Michael E. Berumen

Book Review of Do No Evil

2010-04-17T15:54:00.000-07:00

The following review is from Kirkus, the nation's premier book reviewer:

"An effective integration of ethics, morality and business principles. In a logical progression, Berumen offers a historical review of major thinkers in philosophy and ethics, including John Locke, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes and many others. He develops a framework for universal morality in which moral imperatives--rather than being matters of subjective opinion--immutable. The basis for universal morality, however, must be the avoidance of death and suffering, not just the general pursuit of good--"Being good is not good enough to be moral." The author also dissects current ethical debates, including extensive discussions, of social justice, animal rights and the environment. He explores the free-market economy, acknowledging what he believes to be the superiority of capitalism over socialism--"My theory shows that capitalism is not only ethically permissible, but also that socialism is more difficult to justify on ethical grounds"--and he highlights the principles of individual ownership and property as anchor points in his argument. He balances his argument by noting that the rights to property must be limited, and that morality provides a check on unrestrained capitalist pursuits. In the final section, the author elucidates the many layers of the managerial and corporate environment, deftly analyzing the fiduciary, social and moral relationships between the players in a corporation.

A fresh, convincing ethical examination. "

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The Essential Man: Churchill

2004-06-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

The text of a speech delivered to the Los Angeles Breakfast Panel in 2003.

We have a tendency to look upon history with a certain sense of inevitability, as though the good guys were preordained to win. The major conflagrations that beset the 20th Century are no exception. That America would emerge the dominant superpower, and that Nazism and, in due course, communism, would both succumb to the dustbin of history, seems to many today to have been a forgone conclusion, a fulfillment of destiny. Eminent historians of the period, including John Keegan, John Lukacs, William Manchester, Martin Gilbert, and many others, all agree, things might have taken a very different trajectory, had several key events not occurred, especially in the case of Nazism.

The worst of the hydra-headed dangers was National Socialism, an unholy alliance of socialism and industrial capitalism, conjoined with a perverted strain of nationalism. The various species of Marxism could at least claim well-intended, though often questionable, utopian ends. The means to these ends were more immoral than the objectives themselves. Communism was in any case doomed to fail as an economic system, and as Ludwig von Mises and Fredrich Hayek predicted long ago, it would eventually collapse from its own weight. Nazism was different, though, for it conjoined evil means and evil ends, with the goal of eradicating entire races and enslaving others, a lust for conquest, and the worship of power, producing a dystopia of sadistic horrors. And here is the critical difference: Nazism did not depend on a particular economic modality for its nefarious efficacy; nationalism was its essential feature. It was compatible with either industrial capitalism or socialism. And remember, this odious regime emerged from the most educated nation on earth, the land that produced Goethe, Kant, and Bach.

Naïve members of the corporate class and their representatives in the government mistakenly saw Bolshevism as the greater threat, for it appeared to be a more direct assault on their way of life. Given the Nazis’ ardent hatred of Marxism, it is not coincidental that many prominent people in both America and Britain saw Nazism as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Only a handful of people in the twenties and thirties were able to discern that Nazism was the more insidious malefaction.

By the middle of 1940, Adolf Hitler stood at a pinnacle of power, exceeding even anything Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon may have imagined. He had suzerainty over Europe, either outright or through his client states, and a couple of shamefully cooperative, “neutral” states. In due course, he controlled much of the Mediterranean and North Africa. All of this, with the most technologically advanced and powerful military in the world, coupled with an unquenchable appetite for territory, death, and enslavement. The only monument to his rapaciousness consists of 40 million dead in 7 years.

Had the appeasers kept England out of the war, which they came very close to doing, Hitler would have turned his attentions to the Soviets. The Soviets would have been no match for the undistracted, combined forces of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe. Once the East had been subdued, with the appeasers at the helm, he would have cowed England into submission. Alternatively, had he not lost the air war over Britain, he would have landed and overwhelmed the British, for as the Normans and Vikings and Romans all learned, landing on the island is not all that difficult once the problems of crossing the channel were surmounted. England would become a client state or worse, having a readymade vassal in the ignominious Sir Oswald Mosley, head of England’s Fascist movement. In either case, Hitler would eventually gain control of the far-flung British seaports and the British Navy, then the most powerful in the world, giving him effective control over the high seas across the globe.

In due course, the world would have been Hitler’s to lord over, if not through direct rule, indirectly, for no one dare stand in his way. Japan, his ally, would have had access to the oil of the Middle East and, by virtue of German control of the high seas, unfettered access to Southeast Asia, China and the Philippines, giving Japan little reason to attack the United States. In the best case, the U.S. would have been boxed in and isolated as a second-rate power; in the worst, in a world dominated by Nazism, with its own budding Nazi movement, it is not inconceivable that the U.S. would become a client state.

