anyting with a face or experiences pain (there are two really good dirty commants there, but I'll ignore them for now). I don't think that in all of my lifetime that I've ever heard the word "organic" as much as I've heard in the past six months. I'm trying hard not to think that Obama has something to do with all this health talk. But it does seem a little more than coincidental. I heard it said before, but the standard cud-chewers litany goes a little like this: if people had to render their own meat, the wouldn't eat meat. This suggests that, for most people, having to look a cow in those big, dumb, eyes before you take him out to devour his muscle would turn even the most die-hard meat eater into a sniveling apologist for every person who ever ate an animal's flesh. There's the othre point that if we saw what goes on in the factory, none of us would want to eat meat (that's why they like to pull out the pictures of veal calves. It's funny, now that I'm thinking about it somewhat, that so many people who are plant eaters are also pro-choice. They are unphased by pictures of dead, aborted fetuses, but moved to action seeing a chicken in a cage. I'm not trying to open up that can of worms, but it is something worth thinking about.) I think that, at least on the first part, that they are wrong. I cannot say that having to kill my own food would turn me against eating meat. In fact, for some people, it has the opposite effect. Until quite recently, many people lived on farms, or at least had more to do with where their food came fromm other than waiting for it to be delivered in 30 minutes or less. For some of us, we are a generation or two from people who had to kill their own meals, at least from time to time. People who are raised on farms know that the animals amy be cute and cuddly when they are young, but they are not pets. There is s reason why you have cows or pigs or chickens on a farm -- one day, you will be eating them. The ast of killing one's dinner is, of course, not for everyone. And we've all heard the stories from people who were raised on farms who (usually when they were kids) spirited away papa's best tom turkey before it became Thanksgiving dinner. The story usually ends up that the kid eventually wins over the family, and they have a wonderful, cruelty-free vegetable dinner (I'm not saying that these stories are made up, but they do tend to sound the same. All I'm saying). If you don't want to kill your own food, don't. I'm not going to question anyone's manhood if they don't or can't. What I'm saying is, is that for every person who hid the chickens from grandma so she couldn't wring their necks, there is a Ted Nugent, who gleefully hunts his food with a bow and arrow! By the way, a Time Magazine article called "Cow-Pooling" (June 15, 2009) shows the new "trend" in meat eating -- families who buy meat directly from the farmer. A woman who was profiled for the piece called this practice "inspirational". They say that the meat is better quality and it allows people to get to know the farmer who is raising their meat, so it eliminates the potential yuck factor in that knowing the farmer means seeing where the meat was raised and more importantly, rendered for human consumption. As for the second point, that the conditions under which meat is made meat, there's a point there. I do have a slight queesiness when I look at the label of my ground beef, and it reads, "product of Canada, Mexico and USA". It's a little unnerving when you don't know exactly from where your food comes from. Especially when it is a mix of every cow from here to wherever. I'll cede the point that there is a problem with the fact that most Americans don't know how to provide for themselves (myself included), and that we are too far removed from the food-making process. I think this is why there are people who are revolted by the meat industry. We should be. It's disgusting how we get our food -- meat and vegetable. But, I don't think that that's enough to give up eating meat. The fact that cows are made to eat other sick cows or that chickens are pumped up with hormones to the point that they are all breast meat can be remedied. I heard in a movie, it was a pretty shitty movie, but a character said to another that she thought that her friends were vegetarians because they're afraid of death. I don't think that that's too far off. The fact that, in order to get meat, something has to die, and the fact that something does does not sit well with alot of people. Maybe the problem really does have something to with death. Death, no matter how you pull it off, has some amount of brutality to it (some may say it is the fact that things die that makes death brutal, regardless of the circumstances). I think that some people see becoming another animal's meal as especially unbecoming of a creature. It's kind of a low reason to die. But if we look around, that's the reason why I'd say the majority of animals go. If you ask me, a lower reason to die would be that some asshole who runs your government decides that he wants to invade another country, so he send a bunch of people to go fight his war for him -- compared to that, nourshing another animal seems like a downright noble reason to die. I'm politicizing here. Sorry. What I think is happening in the mind of my vegan planet earthers is a very noble, albeit misguided (maybe a little too simplified) notion of human nature. Most people that I know who object to eating meat on moral grounds are generally optimistic people. They tend to see the good in people. (or say that they do). I think that they see eating meat as a brutal practice that is done by brutal animals (although you may be hard pressed to get then to admit that any animal is actually "brutal"). They see people, because of their intelligence and capacity for self improvement, as better than what we often are. So, if we get rid of those parts of us that are brutal, we will be better people. If we stop eating meat, we will end world hunger, save the whales, end the genocide in Darfur, end the oppressive patriarchy that enslaves women and brown people across the world, and of course, spread a wave of socialism that will lift each person up and oppress no one. There will be peace finally if everyone would stop eating meat. Somehow I feel that even if everyone decided that we sould reduce our carbon footprint and stop eating meat tomorrow, that .... well.

The Art Of Not Paying Attention

I was reading through an issue of Entertainment Weekly, when I read that The Seventh Seal was being released as part of the Criterion Collection. I know that the movie is supposed to be about life and death, and God and all that, and that it's one of those movies that I must see before I die -- and I have seen it -- it's just that I don't remember a damn thing of what I saw. What makes matters worse, is that I watched it in a philosophy class. You see, since I was in a philosophy class, I was supposed to be paying attention. And I thought that I was. Well, truth be told, I payed attention long enough to remember that there was some dude who played chess with Death (who, by the way, looked a little like Observer from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Maybe that was no accident.), and that they're all dead at the end. It's not that the movie ended on a sour note that did it, either. Hell, I like bummer movies. And It's not because it was in black and white. A few of my favorite movies were shot in black and white including Night of the Living Dead and The Bad Seed, both of which end with the deaths of the primary characters. And it wasn't because the movie was long and boring either. I made it through taking philosophy classes -- the realm of the tedious, sleep-inducing lecture. But a strange thing happened while I was watching this movie. It's like I was never there to see it. Physically I was there, but my mind decided to take the day off (or my experience machine had powered down for repairs or whatever), because anything that happened between the opening credits and when the screen went dark at the end is a blur. (Which, consequently, is kind of the same thing that happened to me when I saw Donnie Darko. The opening credits started, and then everything went black.) Even now when I try to think about what I saw, all I can remember is how much a young Max von Sydow doesn't look at all like Stellan Skarsgard, who played a younger Father Merin in the prequel(s) to The Exorcist. I remember more about those anal rapes they call the prequels to The Exorcist than I remember anything about an important film of philosophical significance. I know that this movie has lots of philosophical significance and that it is one of those movies that I'm supposed to see before I die, but I don't really feel that bad for having missed it. I feel bad for lots of things (some of which I'm sure to tell in detail in future posts), but I don't feel even the slightest bit of guilt for publically saying that I don't remember anything about this movie. Which makes me think of something that a psych 101 professor said. He said that, for most people, childhood, when they think back on their own, is filled with many memories. They remember trips to the Grand Canyon with the folks, or fishing Lake Erie with granddad (wait, would that be safe?), or having their cheeks pinched past the point of human endurance by grandma's knitting club (those women could have been guards at Gitmo). The point is, is that for most people, their childhood supplies them with many memories. Many memories of childhood, my psych prof said, is a pretty good indicator that a person had a fairly good childhood. But, for some people, he said, when asked about what they remember about being a kid, they usually say, "nothing". My professor said that people who truly had a bad childhood don't remember much, or what they do remember is sketchy at best. The point is, is that there was nothing that happened (while they were kids) that was worth remembering. That's why they draw a blank when they thing back to when they were young. (And until then, I thought that everyone's minds suddenly went blank after they reached four.) Anyway, I think that the same thing happened when I saw The Seventh Seal. I really didn't see anything worth remembering. I'm not saying that the movie sucked (after all, it's foreign -- and that means that it has to be good), but what I am saying is that I already saw Bill and Ted play Twister with Death much more entertainingly. Once you've seen the knock-offs, it's a little hard to appreciate the original. Like when you hear Beatles covers, and then hear the originals... kind of like that. So maybe what I am is a little jaded. Or maybe a little stupid.

While On A Walk

I heard that Nietzsche said that most (good) philosophy is done while one is walking. That is to say, that getting out into the world does more to stir one's mind than does sitting in a university, speaking to other people who do no more than echo exactly what you already think or say. I think that's true. Sometimes, however, going out for a walk only results in experiences that only confirm why so many people out there, myself unexcluded, claim that they hate humanity. I thought that I would try, for god knows how many umpteeth time, to rid myself of the practice of seeing things so negatively. I thought that I would try to see the bright side of life, as suggested by the Monty Python song. I think that there must be some higher force at work somewhere in the galaxy, because every time I attempt to see the worthiness of humanity as a whole, my hopes are dashed and I only end up confirming that people, as the Slipknot song says, equals shit. Why the bad attitude today? To get back to Nietzsche, I was out for a walk. Nothing monumental, just a short jot before it really got (gets?) hot outside. You see, here in SoCal, there is no such thing as a gradual climb in the temperature. It's cool one day, and 101 out the next. Go figure. But anyway, I was out for a walk. Which kond of started off nice because I hadn't literallly been out of the house all week. I was thinking of what I had read the night before (which would be last night) in Kurt Vonnegut's book, Man Without A Country. He said that He likes talking to people. I don't. But I, having newly committed myself to sunnying up my personality, decided that I would at least try to enjoy the company of others. So I was walking. Well, I wasn't enjoying anyone else's company at that time, since I was walking alone. But that's kind of besides the point. Now, I know that there are people who, for reasons that only they and their god know, decide that they should shout out things to people walking on the sidewalk or along the road. I've personally never understood this phenomenon. Well, that's precisely what hapened while I was walking. Usually it's something incoherent. It's like the person decided to shout something, but then decides to back down -- but only after the words have already left his mouth. By the way, it's almost always a he who does it. Usually, the words they say aren't so clear. But his time, it was a loud and clear "fuck you!". This really left me confused. Not to mention that it broke my chain of thought. Now, really. It's not that the words themselves offended me. They didn't. I've said that particular phrase to other people on more occasions than I care to remind myself that I have. But, usually, at least in the case that I've used that phrase, the person to whom the comment was directed deserved to have it said to them. I was just walking. And when I looked to see who said it, the guy seemed pretty angry, too. He looked really pissed off. How can I explain that? I thought, for a moment, that I might have done something to offend the guy. I thought about what I was wearing -- just a pair of blue jeans and a black t-shirt. That usually doesn't get people that worked up. I was wearing a backpack, but there's nothing on that that I think would upset anyone. I took all of my anti-Bush patches off after the election. Besides, I don't think by the looks of this guy that he would have noticed if they were still there. For a few moments, I really thought about why that guy would have said, no, shouted it. Seeing that I've been programmed to think that there is a philosophical angle to be had in everything, I actually attempted to flip through the (limited) list of philosophers in my head to see if any of them ever addressed why people feel the need to shout things to people who aren't doing anything to them. I couldn't think of any. The more I thought about it, the more I thought that there must be some explanation for why this is. There is, but I guess that, in the long run, the answer is psychological rather than philosophical. There is some not-so-deep seeded need in some people to yell at people -- the more shocking the statement the better. And since you're in a car, and your intended shockee is walking, you're long gone before the person ever gets his bearings straight enough for a proper response, whatever that would be. (What would be the proper response? An "ok, thanks buddy" or a "well, good day to you, too"?) I'm guessing that, on this subject at least, philosophers may be mum on exactly why this is so, that is, why people feel compelled to shout things at people walking down the street. (Which would mean that at last there is something that philosophers don't have an opinion about!) So, I guess my queries on the subject are better directed to the headshrinker than to the guy in the front of the class boring his class to death with examples of Gettier problems. I don't see how anyone would find a way to worm the need to shout "fuck you!" to passersby into some epistemic debate or metaphysical claim about the existence of monads. But I'm certain that some philosopher has some opinion about why people do. They can't leave any subject untarnished by their (expert) thoughts about everything. Whatever.