In my view, one man made all of the difference in preventing these horrible scenarios: Winston Churchill. Throughout the thirties, in fact, from as early as 1933, he warned his countrymen about Hitler. In this period, he was scorned and mocked by his own party; he was called a warmonger, an anachronism from another age; indeed, it was not uncommon for detractors to question his sanity. He was systematically excluded from holding office under Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, relegated to the backbenches of Parliament. He relied on a network of civil servants and military contacts for his information about the Nazi’s military build up and Britain’s shabby military preparedness. With this information he constantly warned Parliament and the British people of the need for action or of the impending doom. Today, we see these speeches as possessing unequalled eloquence and courage; at the time, however, they were considered by most to be the grandiloquent rantings of a washed-up man.

Chamberlain was the head of the Conservative party, which had nearly two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. He represented the prevailing view of his party and, by virtue of its commanding majority, it might be said, even the nation. This view is one of moderation, men seeking reasonable, practical solutions to international problems, and finding common ground through discussion, assuaging the aggrieved through compromise. There was nothing controversial about this doctrine, nor, at the time, about the word that encapsulated it: appeasement. The pejorative meaning came later. It was the sensible doctrine of sensible people, both in Britain and in the U.S., especially by those who thought the financial reparations imposed on Germany after WWI too onerous. Indeed, appeasement was the apotheosis of rational behavior, and the antithesis of belligerence and intransigence, the views with which Churchill was associated.

You know the sad cavalcade of events. With increasing Nazi representation in the Reichstag, Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. He became Fuhrer in 1934 upon the death of President Hindenberg. Reparations having been set-aside in 1932, Hitler began the systematic violation of the remainder of the Versailles Treaty, which he repudiated in 1935. In 1936 he instituted the anti-Jewish laws. In the same year, he faced down 350,000 French soldiers with a relatively small force and reoccupied the Rhineland, showing boldness he would repeat again. With the Anschluss in 1938, he incorporated Austria into the Reich. In the same year, Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia at Munich, trading the Sudetenland for the false promise of peace. Hitler, exactly as Churchill predicted, soon claimed the rest. Hitler then signed a pact with Stalin. Both cynically carved up Poland, which Hitler invaded in September 1939, precipitating declarations of war by Britain and France. All Churchill had foreseen came to pass. People were finally beginning to realize he was right all along.

Chamberlain was finally forced by public opinion to admit Churchill into the cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, his old post in WWI. Chamberlain’s colleagues even urged this as a means of controlling him, which, of course, was impossible. While Chamberlain still had the majority of Conservatives on his side, there was a growing minority of against him. The smaller Labor and Liberal contingents were already opposed to him, and there were now bipartisan calls for a coalition government. Labor refused to serve under Chamberlain in a national government, but they would serve under their old foe in domestic policy, Churchill. The next in command and Chamberlain’s choice if it had to be someone else, was the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. However, he was a peer in the House of Lords, which he thought disqualified him. On May 9th, Chamberlain, Halifax, and Churchill met. All agreed only Churchill could lead a national government.

On the next day, though, Chamberlain was feeling more confident, and he searched for a way to hold onto power; but that morning, word came that the Blitzkrieg began with invasion of the Netherlands, Luxemburg, and Belgium, thereby cementing his political fate. That evening, May 10, 1940 was arguably the most important day of the war, for, upon Chamberlain’s recommendation, King George VI, who himself preferred Halifax, reluctantly called for Churchill to form a National Government. Not a day too soon. Nothing less than the future of the civilized world was at stake.

General Rundstadt had amassed over 2 million German soldiers on the French border. The flower of the British army, some 220,000 men, was concentrated in Flanders. The British thought the Germans would cross through Belgium as they did in the previous war. Instead, they came across the Ardennes, surging through Sedan and behind the British and French forces, encircling them in a matter of several days and trapping them on three sides, near the town of Dunkirk, their only escape being the sea.

Hitler did not want to squander his tanks and ground troops, so he relied principally upon the Luftwaffe, thinking he could destroy them at Dunkirk. The British committed 25 air squadrons to defend France, leaving only 27 at home. The RAF leaders thought they needed at least 50 squadrons to defend the island. The French wanted even more; but Churchill wisely refused. The fact Hitler did not use his ground troops bought sufficient time for the British to evacuate some 330,000 British and French soldiers and civilians, using an enormous flotilla of civilian and military water craft. Tons of munitions and the army’s best equipment had been destroyed by the enemy or left behind.

Churchill made six, perilous, cross-Channel forays in May to persuade the French leaders to continue the fight; but France had lost its will. General Petain, the aging hero of Verdun, took over from Paul Reynaud and sued for peace. France was then divided into two, one part fully occupied and the other, Vichy, a Nazi vassal state under Petain.

Churchill’s War Cabinet consisted of five people. Chamberlain and Halifax represented the Conservatives, and Clement Atlee and Arthur Greenwood represented Labor. Unlike FDR, Churchill was not a natural politician, but his political skill in those early days was crucial. Chamberlain and Halifax, still representing the majority of Conservative MPs, were both inclined to negotiate a settlement after the fall of France. Halifax considered himself a realist and wanted to entreat with Hitler rather than risking the loss of everything. Twice burned, Chamberlain was more wary, but still inclined to compromise. Churchill understood compromise meant the Nazis would soon have England by the throat, control of its fleet and ports, and hence, all could be lost. He used every ounce of eloquence and cajolery to convince the cabinet to fight. Had Chamberlain resigned from the cabinet, a very real possibility, Churchill would have lost his government. He found himself in the unusual position of having the support of the socialists, Atlee and Greenwood. Atlee became his Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition government and, after the war, his successor as head of Labor. Churchill’s also had greater support from the outer cabinet among both Conservatives and Labor, support he used skillfully to pressure Halifax and Chamberlain on the inside. Once Churchill had convinced the whole cabinet to continue the fight, Britain never looked back.

One of the most difficult decisions Churchill made in this period was to sink the French fleet docked at Oran, rather than let it fall into German hands. He ordered the Royal Navy to sink the ships if the French resisted, which they did. Over 1300 Frenchmen lost their lives fighting their erstwhile ally. He then moved to take over the French ships in English ports across the globe, most of which occurred without incident. He now prepared Britain for invasion with an eloquence not heard since Shakespeare or afterwards. Ahead was the largest air war ever to have been fought.

The United States had long since withdrawn into somnolence. It lost its appetite for foreign involvement after the last war, beginning with the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations. By the 1930s, the U.S. had its own menacing problems, what with a quarter of the working population unemployed. The isolationist, America First Committee had broad support in the heartland. The majority in Congress was against foreign entanglements. The Neutrality Acts outlawed giving credit to belligerents. Prominent men such as Charles Lindberg were promulgating dark sentiments, finding much to admire in the German Reich. While anti-Semitism never had deep roots in America, it percolated to the surface in populist quarters. Our homegrown Nazi movement, The American Bund, managed to fill Madison Square Garden for a rally. The former rumrunner and defeatist ambassador to St. James, Joseph Kennedy, reported that democracy in Europe and England was over. Fortunately, FDR understood and distrusted Kennedy, paying him little heed, preferring to deal directly with Churchill.

Churchill knew that the war could only be won with the United States in the long run. He was well acquainted with the peculiarities of American politics, and understood there was little appetite in Congress for war. His short-term strategy was to get loans for desperately needed military equipment. In 1939, Roosevelt began communicating directly with Churchill, bypassing Kennedy and Chamberlain. With facts and charm, Churchill persuaded Roosevelt that it was only a matter of time before Europe’s German problem became America’s. Churchill realized, in order to gain America’s support, Britain would have to show it could fight. The sentiment among many in the U.S. was that Britain would not be able to hold on, and would soon come under the German yoke. This made victory in the ensuing Battle of Britain doubly important.

Hitler had already formulated his plans to invade Britain, with the code name of Operation Sea Lion. He knew he had to destroy British air power to overcome the Royal Navy before he could land. He thought victory over the ragtag RAF would be easy. The Battle of Britain began in July 1940, and lasted in earnest until October 1940. While bombings of England continued throughout the war, killing 100,000 civilians, this was the critical period. The Luftwaffe outnumbered the British 4 to 1. In these months, Britain lost 792 Hurricanes and Spitfires, and Germany lost 1389 assorted aircraft, mostly Messerschmidt 109s, which, in most respects, were superior to the British fighters. Hitler lost the air battle and he never again attempted to invade England.

The Germans underestimated the skill and will of the British pilots. After their resounding defeat, the Luftwaffe and its leader, Herman Goering, never recovered Hitler’s affection. Hitler soon turned his attentions to the Soviet Union, making the old anti-communist Churchill and Joseph Stalin into strange bedfellows. The Battle of Britain demonstrated the pluck and capability of the British, and, it served to build American support for providing needed materiel. Lend-Lease was enacted in early 1941, creating the Arsenal of Democracy. Up to that point, Britain paid cash for its supplies, but they were running out of money. With Lend-Lease, they were able to borrow armaments to be returned after the war. FDR said at the time that one does not charge a neighbor to borrow a hose when his house is on fire. One simply expects to get his hose back. Churchill described this as “the most unsordid act in history.” It was the beginning of what Churchill called our “special relationship,” a phrase we use even now.

Now, as I said before, Britain could not have won the war on its own; it could only keep the enemy at bay. Winning required the Soviet and American forces. However, the point I want to drive home is that Britain did not lose the war when all could have been lost, rendering our future involvement moot. Some Americans have the misconception we were there from the beginning. The American presence in the Western theatre was inconsequential until the end of 1942 with Operation Torch, and we did not match British divisional strength in ground forces until late 1944. Of course, while the British had a sturdy presence, we dominated the Eastern theatre soon after Pearl Harbor.

This year, 1940, was the pivotal year, and Winston Churchill was the crucial man. He was not like other politicians. He did not mirror the population. Isaiah Berlin said he “imposed his will and imagination on his countrymen.” In time, they “approached his ideals and began to see themselves as he saw them.” So, then, who was this man, Winston Churchill, the man who I claim made all the difference? He was the elder of two sons born of an American beauty from New York, Jenny Jerome, whose father was a wealthy investor and part owner of the New York Times. His father was Randolph Churchill, the youngest son of the Duke of Marlborough, descended from the original Duke, John Churchill, one of the greatest military commanders in British history, the victor at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, where he crushed the forces of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and thereby averted French expansion in Europe.