I've Got Oprah Winfrey On My Mind (to be sung to the old Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer jingle)

I'm not ashamed to admit that I adore Oprah. You don't even have to say her last name, you just have to say "Oprah", and everyone will know exactly to whom your voice refers. And of those souls around the world who have not yet heard of Oprah, they should -- and they will. Earlier this year, Oprah hosted a series of programs called "Best Life Ever!". An episode that aired January 5, 2009, was about weight. Oprah told us that weight isn't just a physical issue. Our inability to contro our eating stems from a lack of love (bet you didn't know that!). We must learn to love ourselves before we can shed the pounds (and as we all know, learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all). I remember this quote, "The overweight you doesn't stand before you craving food. It's craving love". The idea behind the episode is that what we think, in particular, what we feel about ourselves, influences how we act. This statement is a no-brainer. Oprah says that the cure for our food-induced self-destruction is this: You have to change your mind before you change your body. This, at first glance, seems like another duh statement. But, look at what she says. Immediately, several questions pop up. 1) what does the statement mean? 2) Does it mean that we must change what we believe about ourselves? 3) Is it possible to change beliefs in the way that Oprah suggests that we should? 4) Is she saying that we can make ourselves believe something? 5) So, for Oprah, is belief an act of will? I thought that, since I had no reason to assume that Oprah was insisting that changing one's beliefs is an act of will, what she was suggesting was a tactic that is a little milder, like Pascal's wager. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal suggested that we can acquire a belief in God by way of a "wager". Pascal asks, what have we got to lose by believing in God? Pascal says, if we believe in God, and there is none, then no harm no foul. We don't lose anything. But, if we believe in God and he does exist, then all the better. We are rewarded with eternal salvation. The idea is that your belief in God is prudential -- it is in our best interest to do so. This may be what Oprah means -- not as it pertains to God -- but in what we believe in/about ourselves. It is precisely ourselves that changing one's mind is supposed to fix. This is why I suspect that Oprah's edit is more forceful that Pascal's wager. Many dieters and addiction specialists know that, to change or end an addiction, compulsive behavior, or bad habit, such as smoking, gambling or overeating, one must change one's mindset (in addition to changing behavior). This may require throwing out our entire belief system or at least our beliefs that have to do with ourselves. This is the mechanism behind 12-step programs and rehab. As George Clinton famously said, "free your mind and your ass will follow". Again, a bit of a duh. We can say that this is a rehash of the mind-body issue. Descartes said that the world (reality) appears to him as he perceives it. Which is why Descartes employed his method of doubt to discern what he could accept as true (what he believed) about himself and the world. So, it seems that Oprah is suggesting that I must change what I believe if I want to gain contro of myself and my life. Perfectly Cartesian. But, there's a problem. It is this: If I believe or say that I think that I believe that I cannot lose weight, this is because I hold that I am helpless against my own lack of willpower. Therefore, I will not lose weight. My behavior confirms my belief. I cannot stop myself, so I will not lose weight. Oprah says that this cycle will continue so long as I do not change my mind. I must stop telling myself that I cannot lose weight. But how do I do that? She says that I must stop accepting that I cannot. This appears to be a true (using the term colloquially) statement. It's certainly anecdotally true, and may even be psychologically true. It may even be empirically true. But there's something dubious about Oprah's claim. When you start looking deeper at many of Oprah's claims, the stink of dubiosity begins to rise. The problem may be this: Oprah is simply guilty of using a poor choice of words or worse yet, she is guilty of non-specificity. When we say that we've changed or are going to change our mind, we're talking about what we think, believe or feel. We tend to use these words interchangably, but they are not the same (at least not philosophically). I suspect that this is what is going on here. This kind of word-switching is what is creating the problem. On it's face, Oprah's sentiment sounds wonderful and better yet, actually practicable. But, when we look at what the statement means, it gives us no means for actually solving our problem. It's nothing more than flowery self-affirmation claptrap dressed in a nicely tailored, but empty suit. Before we do anything, we have to figure out what we are working with. Figuring out whether we are dealing with thoughts, emotions, or beliefs is crucial to whether we can follow Oprah's advice at all. Since feelings do us absolutely no good when things philosophically, we must throw that out. Let's assume that Oprah feels the same way about emotions as philosophers do (it's not that they don't have their place -- it's just that they don't here). Let's assume that Oprah wants us to change either our beilefs or what we think. If I say that I think something, I realize first off, that I can think of nearly anything. I can think that the sky is orange, or that I am 5'1, or that I will find a unicorn that knows and can sing the entire Donovan songbook, or that I will get a Ph.D in philosophy (hey, it could happen). But my thoughts can be anything that comes to my mind. They need not be true or actualizable. My thoughts need not be "thought through". Unfortunately, my thoughts can and are often wrong. They are merely whatever I can conceive of in my mind. I could change my mind, but there is no obligation that changing my mind has to changing my body. I think that what Oprah is going for is something stronger -- that if I change my mind, it will necessarily lead me to change my body. If that is what she is asking us to do, then what we must change are our beliefs. What I think differs from what I believe in that my beliefs are the thinks (if you will) that I am entitled to. My beliefs are connected (necessarily) to the idea of Truth. My beliefs cannot be any old thing or some willy-nilly notion. I must be justified, or have a good reason, for believing (a think) before I can call any think a belief. Without adequate evidence or unless something is analytically true ( I suspect that some will claim that what Oprah says is), I am not entitled to believe anything. Ok, this is what Oprah wants us to do, but the question that confronts us here is can we actually do what she wants us to do? Maybe not. There is a problem with what she is saying. The problem is two-fold: 1) Oprah is being vague (although one might say that the problem is ambiguity). Because we don't know what Oprah is saying, we must make alot of assumptions (the only thing that I took away from my logic 300 class is that we don't assume anything unless we have to). Oprah's directive lacks clarity and definitude. Even though we might assume the she wants us to change our beliefs (as opposed to changing thoughts), we don't really know. We're not clear on what we're doing because we're not clear on what we're doing (this may sound like a confusing duh, but it is really a sailent point to our discussion). 2) it's impossible. If we are merely changing thoughts, Oprah's advice is easy. But, if we are changing beliefs, then we might run into a problem. Namely, beliefs are not so easy to change. We cannot force ourselves to believe something, even if believing so will be better for us in the long run. Beliefs cannot be willed. Unlike body movements or thoughts that I can change by deliberate action, I cannot do so with beliefs. Truth is a necessary element to belief. What is true must also reflect what is. I cannot will what is true or what is not true. My beliefs aren't the product of decision-making. If I accept one belief as true, but I have an opposing belief, I cannot accept both as true (lest I dare contradict of the Law Of Non-Contradiction). If I take both as true, I am guilty of self-deception. Worse yet, if I take contradictory beliefs to be true, I may be delusional or endulging in the worst kind of bullshitting (I could make a pretty good argument that this is exactly what Oprah requires one to do to follow her advice in the first place). The problem is, is that she doesn't tell us either way. Our solution is to close our eyes, hold our noses, pick one (thought or belief) and hope for the best. While I'm on the subject over whether we should be dealing with what we think or with what we believe, I just thought of the tons of advice out there urging people to "think". I, myself, own a T-shirt bearing the quote, "Think: It's not illegal yet" (come to think of it, I think George Clinton said that, too!). I recall that the commedianne Janeane Garofalo used to sport a tattoo bearing the word "Think" on her wrist. After thinking about all this Oprah, I think that our emphasis on thinking is a part of why we're having so much trouble with what we're doing. Perhaps the city of Baltimore had the better idea with its billboard campaign that urged the citizens of the city to "Believe". I think, perhaps, that believing is better than thinking. I wonder what Oprah would say about that?