Young Randolph had a very bright political career, rising to Chancellor of the Exchequer at age 37. He, like his son, was known for his oratorical skills. At one point he seemed destined to become Prime Minister, but, in several impetuous missteps with Prime Minister Salisbury, he flamed out early. He was never to recover, politically, for he had contracted syphilis when he was young; and with its advancement, he experienced serious mental and physical setbacks, and died at age 45. Winston was only 20.

Young Winston was neglected and even treated rather cruelly by his father. He never quite measured up to his exacting standards; however, like all boys, he avidly sought his father’s approval. He was constantly told he was a disappointment and reminded of his inadequacies. Winston adored his mother, Jennie, but she was decidedly non-maternal. A socialite with many lovers, she left Winston largely in the care of his beloved nanny, Mrs. Everest, and a series of boarding schools, ending up at Harrow, where he had an undistinguished academic career. He excelled in history and English, but he was incompetent in mathematics, science, French, and the classics.

Churchill’s grades would not qualify him for one of the more prestigious academic universities. After failing his first two exams, on the third attempt, he finally gained entrance to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. It was at Sandhurst that he discovered he had a talent for the military. His marks from Harrow were not good enough to land him in the infantry, which provoked his father’s criticism; he ended up in the less fashionable cavalry. He excelled at horsemanship and fencing, and he turned around his lackluster academic performance, and graduated near the top of his class.

Churchill received his commission as a subaltern in 1895 and was assigned to the 4th Hussars. While waiting for a permanent duty station, he took an eleven-week leave to go to Cuba to report on the Spanish-American conflict for a London newspaper. He was nearly killed under fire on his 21st birthday. He spent some time in New York and struck up a friendship with a former paramour of his mother, Bourke Cockran, a wealthy Tammany Hall politician, congressman, and a former candidate in the Democratic presidential primary. A father-son relationship ensued. Churchill learned a great deal about politics from Cockran, with whom he remained close friends for many years.

Churchill finally received his first military assignment in India in 1896. He was very mindful of his lack of a university education, and thought this a great disadvantage. He had a lot of time on his hands, and on those long, languid days, he undertook a program of self-study in history, literature, and philosophy, with special emphasis on the works of Gibbon and Macualay, whose felicity of expression he much admired. Many years later he could recite from memory long passages from their works.

Churchill’s second combat experience involved quelling a tribal uprising near the border of Afghanistan, in Malakand, not far from Kabul, a battle that involved pistols and swords, where captives were likely to be castrated before being killed. The experience inspired his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. While in India, he began working on his one and only novel, Savrola. It became increasingly apparent he had a talent for writing. He would go on to write a number of books, including several multi-volumed histories, a biography of his father, and another of his great ancestor, Marlborough, which is considered one of the finest military biographies ever written. Churchill once remarked that his dismal performance in school required such intensive remediation, he eventually felt the structure of the English language in his bones.

After India, Churchill ended up in North Africa in Sudan, where he again participated in close combat and Britain’s last, large-scale cavalry charge at Omdurman. He of course wrote a book about it: The River War. He was quite critical of the British treatment of the wounded enemy, the Dervish, thereby alienating him from some senior officers.

Churchill returned to London in 1899 to run for political office. He lost his first campaign for a seat in Parliament in Oldham, a laboring district near Manchester. He made his living selling articles to newspapers and, of course, he continued to crave adventure and, many would have rightly said, publicity and glory. In this sense, he was more similar to the Homeric Greeks and Roman generals than the understated British.

He eventually ended up as a war correspondent in South Africa during the Boer War. A hospital train on which he was traveling came under attack by the Boers and several cars were derailed. Churchill, now a journalist, quickly took command of the situation, persuaded the lightly wounded to fight while disabled cars were moved, so the engine, still on track in the middle of the train, could flee with the remaining cars to safety. The train escaped. Churchill’s personal courage undoubtedly saved many lives. Unfortunately, he was captured by the Boers and became a prisoner of war in Pretoria; but, not for long, for he soon escaped, and made his way by night in the countryside for nearly 300 miles until he reached friendly, Portuguese territory. “Churchill: Wanted Dead or Alive” posters were posted throughout Boer territory. This was enough to make him famous at age 26, not an inconsequential factor in his early political career.

Churchill returned to London with great fanfare. Again he ran for office as a Conservative in Oldham. This time he won, thus beginning his 65-year political career. Oldham was only one of several constituencies he would represent over his long life.

He soon came under the spell of Lloyd George and became disenchanted with the Conservative Party, primarily because of its advocacy of tariffs. In 1904 he joined the Liberal Party, which supported free-trade policies. The Labor party with which we are familiar, which began as a socialist party, got its start in 1900. He held several ministerial positions in the Liberal cabinet. In his career, he would hold all of them but one, Foreign Secretary. Even though he returned to the Tories in 1924, there was a great deal of residual bitterness over his apostasy, arousing animosity and suspicions among Conservatives that would haunt him until the eve of WWII.