Conversation Enders # 15: How To Appear Smart While Convincing Others How Stupid You Really Are Or, A Short Treatise On Pretentiousness and Choplogic

When I was in elementary school (5th grade to be precise), my 5th grade teacher, who shall remain nameless (not so much to protect his identity, but to avoid being sued), initiated a lesson that proved that "gifted and talented" kids may not be so. Some teachers did and still operate under the impression that so-called topnotch children should develop their critical thinking skills. This idea is obviously a big mistake. Try to see where this idea goes wrong. My 5th grade teacher attempted to introduce a classroom full of eleven year-olds to the philosophic enterprise of logical thinking. Yeah, right. Dude, we were eleven year olds! It's difficult enough to get a classroom full of well over twenty one year-olds to sit down and shut up during an actual college level philosophy class, let alone attempting to reason with a group of hyperactive and disinterested kids (and we really were disinterested in learning any of that crap) that reading philosophy was going to make us into better people. The only thing that I remember about the whole ordeal is that the focus of all that crap he had us reading about was some dude named Harry Stottlemeyer. Needless to say, the attempt did not go over -- at all. It was a lead zeppelin in the truest sense of the phrase. Unfortunately, my teacher's failed attempt was just the first of many attempts by subsequent teachers to nurture one of education's worst side effects -- thinking too much. This overthinking is a problem to say the least. It affects both the educated and the uneducated alike. Unfortunately, it's found among the educated in greater frequency than any other segment of society. This overthinking silll leads to another affliction among the over-educated set: the need to convince others how smart we are. If you've spent too much time around these over-educated types, you mave have noticed that they tend to manifest their need to impress with their brainpower in one of two ways: 1) impressing others with their extensive book knowledge. This is usually examplified by the incessant need to add more detail or backstory to information that other people already know. For example, a group of people are discussing the evils of slavery in the Americas. There is no real need to add detail to the horrors of slavery more than the fact that human beings were bought and sold as property. But the individual who needs to impress others with his smarts will inevitably add such factoids as the fact that the first recorded slaves came to the Americas in 1620, and that, throughout the slave-holding states, it was illegal for a slave to own a comb, or that, because of the prevalence of rape of female slaves, as high as 70% of the U.S. black population has European ancestry. It's not that these facts aren't entertaining or interesting. But the plain truth is, is that no one asked to hear what the guy had to say. His point was that he had to prove that he knew more about the subject than anyone else in the room. The second type of overthinker is the worst of the two: he is the person who finds the hidden significance and deep meaning in damn-near everything he sees -- no matter how trivial or insignificant the thing is. We've all seen this jerk. Let's say that there is a group of people reminiscing about the incredibly stupid TV shows that aired during their collective adolescence. The show that they are discussing is the incredibly, mind-numbingly awful saturday morning classic, Saved By the Bell. Without ever being invited into the discussion, Mr. Smarter-than-you decides that he is going to learn everyone about how Screetch reflects Hegelian alienation, or what Slater's physique can teach us about Platonic forms. He decides to wow us all by explaining in painstaking detail, how Zach is really Nietzsche's ubermensche. Whichever one we encounter, conversations tend to drift into the realm of the academic -- where words like "pedantic", "didactic", and "soporific" come to mind ( I did a little wowing myself just there. I pulled out three 50 cent words!) All this overthinking (bombastic overthnking at that) tends to result in the exact opposite effect that it is intended to have. Amazingly, overthinking deralis thought. It creates a type of disposition in those who are prone to overthinking that we should only think about those things that are "important". Inevitably, this line of thinking itself tends to cast the net of subject mater very narrowly. Conversations tend to be small and for the most part, uninteresting. I say, if you want to try this out, try talking to an academic about any subject other than their subject of choice or expertise. Good luck. The unfortunate result of this mindset is that those who think too much are often accused of snobbery. This, I think, has to do with why so many Americans are so dismissive of education. It's esay to see that we have a real disdain for bookworms, smarty-pants, know-it-all's. We hated Al Gore in part because he came off like he was smarter than everyone else (and worse yet, knew that he was). The allegation, however, isn't entirely untrue. People who overthink are sometimes arrogant jerks who do feel that they are the smartest people in the room. The unfortunate side effect for those who overthink is that many of them become so wrapped up in being dismissive of anything that does not warrant intellectual merit, that they often miss the point of thinking entirely. The key is that we must remind ourselves that it's not that nothing trivial has significance to it. Eric Draven (aka, "The Crow") said that nothing is trivial. Unfortunately for Mr. Draven, he realized that fact after he was stabbed a few times and chucked out of a 4th story window. For the majority of us, our lesson need not be so extreme. Now, it may be true that there are really trivial things that lack any significance whatsoever (for instance, it is a waste of time to contemplate the philosophic significance of my big toe), but it is easy to understand Draven's sentiment. When it comes to overthinking, we have a problem. But, our solution is not dismissing all as insignificant, either. During the last KPFK fund drive (wait, that might still be going on now), a host lamented the fact that there are a bunch of movies at the cineplexes that don't teach anything. That statement, and I think that she might take offense to my supposition, is exactly what is wrong with overthinking. It is possible to find, if one looks hard enough, significance or a lesson in nearly anything. I'd say that her problem is, is that she was being intellectually lazy and dismissing anything that set out to entertain as its first priority as non-instructive. There is as much to learn from Madea as we can learn from a documentary about detainees at Gitmo. (Really, this is true). That's the trap. There is a possibility that, with all of our looking, that we run the possibility of looking too deep. The key is finding what the Buddha called the "middle way". That is, when we look for significance, we must be careful not to overthink, but we must also watch that we do not underthink, either. Take what you watch or read or hear with caution. I was listening to "Fresh Air" a couple of nights ago while I was washing dishes. Terry Gross was talking to Woody Allen. I've been around philosophy types long enough to know that this guy is the total package so far as filmmakers go. Ask any philosopher which Woody Allen film he digs and you'll be sure to hear Annie Hall, or Crimes and Misdemeanors sure as I can crack my knuckles. Personally, I'm a fan of What's Up, Tiger Lily?. But that's just me. I was amazed to hear Woody Allen say (alright, I already kind of knew this) that he isn't a deep thinker. He says that people look all over his movies, looking for clues for life's hidden meanings. But to him it seems, his movies are merely the product of his or his partner's imagination. There is nothing more than what makes for a good story. He says that he's more likely to be the guy wearing a T-shirt drinking a beer than he'd be the guy knee-deep in some philosophic roundtable discussing the merits of some deep and complex philsophical theory. I know that many philosophers hail Woody Allen as some sort of movie god, and often rank him among those who are "philosophers" in the academic sense. I learned some time ago that Woody Allen, unlike say, Lakers (Go Lakers!) coach Phil Jackson, Harrison Ford or Steve Martin, wasn't a philosophy major in college. He studied film... and flunked out. But you see, that's where overthinking gets the best of people. Not only do they see deep thinking where it isn't, but they also created a persona for a filmmaker to match their own tendency to overthink. I think that the king of (cinematic) pop, George Lucas, said it best when he said that there are people who dismiss films like Star Wars as fluff, but on the flipside, there are people who look way too deep. They're so busy looking that they miss the point. I'd like to end on this note. I think that it applies: Back in the mid-90s, there was this Tom Petty video for the song "You Don't Know How It Feels". The viedo had all sorts of flashy images in it, and plenty of people started asking,"what does all of this mean?" (I guess it's worth noting that this is the era when video directors like Mark Romanek and Mark Pellingham were churning out videos that had "meaning"). I remember watching VH-1 one afternoon when the subject of Tom Petty's video came up. The second most frequently asked question about the video (right behind "Is that a man?") was what did the video mean? Tom Petty's answer was that the video meant nothing. There was no point other than to throw alot of cool stuff together in a video (although I suspect that there was some deconstructivist that said that there was meaning, and of course, Tom Petty didn't see it). That's so cool! And it's especially cool for this point: you can dig too deep and shoot right past the answer. You can dig enough and find meaning that was lurking in a Romero zombie flick, or finding the Jungian archetypes in Lucas' Star Wars. But you can also not look at all and still get it. The point in all of this is that, despite my early trauma with the likes of that Stottlemeyer bastard, and my excursion into the academic world of overthinking (something I have not completely shed from my soul yet), I am aware of, and seeking that happy balance between the two extremes.

Half-assed Apologies

While I'm on the subject of negativity, I'd like to acknowldge that, from time to time, I can go a bit too far. I was looking at a previous post I'd written called "I truly hate the well-intentioned". I was shocked by the level of vitriol that I had expressed in that post. I don't think I was being so much negative as I was being mean. I must have been really pissed off about someting or on my period to write so meanspiritedly about people who mean well (and the Pacifica listening audience). Sorry to those who were the targets of my meanspirited commentary (and there were particular people that I had in mind writing it). Though I'm apologizing for the level of meanness, I'm not, however, taking abck the sentiment that I had expressed in that post. I still think that people who say that the solution for racism is race-mixing are more than a little misguided in their "solution" for the problem. If you think about it, their solution may be worse than the cure. But I don't want to open up that can of worms today.

A Frown Turned Upside Down

I have a problem with negativity. Really, I do. I've always had it. I can't remember a time when I wasn't pissed off about something. Nope. I can't. There are people that say that our dispositions are evident in the womb. That is, we are born who we are. And there's always somebody's mother blathering on about how such and such was fidgity in the womb, and went on to be a fidgity kid who grew up to be a fidgity adult. "He was always like that" she says, shaking her head. Our personalities are as fixed as the stars in the sky. Unfortunately, some of us have what might be called "problem" personalities. We're the ones who are sure fire to bring down anyone's good time. The Eeyores and Oscar the Grouches who seem to get off pissing all over everybody's parade. The honest fact of the matter is that we do. Or at least I do. Sometimes, you're lucky enough to find another group of misanthropes who share your disdain for all things happy. In high school, I was lucky enough to find a couple of kids who shared my pessimistic outlook. Back in high school, I was partial to the "gothic" lifestyle. The funny (Iguess slightly ironic) thing is, is that there are plenty of self-professed goths who are, when the world is not looking, fairly upbeat and optimistic people. And this is exactly the situation that I found myself in. I had hooked up with happy-go-lucky goths. My worst nightmare. I was too dour for the downtrodden. All these years later, I find that I haven't lightened up a single bit. I'm just as bitter as ever. Perhaps even more so. (the past eight years of the Bush administration really put me in a foul mood). I'm so negative, that I've caused more than a few of the people that I know to say that i should stop being so negative. I've tried. I really did. I tried to do that "the Secret" crap, where you put out positive thoughts to attract positivity to you. Well, it didn't work. I tried to be positive. Does anyone out there know how hard that truly is -- being positive? I guess that experts on happiness (although I believe that being negative does not exclude one from being happy) will tell me that I didn't work hard enough at changing myself. They'll tell me that I was trying to take the shortcut, and that I wasn't being positive so much as I was wishful thinking. Either way, failing to attract the positivity that I deserve in the ling run, gave me one more thing to be negative about. This attitude is quite detrimental to long-lasting relationships. I had thought that I was doomed. No one, it seems, likes a perpetual grouch. I thought that i would spend the rest of my life faking optimism for everyone else while secretly harboring my little, black stormclouds. That is, until I realized that my problem wasn't that I'm a negative person. My problem was that I was trying to not be a negative person. My efforts to throw off my cloak of despair had led my to a place where I shouldn't have gone in the first place. I was trying to be so pleasant for everyone, that I wasn't being who I was. the reason why I was repelling people wasn't because I was a grouch, it was because I was a faker. I wasn't a genuine person to anyone, least of all I wasn't being genuine with myself. That was my problem. So, I've embraced my inner crabby person, and agreed with myself that, no matter what, i will not give over who I am to entertain the needs of other people. If other folks can't handle a little bad mood, then so be it. We'll part on good terms. I think that's what I'm going to do. At least until I meet some incredibly hot and painfully optimistic guy. In that case, I will immediately throw out everything about being an incurable pessimist and begin sunning it up immediately. After all, I'm only a girl.