In the midst of all this, Churchill fell in love with Clementine Hozier in the summer of 1906. They married in 1908, a marriage that would last for 57 years. Her friends called her Clemmie. His affectionate nickname for her was “cat,” and she called him her “pig.” In old age they continued to sign their letters with little drawings of cats and pigs. Unlike many aristocrats at the time, indeed, unlike a great many powerful men of any time, Churchill never strayed from his “cat.” To her credit, she put up with an extraordinarily difficult and temperamental personality. She is suspected of having one, brief, extramarital fling while on a cruise in the Pacific, but her love and devotion to Winston proved durable and, I might add, was critical to his psychological health.

Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, which, given Britain’s preeminence as a naval power, was the principal civilian defense post in Britain. As First Lord during the Great War, he spearheaded the strategy to engage the Turks at the Dardanelles passage, believing a decisive defeat of the Turks would facilitate advancement through the Pomeranian plain to the German capital. Historians now agree, it was not an unsound strategy, but one that was poorly executed, constantly delayed, lacking coordination between ground and naval forces, and hampered by a recalcitrant military staff. The ensuing tragedy at Gallipoli resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Churchill took the brunt of the blame, though there was plenty to go around.

He resigned from the Admiralty in 1915 in disgrace. At age 40, his political career seemed to over, and not for the last time. He took leave from Parliament, resumed his military service and ended up on the front lines in France on the Belgian border, where, as a Colonel, he commanded the 6th Royal Scott Fusiliers with distinction. More than once he risked life and limb with fearless expeditions in no-man’s land. In his off hours, he would engage in his newfound pastime, painting, sometimes with shells bursting overhead. It was widely reported in all of his military exploits that he was personally fearless in battle.

In 1916, Churchill returned to politics. He managed to survive an investigation of Dardanelles, and soon rose again to cabinet level, holding several significant defense posts for the duration of the war. After the war, he became known as an anti-Bolshevik crusader, the archenemy of the homegrown socialists, and an advocate of Irish home rule, playing a principal role in negotiations with the Irish leader, Michael Collins. Had Collins not been assassinated, Churchill said he would have made him a member of his club, The Other Club, a dinner and conversation club consisting of people of various political stripes. Off and on he also belonged to the Carlton Club, a Tory bastion founded by the Duke of Wellington in the 19th century. The Carlton Club at this time would have made the California Club seem like a caldron of insurrection. Churchill, as everyone knows, was no teetotaler. He loved nothing better, than drinking, eating, and conversing, particularly when he was the one doing the talking.

He was increasingly at odds with the Liberal party in the twenties, especially when would align itself with the socialist Laborites on various issues, which it did increasingly to hold on to power. In 1924, he crossed the aisle for the last time to rejoin the Tories. The party was then under the leadership of Stanley Baldwin. Churchill became Baldwin’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, a peculiar assignment for a man whose own personal extravagance often surpassed his financial means. By 1930, Churchill had alienated nearly everyone inside and outside of his party; he was now out of office, and Prime Minister Baldwin had become his nemesis, primarily because of Churchill’s obstinacy about granting India dominion status and the government’s refusal to confront an increasingly arrogant and powerful Germany, and its failure to gird its loins militarily.

While Baldwin’s successor, Neville Chamberlain, was responsible for the disgrace of Munich in 1938, it was mostly Baldwin who allowed the military to decline into disrepair. Both men shamelessly conspired to minimize Churchill’s influence, often without his knowledge. Churchill naively believed both were his close friends. The truth is, they both loathed him. Churchill’s only asset during this period was his dogged determination, his eloquence, and a handful of dedicated supporters in government and the press. Of course, we all know what happened next.

A couple of general comments on the remainder of the war are in order, though I am at a decided disadvantage with so many members of our greatest generation present. Britain’s solitary successes were largely defensive, rather than offensive, except for several battles against the Italians and the battle of Al Alamein in 1942, the famous confrontation of Generals Montgomery and Rommel. It is well known that Churchill favored invading Continental Europe from the South, through Italy rather than through Normandy. After the Battle of the Bulge, he wanted the Yanks and Brits to take Berlin first, but Eisenhower, more interested in military tactics than politics, allow the Russians to do this. By the time of Yalta in 1945, Churchill, the senior partner during the initial years, had become the junior member. While it is easy to second-guess the great actors in these days, I have little doubt that had Churchill’s relative influence been greater at the end, not as much would have been given up to Stalin. It was during the Potsdam conference with Truman that Churchill learned the Conservatives lost the election at home, causing him to lose the premiership to Clemet Atlee, his former Deputy.

Churchill remained the leader of his party, and began publishing his memoirs of the war. He was an early supporter of Israel, having declared his support for Zionism as early as 1906; and with some prescience, he expressed his concern about the nascent nation’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs. He again became Prime Minister when the Conservatives won a majority in 1951. He privately preferred Adlai Stevenson to Eisenhower, but either man to Taft, whom he despised. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1953 for his writing and oratory on behalf of freedom. During this period, his physical powers steadily declined, forcing him finally to resign from office in 1955 at the age of 80. He then finished his monumental History of the English Speaking Peoples, the bulk of which had been completed before the outbreak of the war.

While an internationalist of the first rank, Churchill grew increasingly dissatisfied with the organization he helped found, the United Nations, especially with its ineptitude handling the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, when Hungarian patriots attempted to shed the communist yoke.

In his last years, Churchill spent a great deal of time in the South of France, his favorite vacation spot, and sailing about the Mediterranean with his new friend, the shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. The United States Congress declared him a citizen of the United States in 1962. He was the second and last person to be so honored, the other being the Marquis de Lafayette. On more than one occasion, the great champion of freedom, himself born of the aristocracy, declined a dukedom from his sovereign, saying he ought to die “Mr. Winston Churchill, a man of the Commons,” where he had served for so long.

After a severe stroke, on January 24, 1965 Churchill passed away in his 90th year, 70 years to the day after his father died. He was given the last great funeral in the Imperial style. Breaking with custom, and in deference to her country’s greatest citizen, the queen attended a commoner’s funeral. She broke another custom and did not arrive last ; she waited with everyone else at St. Paul’s for the arrival of his funeral cortege. He was buried in a small churchyard in Bladon, near his birthplace at Blenheim Palace. His courageous but troublesome ally, Charles De Gaulle, never given to modesty, summed up us contribution thusly: “In the great drama, he was the greatest of all.” His socialist war partner, Clement Atlee, addressed the House of Lords and said: “My Lords, we have lost the greatest Englishman of our time, I think the greatest citizen of the world in our time.”

Return, now, to those lonely, baleful, desperate days when France had just fallen, on the eve of the Battle of Britain. Here is what Churchill said to his countrymen:

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over.
I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin.
Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.
Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire.
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island, or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world can move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.
Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

And so it was. No man before or since had so embodied and fulfilled British honor and glory. And that is why Winston Churchill was the essential man.

The Death Penalty

2004-06-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

The article below is taken from Berumen's monthly opinion column for the Valley Business News.

The Armchair Philosopher
by Michael Berumen

I have not followed the Scott Peterson trial very carefully. With war, famine, and people dying of genocide in Sudan, tragic as the murder of his wife and child were, the attention given to it was quite overwrought and out of proportion to its importance. Let’s face it, the media made Peterson’s trial, along with the sordid details of his life, into an entertainment spectacle, and much of the viewing public had a morbid curiosity and interest other than jurisprudence. In effect, it was one of several reality shows on television, not unlike the Apprentice or Survivor, only with the potential of an even more devastating outcome. Judging by the cheers and ebullience of those surrounding the courthouse, I gather many were gratified by the result.

Juries are not infallible, they make mistakes; even so, there is not a better system than the one we have. So I shall assume the jury’s assessment of Peterson’s guilt is correct and not second-guess them. Nevertheless, I do not think he should be put to death by the state. It’s not that I think that all human life is equally sacred, as some people do, or that I have some special capacity for forgiveness and compassion. Indeed, I would not find it especially troubling to learn that some bruiser in prison took out the likes of Charles Manson or Sirhan Sirhan. However, I remain bothered by capital punishment.

For one thing, capital punishment is not administered fairly, which is to say, impartially and equally, using the same rules when the relevant facts pertaining to a criminal act share the same, universal properties. The evidence is overwhelming that an African American accused of murder is far more likely to be sent to death row than someone of European ancestry. Moreover, someone who is affluent and able to afford a good lawyer is far less likely to be executed than someone who is poor.

Then there’s the matter of deciding guilt or innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. I think the collective wisdom of a jury is sufficient to send someone to prison, to restrict his liberty for some period of time, even for the rest of his life. However, to my mind, human judgment is insufficient to take a life, that is, other than in self defense, when we have no other rational choice. We make mistakes, and as has now been shown many times by DNA evidence or the confessions of guilt-ridden people who come forward later, the person who is consigned to death row is not always the right one. Scores of innocent people have undoubtedly been executed over the years.

Perhaps most importantly, capital punishment is an awesome, final power to give over to the state, even though it might be sanctified by the consensus of one’s peers. Power over a person’s life is the ultimate power. I am myself generally suspicious of governments, of state power, a suspicion girded by an understanding of history and of the propensity of governments to abuse their power and justify untoward means to obtain desired ends. I trust the government with certain things simply because, from a practical perspective, there is no alternative. But I do not see the benefit to society in the case of capital punishment.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, many studies have shown that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. The people who think it has a deterring effect are the people who probably would not contemplate murder in the first place. Statistics tell the tale. For one thing, studies have shown that states with the death penalty have a higher homicide rate than states without one. Texas, for example, executes the most people, and it still has one of the highest murder rates in the nation. Indeed, this is true in the South as a whole, where one might expect there would be greater reverence for life, given its greater predilection for moralizing and religiosity.

Then there is the economic argument. Studies have shown that the combined cost of appeals, death row confinement, and the private costs associated with death penalty cases are more costly than life imprisonment. A 1991 study indicated that the cost of appealing capital murder in Texas at $2,316,655, in contrast to $750,000 for keeping a prisoner in a maximum security cell for 40 years, a significant difference. Once again, the conventional wisdom of cocktail chatter goes down the drain.