Thanatopsis

Arguably the best line ever delivered in the history of modern cinema was said in 1968 in George A. Romero's classic tale of the undead, Night of the Living Dead. When asked by a local reporter if the dead are slow moving, Chief McClellan answers, "They're dead. They're all messed up". The chief's response is the perfect meeting of a great line and a great delivery. That line had always stood out of the movie for me, even when I wasn't in the habit of looking at things philosophically. But now since I've been bit by the philosophic bug, that line lead me to ask myself a few questions: 1) What's so messed up about death? 2) Is it messed up that you die? 3) Is there something inherent to death that, once someone dies they become messed up? 4) Are they messed up because they're dead? 5) Is death itself a state of being messed up? It really started to bother me. Chief McClellan seems to think that the messed-upness about death is the fact that one is dead. Being dead, as evidenced by the chief's sentiment and the ruthlessnes with which they "kill" the undead, robs an individual of his humanness. Once a person dies (and in particular if one reanimates) a person ceases to be morally considerable as anything other than something that must be destroyed. Perhaps then, being messed up has something to do with the idea that a person lacks humanness. So, I'm assuming that it goes something like this: person + dead = messed up, messed up = not human. This seems to be the sentiment that not only runs through Romero's movies, but throughout other zombie flicks as well ( I think a funnier description of the messed up state of dead people is said by the character "Rhodes" in George Romero's Day of the Dead. Rhodes calls the undead "fuckin' lunatics". I say this because Rhodes may have been onto something and not known that he was). This assessment, of course only leads us to more questions. I ask, if one can lose his humanness, what is humanness? Does the fact that we die mean that we have to lose what makes us human (or at least morally considerable)? Also, I ask, when do we stop being human (this is important in the real world when we consider those who are only mostly dead, like someone who is in a persistent vegetative state or is "brain dead")? Do we stop being human? Are we more than the sum of our parts? In the average zombie film, it seems that there is an inextricable connection between being human and being alive. This is exemplified by how the dead are described in the various films of the genre -- "things", "them", "ghouls", "stenches", zombies", "undead", "deadites", etc. They are called anything but "human" or "people". If these movies reflect how we actually feel about the dead, then being a human (and thus morally considerable) is being something that is a body imbued with life. It would take up too much time to get into the various views on what exactly life is, but for the sake of argument, let's say that a thing that lives is something that breathes, has a discernible heartbeat, has a body temperature roughly around 98.6 degrees Farenheit, and neither rots nor attempts to eat the flesh of the living. So, if life is a qualification for human classification, why do we worry about how the dead? Why do we worry about how dead bodies are treated (like why necrophilia is illegal in most states. I think that there are still a couple where you can have sex with any dead person that you want to get it on with), or why are we strongly discouraged from speaking ill of the dead? Afterall, they're not there to see us do anything to or speak ill about them. Why do we keep promises to dead people? Seems like a waste of time to hold a promise made to a dead guy over our heads. Perhaps our concern has more to do with our fear of ghosts, or visits from restless spirits, or divine retribution. Speaking of, I hope that Thomas Jefferson was haunted by the spirit of a dead friend whom he promised to use the friend's money to buy the freedom of slaves when he died. Jefferson didn't. But the question remains. If a zombie is messed up and morally unconsiderable, can we somehow cause harm to a zombie or other unliving person? Since it's so fun, let's look at zombies. A zombie, according to Random House College Dictionary (def. 1), is "the body of a dead person given semblance of life by a supernatural force". So, by definition a zombie is someone who has the outward appearance of something that is living but is not. A zombie moves (or shambles), makes noise in the form of moaning, and in the case of Re-Animator's Dr. Hill, it will perform oral sex on you (it's a visual pun). Zombies are put through various abuses throughout the pantheon of film: In George Romero's Land of the Dead, zombies are made to fight each other over food (the "food" is a live person thrown into a cage with two zombies). In the 2004 re-make of Dawn of the Dead, the heroes play a shooting game where they shoot zombies who resemble celebrities. In Shaun of the Dead, zombies are used as contestants on a game show. In Tom Savini's 1990 re-make of Night of the Living Dead and in Romero's Diary of the Dead, zombies are used as target practice by local hillbillies. In movies, zombies are killed, or re-killed in ways that we would never imagine treating a living person. This is because they're all messed up -- that is, not human. There is a body but no one to offend. Since they're dead already, you're not killing anyone. "Killing" a zombie is no different than playing the latest RPG video game. But for some of us, this sentiment doesn't sound right. Zombies look like us -- they used to be regular people. It seems counterintuitive to treat someone who is dead in any way that we please. Being messed doesn't completely disqualify someone as morally considerable. We do take care not to offend the dead, either by words or by deeds. In Tom Savini's Night of the Living Dead, Barbara (who survives this time around) says about the zombies, " They're us. We're them, and they're us". Barbara says this when she sees the local yahoos having their way with zombies. In Barbara's view, a zombie is still a person. They're more than their physicality. They don't lose their personhood or humanness upon death. We're still capable of committing violence against them. Their violence against us doesn't seem to warrant mistreatment by the living. There is a common thread that runs through the zombie films of Georre Romero that sets his films apart from other films in the genre. Namely, that Romero's films may be entertaining, but they are also meant for us to think. This is a good thing. The question (and the finer point) that runs through his zombie films is "who are the monsters?". There is an obvious answer and there is the one that makes us a little uncomfortable. Barbara discovered the answer when she saw the townies abusing the zombies. When we think of an individual doing another person harm, there are two individuals that come to mind -- the victim and the perpetrator. We consider the act, but we also consider the intent of the person who committed the harm. This is where (I think it was) Kant was going when he suggested that it is wrong to break a promise to a dead man. The moral transgression isn't in that we harmed the dead person, so much in that it speaks to what kind of person we are morally. We evaluate the intent of the agent. If I promise to buy the freedom of slaves with the money of my friend's estate after he dies, and I do not, the moral harm is that I have shown myself to be untrustworthy, that I do not honor my promises. It does not matter who I made the promise to -- I gave my word and I should honor my obligations to keep my word. (It's funny that there is a reason [one might say excuse] as to why Jefferson acted as dastardly as he did. Jefferson wrote, " The Earth belongs... to the living. The dead have neither power nor rights over it". Asshole.) A better example to use with zombies is how we treat animals or people with demished capacities. As Rhodes observed, zombies operate much like "lunatics". That is, a zombie, as we are reminded in zombie flick after zombie flick, cannot be reasoned with. Likewise, people who have no control over themselves (perhaps because of mental illness) are not rational. Like animals and the mentally ill, it is incumbent on us, the rational ones, that we care for those who cannot control or care for themselves. So perhaps we should think of zombies (or those who are mostly dead) more like we think of the mentally ill, or people who suffer from an addiction or compulsion. They cannot be but what they are. We should treat them sympathetically. For instance, my dog does not understand that there is a legitimate reason why he is not allowed to poop in the house. If I attempt to demonstrate my very well thought-out reason, he won't understand it. I cannot treat him as if he should understand. I would not hold him to the same rational standard that I would another adult human. Therefore, when he does leave an "accident", I cannot punish him in the same way that I would if he were a grown man who had crapped on my livingroom floor. If I did, I would be out of line for doing so. If I do (which would entail some asskicking), then I am in the moral wrong for my behavior. My willingness to overpunish my dog reflects on me as a rational moral agent. My moral aptitude is demonstrated by my actions. So, if I string a zombie up and poke it with sticks for shits and giggles, it says much more about what kind of person I am than about how dangerous the zombie is. And that's precisely what Barbara saw. It wasn't the zombies who had lost their humanity, but the living as well. The living had ceased to act like humans. Their intent was to cause harm -- it just so happens that their targets were people that they could get away with treating so badly. Like the man who makes a promise to his dying friend and then breaks it, they treated the zombies harshly because they knew that they would get away with doing it. To them , a zombie is nothing more than a thing. It is not a person. It deserves no moral consideration. It deserves no respect. An interesting side note is that we can see this attitude (maybe not to such a degree) in our electronic world. Websites such as Second Life enable people to enter a "reality" where they can act and do what they choose. A person can indulge any and every desire. The idea is, is that if there is no real person, then there is no moral transgression. There is no living being to offend. This is the same idea that is behind the idea of virtual child pornography. Since the child in question is the product of a computer and there is no real child who corresponds with the virtual image, then there is no moral wrong with having (virual) sex or viewing sexually explicit images of children who do not exist. But, as we all know, it takes two to tango. There is no actual being, but there is an actual someone who is having sex with virtual children. If one doubts that there is a problem here, all one needs to do is ask this question: would you feel comfortable alone, camping in the woods with someone who you discovered enjoyed rape/murder fantacies in a virtual world? Would it matter at all is the person didn't do it to anyone who actually existed (that they only did it with/to a virtual person, an automaton, or god forbid, a zombie), or would the fact that that person even entertained those sorts of intentions cause you to turn down the invite to go camping this weekend? What matters isn't that the victim (there I go, thinking like Barbara) is dead and all messed up, but that, like Romero suggests, the monsters -- the moral monsters -- are us. The end scene in Diary of the Dead is the perfect example of this point of view: The end scene of the film depicts a couple of gunsmen who have rigged up zombies for target practice. The last target is a female zombie who has been strung up from a tree by her hair. One of the gunsmen shoots, blasting her body away from her head. As her body drops, the top half of her head and her hair remain rigged to the tree. As her head dangles, a single blood tear streams from the corner of her eye. This final scene, the zombie's tear, suggests that despite her condition, she still retained some bit of her humanity. Perhaps she wasn't as messed up as Chief McClellan has believed. Somehow she still feels. This, of course, is how we think about souls. The body my die and whither away, but there is some part of us that remains. The soul is what may be harmed by the actions of the living. I feel that many people, when they think of people who died, tend to treat the dead according to this view. But of course, any atheist (or strict materialist) would object to notions of souls existing past death. We'll grant them that (primarily because this is how I believe myself). So, in real life, the dead do not move around and eat the living, and we may not believe in souls, but we do have, in our own minds, memories of those who have passed. Perhaps we can or should honor that. There's an old cliche -- that a person isn't truly dead so long as we keep them in our hearts. This may be why we are offended by the idea of treating a dead person improperly -- why the idea of necrophilia or cannibalism (unless we happen to be stranded in the Andes mountains with our soccer team), or procuring organs without the original owner's consent, are abhorent to us. The body is material and will eventually rot and turn to dust. But the body is also symbolic of the person who once was. And to that, we feel have a deep moral obligation. Until we are completely forgotten and lost to history, we may argue, when we die, we become more than the sum of our parts. At least as long as those who remember us are living, our existence, our humanity, becomes transcendent. More importantly, how we regard the dead reflects on who we are -- that those who are left behind are honorable, moral people. So, it is indeed possible to harm the dead, because when we harm the dead, we harm ourselves. Treating the dead harshly takes away from our own moral standing -- we become less human when we do so. The short of it is, is that when we die we don't lose our humanness. And being dead isn't so messed up. Well, it's either that, or we really are afraid of visits from good old Jacob Marley and his rattling chains. ..... or even worse, that kid from The Ring.