Then there is the matter of the coarsening of society with the “eye for an eye” mentality. Steal a pizza, cut off his hand; kill someone, cut off his head. This is the ethos of a medieval culture, one similar to some cultures that we presently are attempting to enlighten with our values. Notwithstanding the fact that some who are sent to their death are contemptible monsters, and that Peterson might well be an example, there is something very brutish about the death penalty, something that seems to me to be unworthy of a civilized people. In the final analysis, I fail to see how society’s ultimate retribution brings the scales of justice into balance or how it benefits the citizenry.

I have heard it said that denouement of a murderer's execution brings a sense of peace, resolution, and justice to the survivors of the victim. It is a sad state of affairs to imagine that our contentment can only be brought about through more violence.

Some will simply say the convicted person deserves it, and that’s the end of it. Maybe so; but to paraphrase someone else, who among us is in a position to make such a final judgment and cast the first stone? If punishment is what we are after, life in a small cell strikes me as quite sufficient.

In Defense of Liberalism

2004-06-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

Liberalism is Not A Dirty Word

by Michael E. Berumen 9-15-04

I lament the denigration of the word “liberal” and the fashion of using it as a pejorative, something that can be blamed on self-proclaimed liberals who have misused the term, and certain voluble conservatives preferring invective to reason. Liberal democracy is the dominant political system in the Americas, Western Europe, and a growing percentage of the rest of the world. Liberalism is a full-blooded doctrine of many parts, some in conflict with one another; however, political liberalism has several essential principles without which the theory could not be deemed liberal, insofar as liberty, pluralism, and justice comprise its lexical meaning. In contrast, while conservatism can be a legitimate position at any given time, it is not a doctrine. Instead, it is a relational term, one that can be understood only in terms of another doctrine or practice, that is, the things one wants to conserve. An 18th century conservative had a very different idea about what to conserve than a modern one. Liberals and modern conservatives (in the West) even agree on the core principles constituting the sine qua non of liberalism: individual liberty, government by consent, and the right to property. Extremists on the right and left always do serious damage to one or more of these principles; for example, the far right is especially apt to neglect individual liberty, whereas, the far left denies property rights, failing to see the inextricable relationship between both. Most of us do not subscribe to either extreme, and simply place greater emphasis on one or more of these principles without denying the fundamental importance of all three of them.

For most of history, one’s identity was established upon birth, and an individual’s value was preordained as a function of his place in a hierarchy. The notion that individuals have equal worth, and equal liberty to exercise their wills, is largely a product of strange bedfellows, 15th century theology and the secular philosophy of the Enlightenment. Our modern conceptions of liberty and equality were built upon Martin Luther’s idea that all men are equal before God; John Locke’s notion that all men have property in themselves, with no man having property in another; and Immanuel Kant’s view that every man is an end unto himself, and ought not to be treated as merely a means to another man’s ends.

Then there is the equally modern and liberal idea that governments are morally legitimate only insofar as those who are governed give their consent. In no small part, this is a result of the social contract theory of John Locke, which states that the people contract with their leaders for government, and have the power to throw them out. Locke’s ideas are interwoven throughout the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, and inform all modern representative democracies. Of course, Locke, Thomas Jefferson, John Stuart Mill, and others have spoken of the natural tension between liberty and democracy, for majorities can also oppress minorities; this tension speaks to the importance of the Bill of Rights and other constitutional amendments that serve to protect individual liberties.

For most of our history, a man’s property consisted of what he could carry or tend to himself, always at the sufferance of his rulers. Modern conceptions of private property developed largely in the 17th and 18th centuries with the end of feudalism and the advent of a commercial middle class. Locke believed that a man’s labor instantiated ownership in property, the so-called “labor theory of value,” and this led to both capitalist and communist economic theories. Karl Marx mistakenly thought value was an objective aspect of price, when it is completely incommensurable and subjective. Price, itself, is the most democratic arbiter of value in a free marketplace.

Today there are two modern and opposing theories of liberalism rooted in the classical liberalism of the Enlightenment, namely, the end-state theory of John Rawls and the historical entitlement and libertarian theory of Robert Nozick. Rawls said the economically advantaged ought to benefit only insofar as the circumstances of the least advantaged are thereby improved. In contrast, Nozick said this is essentially immoral, for if a person acquires his holdings without violating any moral principles, taking his property to satisfy a pre-conceived pattern of distribution is tantamount to theft.

The liberal principles of individual liberty, government by the people, and private property represent the very values we now seek to protect and promote elsewhere in the world. The fact is, there are liberals on the right, on the left, and in the middle: liberal liberals, moderate liberals, and conservative liberals. The term liberal ought to be restored to its rightful place of dignity in the political lexicon, for it represents the noblest ideals of the Enlightenment. Politicians and shout radio and TV hosts who have come to use it as a word of derision clearly misunderstand its essential meaning. However, absent such a restoration, by any other appellation, these liberal principles , which required generations of effort and sacrifice to realize in our own lives, are sacred and certainly worth conserving and defending.

Why Fire President Bush?

2004-06-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 10-04

A Brief Rationale on Why George W. Bush Should be Fired on November 2, 2004.........