Conversation Enders # 1: Useless Topics For the Philosophically-Oriented Individual

I've been watching that series that my local PBS station has been airing lately, called Closer to Truth. It's about philosophy and all that stuff that shut-ins and insomniacs like to watch at god-awful hours of the night. Needless to say, I've been watching faithfully. There's alot about the show that deals with philosophy in general, about existence and minds and souls... but alot of it revolves around questions about God. If there is a God, how powerful is God, and so forth. I think that for many people, the subject of God isn't one that they sit and muse about -- at least not to the extent that philosophers do. For most people, I think, they don't need alot of the ultimately useless arguments that philosophers drag out and debate without ever solving or answering anything. Religious arguments are filled with all sorts of meaningless debates: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? how powerful is God? is it possible that God can create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it? There aren't answers to these questions because the questions themselves are unanswerable. or more to the point, pointless. The point of asking, I think, is purely for entertainment. I think that it's a distraction. If we spend so much of our time arguing about angels on pins and whether God can do a Sisyphus impersonation, we aren't spending our time coveting our neighbor's wife, resenting and hating our parents for our messed-up childhoods, or masturbating. So taking up so much time, I suppose, is pleasing to God. Unfortunately, taking up so much time on these questions is not so entertaining for us, as I'm sure that the guy who takes these debates way too seriously will inevitably ruin the collective fun to be had by anyone else within their vicinity. However, if we look at the "debate" philosophically, we'd see that it is fun (for awhile, anyway) to play around with genuine philosophically debatable topics such as the nature of existence -- our own and God's. But, sometimes we find that throwing out one of those useless questions actually helps us to thnk about the legitimate questions. Some time ago, I had a rather spirited discussion with a classmate about the question whether God can create a rock so heavy that he is unable to lift it. We both understood that the question itself is pointless, and more to the point, it is unanswerable. But, despite my objections to the question itself, I held that the answer is yes. God can indeed create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it. The point of asking, for those who aren't familiar with this supposed biblical conundrum, is to get to God's omnipotence. How powerful is God is the question. Uh oh. There's trouble. The immediate objection is supposed to be how can a being that is all-powerful create an object that he cannot lift? If there is at least one object that an all-powerful being cannot lift, then he is not all-powerful. If he is not all-powerful, then he is not God (since God is supposed to be so). This is supposed to be a smackdown. But I say, as Hamlet told Horatio, "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of by mere humans". (I think that's what he said). I say that the God that I used to believe in is exactly that -- all-powerful, which means that there is no thing that he cannot do. This no thing includes creating contradictions. I know, red flag right there. The philosopher is screaming that we cannot create contradictions. That's right. We can't. We cannot be alive and dead. We cannot be in two places at once. God can. (If you beileve the Trinity, the idea of God being alive and dead simultaneously becomes apparent when you thinbk about the crucifixion of Christ. At least for 3 days, God was alive and dead). God can be everywhere and nowhere (kind of like the internet) in space. God is everywhere but nowhere in time. I can't be anywhere but at this one place at a particular point in time, but that's because I am human, and I am bound by laws that God put in place for humans to follow. Unless I am illiterate, nowhere in any religious text includes the expressed words that God is also bound by his own laws. The fact that I see the world in a certain way leads me to assume that the way I see things is the way that it must be for everything else. There's no reason why I should assume that my limited capacities should also apply to God. (Especially given the fact that God is not human). The fact that we cannot understand God's power does not give us reason to doubt that God possesses capabilities to do things that we cannot. (We readily accept other things that we cannot do that God can like creating the universe and all that dwell within it). Wr mistakenly assume that God we can comprehend the power of God. That assumption is more than a little arrogant. The fact that God can do things that we cannot do or comprehend ( as in how a contradiction can be actualized) goes to prove that God is more powerful than we can possibly imagine. If it seems counterintuitive or just plain wrong that God can create something like a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it -- congradulations! Your puny human mind can't comprehend the awsome, unlimited power of the Creator! And that's just my point. When I say that I believe that God is all powerful, I am asserting that he is all-powerful. There is not a believer or philosopher that will deny all-powerfulness to God's attributes. But, they will simultaneously assert that God cannot do something like create contradictions. I wonder then, if they are saying that God's powers are qualified? That is, God is something like 99.9% omnipotent? God can do everything, except he won't do that ( and yes, I realize that I just took a line from a Meatloaf song). Is this what they're saying? I suspect that, when a philosopher says that God cannot create too heavy rocks or any other contradictions (because for instance, he is bound by the laws of physics), he is saying that God's power is limited. If you want to say that this universe is governed by a not-quite God (that is, he's the 99.9% powerful God), then so be it.I'll still maintain that the God I'd like to believe exists is one that, at any moment, could reverse gravity and turn humanity into living dead things. It's just that he chooses to keep things the way that they are. But then, that's another matter for another day. See how much time I wasted talking about all that just now?

The Great Personality Test

I think I'm fairly smart. Someone once told me that I "look smart". This is not a compliment. I also had a friend that told me that I have a way about me that puts other people at ease. In short, I have a "Great Personality". ... and we all know what that means. Earlier this year, First Lady, Michelle Obama, made Maxim magazine's hot chicks list. Ok, she was in the 90s, but, hey she made the list. Former supermodel and wife of David Bowie, Iman said the she was going to be honest about the whole Michelle Obama thing. She said, and I'm taking some liberties in recalling this, that the First Lady is not all that, and that she is an "interesting" looking woman. Iman polished the insult by adding that, more importantly, Michelle Obama is very intelligent -- and that, in the long run, that's what's important. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what Iman meant. If you have a list of hot chicks, Michelle Obama does not belong on that list -- even if her guns are spectacular. Hot chick lists, let's face it, are basically a list of chicks that a guy (and I guess some ladies, if they are so inclined) whack it to. A really tall black chick with big biceps and an underbite I would guess wouldn't pop up in a list that includes the likes of Scarlet Johansson and Megan Fox. What we're talking about, whether we say someone is hot, smokin', fine, tight, the bees knees or the cat's pajamas, or just plain "f"-able, is beautiful. And as usual, philosophers will stick their noses into any subject on which one can form an opinion. The science of beauty is no exception. The arena of philosophy that deals with beauty and what is beautiful is called aesthetics. When philosophers speak about beauty it's usually in discussions about art, music, or nature, or (even) the sciences or the beauty in a theory. When Bertrand Russell wrote about mathematics, he wrote mathematics, "rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty -- a beauty cold an austere... without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music..." . The beauty of mathematics, for Russell, is found in the symmetry and consistency of things like a math equation. Now, I realize that I have stepped into the glass house and locking the door behind me, but if one looked at Mr. Russell, one would not wonder why he felt as such. I suppose that many a philosophy professor has, on the first day of class, surveyed his class, knowing which students are destined to become philosophy majors. I would guess that it's safe to assume that the good looking students are there for the credits. And that we are truly flabbergasted when they are not. Which, may in my case, explain why not one, but three of my philosophy professors recommended that I become a philosophy major (winking emoticon). There is all sorts of philosophy talk about beauty when it comes to art, or music, or even the beauty of math or science. But what about people? ...Which makes me think of our latest pop cultural encounter with Britain's Got Talent second runner-up and recent freak-out participant, Susan Boyle. Unfortunate Sue has been described as "unique", "talented", "special", "endearing", and so on. The thing is, is that people are attempting to find something complimentary to say about a woman in a culture where most of any compliments payed to anyone is focused primarily on one's looks. Since she's not ... we must find something nice to say. Hence, Susan Boyle is "great", or the half-assed insult a "plain jane". In a Star Magazine article from May 4, 2009, the article was entitled "What A Voice!". The article even featured a digitized "make-over" of Susan Boyle if she decides (oh, please do!) to change her image. But, the emphasis on her voice made me think of what Iman said. We can say to Susan Boyle, "At least you have your voice, because in the long run, that's what's important". (What's funny is that in that same issue, there was an article about IndyCar racer, Danica Patrick, who was featured in a bikini. I don't think that the article contained anything about her racig record or anything about IndyCar racing in general. The point of the feature is that Danica Patrick is hot.)If one is so inclined, pay attention to how the entertainment press speaks about Susan Boyle. Her looks become the 500 lb. gorilla in the room. At times, they speak of her appearance as one would speak of someone with a handicap or birth defect. (Susan "overcomes" the odds and "triumphs". What odds, I wonder?) They show digitized "before and after" photos like the before and after photographs are displayed on informercials about little kids in Central America after they get surgery on their cleft palates. It's kind of sickening. But strangely, alot of philosophy is mum on the matter. That doesn't mean that it's not discussed. There is plenty of talk about what or who we consider beautiful. But it seems that the old pros to whom we often refer are strangely silent about beauty and people. Maybe it's because, unlike our thoughts on the nature of reality or whether utlitarianism or Kantianism are viable moral theories, judging how we look, whether we are considered "beautiful" or not, is kind of personal. That is, beauty, unlike the way we'd like to think of our philosophy, is a matter of taste. It's what you think that matters -- but not in the quatifiable, logically sound, way that philosophers like their theories -- it's gut reactions, it's... what or who you like, and there's absolutely no logic to be found in that. We can't say with certainty that our belief that such and such or whoever is beautiful is true. Enevitably, someone will disagree with our choice. When we talk about beauty, it affects us in a way that our beliefs do not. You can be the smartest, most talented guy in the world (and you've figured out how to get around Hume's problem of induction), voted five times-- in a row-- the funniest fellow on earth, but if you look like Joseph Merrick, chances are you won't be dating much (especially if you happen to be of the female persuasion). When it comes to the perceptions and judgments of others, we can obscure our beliefs in ways that we cannot when it comes to our appearance. We can hide our atheism in a crowd of Christians, but hiding your face, unless one has religious reasons for doing so, is slightly more difficult. Beauty, being a matter of taste and as we all know, is a matter of contrasts. That is, things tend to be judged in accordance to something else. Something that is beautiful is more pleasing than some other thing. So, if Bertrand Russell were to look at any standard derivation next to my own theory of inconsistentism, it's fairly obvious which one would be more pleasing to his eye. But, when we say something is more pleasing, what we may be suggesting that something is better than something else. When we say something is better, we imply that something is good (one thing is gooder than another thing). Good, according to the philosopher, is something that is not merely physical, but is something that is transcendent. The mere pleasures associated with the corporeal are often favored less than those goods that go beyond the transitory physical world. Aristotle famously wrote that a life devoted exclusively to physical pleasure is the life of beasts. (it's worth noting that Aristotle wrote "exclusively" devoted to pleasure). We know that, by reading Plato, Kant, Mill, and the like, that what is good is not always what is pleasurable. This suggests that, if beauty is associated with some good (I really should be using a capital G when writing good), that what is beautiful may not always be what is pleasing to the eye. If anyone remembers high school algebra ( I do, I took it twice), quadratic equations are most displeasing to the eye. If we were to ask Russell, we could bet that he would see nothing but pure beauty. Good, as it is thought of philosophically, involves some sort of ultimate end, purpose or function. It's easy to see this when we think of art. Although we may disagree what is art, or which art is beautiful, we can agree that when we look at a piece of art, we have in our minds some list of qualities that we use to judge the merits of a particular piece of work. We may look for symmetry or overall composition. We look at color, or how closely the piece reflects reality. If I say that I judge the artistic merit of a particular piece of art on how it represents reality, I am saying that I am judging how closely the piece comes to showing the world as it really is. What I am looking for is how accurately the piece tells the truth. And we know, of course, that Truth is Good. Truth is an element of the Good. And good art,if it is Good then, it must be truthful. Any truth contributes to the overall, collective good (oops, Good). Plato's Republic, bk. III has Socrates explaining how the arts must be taught to bring about the ideal society. Socrates says that art, music, poetry, education, exercise (among other things) must be taught correctly if society is to foster the right characteristics in its citizens. (These characteristics include moderation, courage, and truthfulness). On the topic of music, Socrates states that is important to teach the right kind of music, "Because rhythm and harmony most of all insinuate themselves into the inmost part of the soul... and they make a man graceful in he is correctly reared, if not, the opposite... the man properly raised on rhythm and harmony would have the sharpest sense for what's been left out and what isn't a fine product or craft or what isn't a fine product of nature..." According Plato (or Socrates, whichever one you believed actually existed), a man who is raised on the right art is a better perciever of what is Good. This ability contributes to the soul. A good judge of what is Good has an enhanced soul, a Good soul. This, of course, allows us to infer that a person who lives life philosophically is, in the Platonic sense, a beautiful person, even if, according to our standards, they are not. Other philosophers, such as Nietzsche, made a similar connection between art and the soul. Art, says Fred, binds the emotion and rational spirits within man (oops, Man) together. From Plato to Marx, art serves a social/political function. "Beautiful" art enhances the individual. But what about people? Beauty in art, from the artist's perspective, is meant to illicit an response. Most likely, the desires response is emotional. (I really can't imagine any artist who wanted exclusively physical repsonses from his audience. Oh, wait. I may have thought of one. One may be the late Bob Flannigan. There's no way you can look at what he did and not react physically). Anyway, where was I? Was I anywhere? If an artist wants to cull an emotional response from his audience, he knows that the reaction will enevitably be varied and relative. "One man's junk is another man's treasure", they say. But, that's what we want to avoid in philosophy -- Relativity. Relativity negates the notion of innate goodness (or truth), which is exactly what we are speaking of when we look for the Good. What the philosopher looks for is some quality that is universally applicable (transcendental ideals or forms, if you prefer), or at least something near consistent. But art or whatever we're looking at that can, in one man stir his emotions while leaving another man stoically unaffected is not what we want. It doesn't help us to answer the question. If we regard beauty in the way that the artist takes his art, then what we deal with is mere felt responses, we get good, but only in the material sense -- not the higher, transcendent, capital G good that we're looking for! Maybe that's the problem. If we look at the biological function of beauty, we see that beauty or appealingness serves the purposes of reproduction. I heard on the news that there is a greenery that houses a flower called a "corpse flower". It is set to bloom sometime this week. The smell of the flower, they say, is akin to the smell of rotting flesh. That smell, although cringe inducing to us, is the sweet smell of honey to the various incects that catch a whiff of the aroma and are drawn to it. The smell is how the flower attracts bugs that will aid in its reproduction. We don't like the smell (and anyone who does seriously needs to get checked out). But the smell is not for us. It's to get a response out of another animal. The smell's please-a-bility is relative to what kind of species you are. The same may be for beauty. That is, it isn't a matter of goodness (unless you consider reproduction a Good), but a matter of taste. Perhaps the intrinsic goodness of beauty is that it facilitates a greater goodness, namely that finding Angelina Jolie smokin' hot contributes to the propagation of the human species. I know that this is something of a look to the biology (i.e. reductionist) answer. And I know that reductionist answers (or explanations, as I say), do little if anything to satisfy the philosophic heart of the questions we are attempting to answer. But, really, it's the best I can do. If it's any consolation, as someone who sports one of those terrific personalities, I'd personally like to think that there is something that is intrinsic to beauty that is beyond one's mere physical appearance. That there is indeed, such a thing as a beautiful soul.

It's Fun To Do Bad Things

The great sage Oprah Winfrey says that the #6 thing that she knows for sure is "what you believe has more power thsn what you dream or wish or hope for. You become what you believe". One morning, while I was eating my bowl of peanut butter crunch, I watched the local news cover a story about a little boy who, along with his little kid buddy, stole his grandmother's car and went for a joyride. Eventually, the pair was stopped by the local fuzz. When the boy was questioned as to what possessed him to take his grandma's car, he simply stated, "It's fun to do bad things". It amazed me that a seven year old kid had already come to the revelation that it iis, indeed fun to do bad things. This is what this kid believes. If you ask a psychiatrist, they'll try to convince you that, by the time that a child reaches the age of seven, a professional mind shrinker can tell which children are destined for a life of crime. That's what they say. I usually take such forecasts with a grain of salt. But in the case of that kid, I wholeheartedly believed that that kid was going to end up in the poke much sooner than later. After I stopped laughing about a seven year old child declaring that doing bad things is "fun", I thought, 'wait a minute. This kid stated a belief. He said that he believes that it is fun to do bad things!'. Obviously, most people would find something wrong about what the kid said. But why? Then I thought about Oprah's #6 thing she knows for sure. It strikes us as wrong because we believe, although we do not often expressly say so, that what we believe has to do with who we are. Who we are, in turn, affects how we act. In short, what we believe affects how we act. When we say that we believe any thing (a proposition, an idea, etc), we often ask why do we believe one thing as opposed to another. What we are looking for when we ask this question of ourselves is a reason why we would accept a particular belief as true. We want justification for our beliefs. If our beliefs are justified, we are entitled to hold them. We think that our justified beliefs are true or more than likely to be true than not. This is essentially what Oprah is saying when she says that a belief "has more power" than a wish or hope. We often wish or hope for things that we know are based on shoddy evidence. Wishes and hopes often are unrealistic. (I was going to give an example concerning a wish and why I became a philosophy major, but I don't think that to reveal it here would be appropriate. But trust me, it was very unrealistic). Beliefs carry an idea of truth, or that they represent some thing in the real world. If we look at the matter psychologically, we know the axiom that we become what we believe (unless you're Andy Warhol, and you believe that we become what other people think that we are). So, if what we believe (by way of justification) is true (or more likely to be true -- perhaps necessarily so), then what we believe has power. So say, that I believe that it is fun to do bad things. What's the problem with believing that? I say that I am not a philosopher, not interested in philosophy (it's a bunch of bullshit anyway), and that whether or not I hold justified beliefs is of no consequence. In the real world, I say, none of that philosophy crap really matters. So there. If I say to the epistemologist that I don't care about justifying my beliefs, can he still "get" me on what I believe? Am I still committing a wrong in believing that it's fun to do bad things? Unfortunately he can. The thing is, is that when we consider our beliefs, actions, etc, from a philosophical point of view, we rarely look at it from one side. That is to say, our beliefs in God and the afterlife are rarely strictly ontological issues. Our belief or lack of a belief in a supreme deity affects our moral choices as well. Likewise, our beliefs and whether we are justified in believing them not only carry an epistemic burden, but also a moral burden as well. What we believe affects how we act, and how we act is a question of morality. If we look at Oprah's statement, "what you believe has more power...", and we think about what we think of when we use words like "power", it's easy to see that words like "power" have moral implications. If we are going to endow something with force, it must not only be epistemically accounted for, but morally justified as well. Our actions carry force. When we act, we affect not just ourselves, but others. A child who goes for a joyride in his grandmother's car affected (and potentially affected) the lives of all of those who were involved: the children, the grandmother, the police who chased the duo, anybody on the street who may have been hit during the chase, and so on. When those childern took the car, they were not only acting physically, but morally. A better example of how this works is William Clifford's story of the shipowner who reasoned that his ship was seaworthy despite the fact that his ship was old, needed repairs, and had always made it back home. The shipowner believed that his ship was safe in the face of evidence that it was not. As expected, the ship sank, and people were killed. The shipowner was not only unjustified epistemically, he had committed a moral wrong for believing that his ship was seaworthy when it was not. The shipowner, according to Clifford, had no justification for believing that the ship would sail without incident. He had based his wrong belief on inadequate evidence (namely that his ship needed repairs and was old...). If asked, he could offer us no good reason why he believed his ship could make the journey. So, Clifford says, the act of believing in a wrong belief is wrong. This is, because what we believe leads to action. Clifford says, "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence". I think that what Clifford says is true. If the way or what I believe is connected to how I act, then is I believe in things that are wrong, I am certain to act accordingly. My neighbor sometimes stands on her driveway and stares down the neighborhood. If I were the paranoid type, I could believe that my neighbor is stalking me. But, other than the fact that I see my neighbor standing on her driveway, do I have evidence for believing that she is indeed stalking me? No. Not really. Besides the fact that she can make an equal claim about my always staring at her (after all, how would I know that she's always looking at my house if I'm not also staring at hers?), I have no compelling evidence that she's maddogging me and what I do. What I found more amazing is the fact that Hollywood is filled with Clifford-esque situations! I was watching the movie Jaws last Saturday. I know that Beetlejuice said that The Exorcist gets funnier with each viewing, but my choice is definitely Jaws. That whole Quint telling the story about the USS Indianapolis being torpedoed and the survivors getting eaten by sharks is just plain funny. Don't get me wrong, it is a horrific story, but the whole Jack Sparrow delivery takes any of the tragedy out of it. (If you want to see a pretty funny riff on that scene, I suggest checking out the Fox comedy Get A Life, starring Chris Elliott. In an episode, he gets stuck in a homemade submarine with his dad in a bathtub, and launches into Robert Shaw's monologue. It's freaking hillarious.) Anyway. Chief Brody, based on the fact that a local swimmer has been chomped by something bigger than a goldfish, wants to close the local beach. He has adequate evidence for believing that there is a killer shark patrolling the waters off of Amity Island. Namely, the death of Chrissy, the local girl, and the very much in public eating of Alex Kintner by said shark. The mayor wants to say that the girl was killed in a boating accident. The mayor also believes that the shark that is caught by some fishermen is the shark that killed the boy (but he refuses to agree to an autopsy of the shark). Chief Brody, Quint, and that dude that Richard Dreyfuss played -- I think it was Matt something, decide to kill the shark. That's a little besides the point, but the point is, is that Chief Brody believed that there was a great white shark that had made the waters off of Amity Island it's feeding ground. He was right. He had adequate evidence for believing so. And, we know that, so far as the moral highground goes, Brody definintely has it. Sticking with the nautical theme, the same goes for the crew of the USS Caine in the film The Caine Mutiny. Captain Queeg, played by Humprey Bogart, is clearly out of his mind. The executive officers decide, after a series of increasingly disturbing events, to find a way to relieve Queeg of his command. After Queeg nearly loses the Caine in a storm, the officers decide to forcefully take command of the vessel. Even though they faced courtmartial, they knew that their belief -- that Queeg was batshit insane -- was right. They had more than enough evidence for believing that Queeg was mentally unstable. Additionally, they had a moral duty to take the ship from Queeg. If they allowed Queeg to keep command of his ship, the lives of the crew were in danger. This movie has a really cool ending. They totally diss Fred Mac Murray. This dude throws a drink in his face and all of the guys walk out like he was a dishonored Klingon. They should have kicked his ass! Ok, that's great -- if we're right. But being right isn't always the case. Our beliefs are flat wrong more often than we'd like to admit.Unfortunately, like when we're right, we also act on our beliefs when we're wrong. In George A Romero's Day of the Dead, the character Rhodes, after having spent what we can presume to be years in an underground bunker, is more than a little mad. He begins to suspect that the scientists are acting against the interests of Rhodes and his men. Does he really have any evidence to believe this? No, he does not. Rhodes becomes so wrapped-up in his paranoia, that he kills several of the scientists and facilitates the breech of the facility by a horde of flesh-eating zombies. As a result of Rhodes' wrong beliefs, many people die. By the way, stay CLEAR of the re-make of Day of the Dead. Awful! In the Cohen bros. flick, Burn After Reading, Linda Litzke (played by Frances McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (played by Brad Pitt), believe that the disk found in the ladies' dressing room of Hardbodies gym, contains top secret information. Chad reasons that the fact that there are department heads' names and dates that it obviously means that the information is classified (it's not. It's the notes for a book that is being written by Osborne Cox, played by John Malkovich). The "evidence" they have for believing that the disk has secret info is scant -- it's Chad's assumption (problem 1). Believing that the disk has information that may be of some interest to other parties, they attempt to pass it along to the Russians. This makes matters worse. The fact that they're wrong eventually leads to the death of one of the pair. I'm not going to say which one, but it's the one who starred in other films such as Legends of the Fall and Interview With the Vampire. This is what Clifford was getting at when he condemned our holding beliefs on insufficient evidence. In the worst-case scenerio, people get killed. When those people die, they die because we failed to believe what is true. Their deaths are on us because we failed epistemically and morally. And so, we bear a doubly heavy burden. So, what does this mean about Oprah's advice, "what you believe has more power than what you dream or wish or hope for. You become what you believe"? What it means, is that it is true that our beliefs have a moral obligation that we owe to others. If we believe the wrong things, even if doing it is fun, we are responsible for others who may be hurt or affected by our actions. Lastly, the reason why we must believe only what we are morally entitled to believe is obvious when we look at those who do wrong and believe that it is good to do so. Those are the people that we should not aspire to be. We should, when we look at them, remind ourselves that those individuals are not... well, they're not good people. A person who believes that it is fun to do bad things will more than likely end up on the bad side of life. And that's not much fun in the long run, is it?

Waterboarding

In light of this BS with Sean Hannity, I have one question: If torture isn't painful (meaning it's something that one would do to another of one's fraternity -- I didn't call it a "frat" because, no I don't call my country a ...) then why do it?

Have You Ever Seen "Bound"?

I figured that I'd throw my 2 cents into the ring concerning the fight over whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to get married or not. First, I think what this whole to do about nothing is, at its core (and pittifully so) a semantic argument. We're not even arguing over the issue. We're arguing over a word. A world that, so far as I know, isn't copyrighted by any group so anyone is free to use it or any other word (I guess except for "threepeat") any way they see fit. As we define marriage, marriage is rooted in the notion of a monogamous, legally binding, relationship between two people, traditionally between a man and a womam. Of course, traditionally, according to some had entitled them to more than one spouse, be it more than one wife or more than one husband. Here, of course, that practice has been traditionally regarded as bigamy. Lets also not fail to mention that, before the advent of all this marrying for love business, most marriages were arranged, and that the bride is usually younger (sometimes quite significantly so) than her husband. In fact, this type of traditional marriage is still practice around the world. But, in all of this, marriage not only had a biblical or spiritual element, but also a legal one as well. Marriages are binding in that they cannot be dissolved by one or both parties merely deciding that they're marriage sucks and they'd rather not see each other ever again. (and if they did, it would be too soon). There's always some kind of authority that has say over whether you are married or not. In our case, marriages are subject to licensing -- like fishing, your firearms, or your pitbull. The fact that you both have to get a license to marry and/or pack heat is something to think about. That said, however, this is an important thing to consider -- whether it is morally (or legally) ok to treat a group of people differently, or deprive them of something that I, as a breeder, can do freely myself. That is important. When Prop. 8 was passed here in California, there was some to-do over exactly which Californians voted for the proposition. There was plenty of talk about how a high number of black voters voted in favor of keeping anything but straight marriage illegal. They said it's because many black folks are tied to churches, and although Liberal leaning, their moral compass is still firmly rooted in Christian ethics. I recall listening to a few talk radio shows where te hosts seem to be headed down the 'blame the darkies' path. Which is funny, because so many of those shows were on Conservative radio stations, which one would assume would also support Proposition 8. There were a few callers who told the hosts that, despite the fact that the local news outlets weren't saying so, there was a bit of hostility in the gay "community" at the betrayal at the hands of black voters. If I may digress for a moment here, I 'd like to say, that, despite (or maybe in spite) of my minorityness, I voted against Prop. 8. But I also have a problem with people who assume that the fact that I am a minority, that I must side with every other "oppressed" people's causes. Sometimes, I do not. Although I will say that the argument is at its heart a semantic issue (especially in light of the fact that many people who oppose gay marriage say that they support civil unions, which are, qualitatively speaking, the same as marriage.), I understand that there is a serious legal issue at stake. I think that it is wrong, ethically and legally to disallow anyone the opportunity to marry whomsoever they choose. Alright. I've already started to fiddle with the language. Instead of using the word "right", I wrote opportunity. I did this knowing that there are many who claim that gays and lesbians are assuming they have a right where no right exists. Unfortunately, this claim may have some merit. The United States Supreme Court has established that we have a right to reproduce and a right to not reproduce (as decided by Roe v. Wade). We have a right, if we decide to marry, to marry others of any other race than our own. But, we may not have an expressed right to marry. I assume that, on grounds of risking opening up a can of worms that no one wants to dael with, that very few people would want to challenge marriage as a fundamental right. Especially those who object to gay marriage on moral grounds. Saying there's no right to marry can complicate hetersexual unions as well. Secondly, I'm aware that there's the slippery slope argument that pops up whenever someone claims that we have a right to marry whoever we like. The immediate objection sometimes goes something like, 'what if I wanted to marry my goat?'. This is exactly what Rick Santorum tried to pull of some time ago. This argument is specious on the grounds that, even if the right to marry a goat was an option, most reasonable people would not marry farm animals. I mean, I have a dog, he's really cute and he's always glad to see me. But he's a dog. A not-so-minor qualification for marriage is that my spouse to be is a t least the same species! The same goes for those who claim that allowing homosexual marriage will lead to child molestation. First, let's get the stats out of the way. If you are molested, it's most apt to be at the hands of a relative. Second, most molesters tend to be self described as "straight". I think that there are a few states (and in some spots in Europe) where gays are allowed to marry. I don't think there was a rush on marriage licenses filed by 47 year old men wanting to marry 10 year olds. Likewise, I don't think that, people being rational, that instances of necrophillia will skyrocket if the unstraight are allowed to join in holy matrimony. Most people, I assume, object to gay marriage on some sort of moral grounds. Even those who say that they support gay rights generally (meaning that they think that gays should be allowed to join the military or that a person shouldn't be fired from their job because they're gay, etc.),they still assert that they believe in gay rights on "everything but marriage". I've heard this one alot. They say that marriage is something special. "Something special" traces back to God snatching one of Adam's ribs and making the worst mistake that God ever made, the wife. Womam was given to Adam by God, and they were bound to each other by divine decree. Anything else is ungodly. Ok, first, I'm not going to argue that that belief is just plain stupid (prima facie stupid), because I believe that people are entitled to believe whatever claptrap that they wnat about whatever deity that they wish to receive their orders from. If a head of cabbage wants you to dance the hokey pokey every morning for fifteen minutes, and you believe that your salvation depends on it, believe away. Maybe you'll drop a few pounds. But, where I draw the line is where people attempt to place their God's instructions on everyone else. This, of course, is notthing new. I'm simply saying that I don't appreciate someone trying to legislate morality. I also submit that there is some of this that is done. After all, I can freely walk up to any lunch counter and demand to be served. The fact that people had moral objections to racial discrimination led to the end of racially discriminatory behavior on the part of the law and private businesses. But, I realize that Americans, more so than being moral, are also pragmatic. (it's no wonder that the only school of philosophy contributed by America is pragmatism). Racial segregation, in the long run, isn't very useful. It's bad for business to keep people out on the basis of race. Sure, you can say that God hates racists (as well as you can make arguments that God loves those who keep to their own), but it's just as useful to say that being a racist is plain counterproductive. It causes more problems than it solves. Likewise, keeping marriage a heterosexuals-only institution is counterproductive. If you listen to the governator, the our state of California stands to benefit from revenue to be had by gays and lesbians flocking to the state to make their fornication legal. One could say that, to keep marriage restricted would be to deprive the state of much needed funds, and that is not exactly the moral thing to do, either. We can, and do, go around in circles till Jesus himself descends from a cloud and tells up what's up. The problem with making the moral argument is that someone can come back at you with their version of what morality should be. If I for instance, say that God does not condone the ordination of women clergy, I'm bound to be confronted by some Unitarian who emphatically objects to my assertion. we'll each claim that our God does or does not condone some activity. I can think of a half dozen sins, such as adultery or bearing false witness, that can be used as some grounds to deny people all sorts of rights -- if we use God as a grounds for doing so. If someone who is divorced wants to remarry, do we have the right to deny him on the grounds that his second marriage is adulterous? No, we do not. So let's get rid of the religious argument now, shall we? Besides, once someone admits that we have been rendering laws by way of the Bible, we're off to First Amendment challenge land. As a philosopher (excuse me, "philosopher"), I should say a word or two how keeping gays from getting married is unphilosophic, that is that a prohibition violates the philosophic principles upon which American ideas of freedom is based. At the heart of much of the American way of life is the idea that we are free individuals who have an inalienable right to choose. (Says so in the Declaration of Independence). The idea of choice, including the right to choose what makes us happy, is found in the works of Mill, Locke, and Kant. Man's freedom is based, in part, in determining the life path of his own choosing. He is not a truly free individual is he is thwarted in his attempt to live his life according to his plan. Now, I've used the word "happy". One may define "happiness" as a felt emotional state, as in the notion that strawberry milkshakes make me happy. (They do). But, "happiness" as defined philosophically, is more than what we feel. Happiness, for the philosopher, connects to what is Good (another ambiguous term). The good life is a life in which the rational individual flourishes (to borrow an idea from Aristotle). A part of flourishing is the cultivation of beneficial, meaningful relationships. I would not doubt that a stable, committed romantic relationship would contribute to one's flourishing. The philosopher John Rawls's "veil of ignorance" demonstrates how prohibiting gay marriage is philosophically damaging. According to Rawls, if we are to consider which laws we should adopt for our society, we should first cast ourselves in the veil of ignorance. Rawls asks, if we were born unaware of what we were to be, which rules would we adopt for our society? That is, if we did not know our race, gender, physical condition, sexual orientation, etc, would we cast laws that would discriminate against a group of whom we may be a part? The answer is no. If I did not know that I would be born a (fill in the blank here), would I make laws that would restrict the freedom or opportunities of that group? The answer is hell no. We would, and should, make laws that allow for the most freedom of everyone. That's the idea behind having the freedom to choose. The idea that a person cannot choose to do (or pursue) what makes him happy is inherently un-American. But that's just what some philosopher thinks, it's his opinion. And we all know about opinions.I can argue philosophy and waste daylight the same as one can take up religious arguments that take all day and solve nothing. The point is, is that our nation is a nation of laws -- and that's the only argument worth looking at -- the only one that's got even a snowball's chance of working. The bigger matter to be confronted is the plain fact that banning gay marriage is legally wrong. So lets look at the law, shall we? The 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause abides by the principle that all men are created equal under the law. Physical or biological differences, such as race, disability, or gender are insignificant according to the law. The courts have already determined that in the arena of employment that a person's sexual orientation is beyond the reach of the law. The Court's decision in Lawerence v. Texas declared that consentual, private sexual activity is protected by the 14th Amendment. The Court stated, " moral disapproval does not constitute a legitimate governmental interest under the equal protection clause". Simply put, the Court stated that whatever people choose to do in their own homes is their business, and should not be used to deny constitutionally protected rights. So, if one has an biblical objection to a married gay couple doing what comes naturally (in the privacy of their own bedroom), their objection has no legal merit and should not be used to interfere with a right to engage in a constitutionally protected activity (which is why it it important to determine if there is a constitutional right to marry). This isn't a matter of one group demanding "special" rights, but, like minorities and women before them, it's a matter of a group demanding that their rights be recognized. Sometimes, a legal decision establishing a right to a particular activity can be used to establish a right to another. Allow me to explain: In light of some dastardly (an highly morally objectionable) unconsentual sterilizations of poor, white Southerners during the early part of the last century, it was established that no citizen can be denied the right to bear have children. Citizens of the U.S. have a constitutionally protected right to reproduce. That was fine and dandy. But, it was soon discovered that some people, although they can have children, don't want to have children. So the question arose, 'can one be compelled to have childern even if one does not want them?'. Some assumed that a right to reproduce had a correlate: the right to reproduce implies a right to not reproduce. The question was finally answered with the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which established that the government had no power to compel individuals to have children. Some find a correlate to gay marriage in the debate over interracial marriage. The Supreme Court's 1967 decision Loving v. Virginia, struck down the last of the nation's anti-miscegenation laws. (I mention the year that the decision was reched by the court in interest in showing that it was a full century after the end of the Civil War before it was legal to marry a person of a different race in all 50 states). The Court recognized the fact that individuals are entitled to marry whoever they choose to marry, and that the state cannot prohibit individuals form marrying based on mere biological differences such as race. The Court ruled that the previous system of racial segregation based on the principle of seperate but equal violated an individual's freedom of choice. Mixed-race couples were treated significantly different than other, same-race couples in that they weren't allowed to marry based on mere biological differences. The Court found that to do so is unconstitutional and ended the legal practice of anti-miscegenation. Interracial couples won the right to marry based on the idea that two individuals who love and respect each other should not be denied the right to marry. Likewise, the fact that one's gender is a mere biological characteristic should not be a factor in determining whether homosexuals can marry. Modern science has proven that our sexual preference (s) may be one of dozens of traits that are biologically rooted and are as much a part of genetic make-up as our eye color, height, body type, or race. We cannot help being gay or straight any more than we can help being short, prone to baldness, or to high blood pressure (not to say that being gay is a malady akin to being bald or hypertensive). We would not support barring two individuals with different eye color from marrying based on the fact that the thought of a blue-eyed person marrying a brown-eyed person offends us personally. If we say that homosexuality is a personal choice and not a matter of biology (as many claim), the argument for allowing gays to marry is even stronger. If being gay is a choice, then being gay is no different from a person choosing to be a Republican or an anarchist, or choosing to be a vegan or a Catholic. If the thought of two vegan Catholic Repubilcans marrying offends me morally, and it does, I can't restrict their right to marry on the grounds that I merely disagree with how they choose to vote or what they choose to eat. To say that my moral sensibility trumps their right to marry in this case would be absurd. Likewise, to say that the fact that a gay person's behavior offends me should be a reason why they should not get married is equally outrageous. Lastly, we often hear that allowing gay people to marry is somehow akin to detonating a society-destroying atomic bomb. Allowing homosexual marriage will end civilization as we know it. But, here's the fact: there are places on this hellhole that we call earth where same-sex oriented people already possess the right to marry. That's right, no one can make any sort of argument without bringing in the European -- especially the Canadians and Scandanavians. Oh, wait -- did I just write that Canadians are Europeans? I think that I just proved somebody's point about Americans, eh? Anyway. In Denmark, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 1989, statistics show that rates of suicide, sexually transmitted disease, sexual promiscuity, and infidelity among homosexuals has decreased. In a declaration that certainly would not be music to many American ministers' ears, Denmark's clergy has declared that same-sex marriages have not destroyed marriage, but strengthened them. In other countries where same-sex unions have been legalized, such as the Netherlands, Canada, and Belgium are not societies on collapse, but in fact, thes countries often enjoy a higher standard of living than in the United States. Ultimately we cannot decide if allowing gays and lesbians to marry is harmful to society until we actually make same-sex marriage legal. To sum it up, I think that I agree with actress and Christian, Kristin Chenoweth, who told host Terry Gross of NPR's Fresh Air, "people are born a certain way, and God doesn't make mistakes". I think she's right. Besides, George Takei seems happy.