(Alas, it was not to be. Let us therefore hope for the best, lest I be forced to utter that obnoxious refrain: "I told you so!")

I. The Economy

George Bush has completely mismanaged his trust when it comes to the economy and federal expenditures. It is true, there is only so much a president can do to affect the economy; however, what he has done has been mostly negative. He has completely squandered the record surplus he inherited, and he has managed to put the nation in a serious deficit, adding billions to our national debt. Over half of the current deficit is attributable to expenditures that are not related to defense. He accuses others of being "tax and spend" politicians, when he is the very soul of a "spend and borrow" politician, something even worse. His extensive borrowing, with interest, will cause future taxpayers to have to pay even more; he is simply deferring the inevitable for the gratification of a few, today, and thereby, mortgaging our future.

The deficit has put an enormous drag on the economy, for it affects the confidence of investors both at home and abroad, and it competes with borrowers for financing in the marketplace. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reports that the president is woefully ignorant on economic issues (he also said that even before 9-11, President Bush was obsessing about Iraq), and that he showed no interest in learning about them in the many, high-level policy meetings he attended.

The economy needed a stimulus to promote reducing high inventories through purchasing, or what economists call a demand stimulus. Productivity was not the problem; we remained highly productive. The problem was too much supply. The president's tax program gave too much to wealthy investors who did not spend their money, standing on the sidelines waiting for a recovery, thereby not helping the economy on the demand side, providing the wealthy an unnecessary windfall that simply exacerbated the deficit, in effect, helping those who required the least amount of help.

There are many examples of President Bush's mismanagement of the economy. The president promoted a highly questionable Medicare drug proposal, the projected cost of which his administration intentionally understated by billions of dollars, his minions having instructed the fund's actuary to remain silent about the true cost; consequently, the Senate passed the proposal based on bogus information. The president has not vetoed one major spending measure in over three years. To illustrate how unprincipled on economic matters this president is, this alleged free-enterprise Republican imposed steel tariffs on foreign imports in order to curry favor with the steel industry during the mid-term elections; this hardly represents what an honest proponent of free trade would do. More jobs have been lost under President Bush's watch than in any other administration since Herbert Hoover's. And, not least of all, his having made us a veritable pariah among other nations has adversely affected our nation's negotiating power in international trade, including getting others to adhere to their agreements with us, an area where presidents have especially been able to exercise some economic clout.

II. 9-11-01

It is a complete mystery to me how it is that many have come to see President Bush as an effective anti-terrorist president and that he has escaped sharing in the responsibility for our lack of preparedness for 9-11. One observer recently said this misconception might be the result of our natural tendency to want to believe the president is doing what is necessary to protect us, much as children assume this is the case with their parents, whom they instinctively trust.

President Clinton and his staff warned the incoming president that al Qaeda was his number one priority, for the true scope of the terrorist threat had become abundantly clear by the end of Clinton's second term. President Bush's own intelligence staff and his chief of anti-terrorism told him and his key staff members that al Qaeda was very likely to make a move against us on the United States' soil in the near term. The president and key members of his staff paid virtually no attention this, and focused instead on an anti-ballistic missile system, a pet project of cold warriors that was more suitable for another era. Indeed, Vice President Cheney, head of the anti-terrorism task force, did not convene a meeting from May, 2001 until 9-11 itself. Had the president and the vice president exhibited an appropriately heightened interest in the al Qaeda threat, one that had been repeatedly and clearly identified to them, it is not inconceivable that the 9-11 plot could have been completely or even partially foiled; after all, a visible interest at the highest levels would have certainly caused the various intelligence and police agencies to have assumed a much more vigilant posture. The fact is that the president failed both to understand the threat and to react aggressively to it. He utterly failed in his responsibility to protect the nation, and, therefore, he should be held accountable for this.

III. Osama bin Laden

President Bush and his closest advisers completely mishandled the attempted capture of Osama bin Laden (OBL) when he was trapped in the mountains of Afghanistan. Rather than risk the political fallout of sending in American ground forces, forces that were well equipped to interdict OBL before he could escape, the administration relied upon a ragtag Afghan militia led by warlords.

President Bush has used Iraq and Saddam Hussein to distract the American public from his failure to capture our greatest enemies, OBL and other key leaders of al Qaeda. It is remarkable that the president who ignored his predecessor's warning that OBL was his greatest international threat; who wiled precious hours away in confusion and inaction immediately after the 9-11 tragedy occurred; and who has still not caught OBL several years later has somehow convinced people that he is a capable and serious anti-terrorism leader. This speaks to the incredible power of the Bush marketing apparatus, making full use of all of the symbols of our military might and the iconic imagery of the presidency to create a public perception that is belied by reality. Had only similar talent and energy as this marketing required been put into subduing the man responsible for taking so many lives on American soil.

IV. Afghanistan

President Bush's diversion of military and financial resources to Iraq; his mismanagement of our nation's budget, thereby reducing the available resources; and his failed policies on the ground in post-war Afghanistan have left that poor country in a complete mess, with substantial parts of it now being managed by warlords and a resurgent Taliban. Our military.....one built primarily during preceding administrations.....performed brilliantly. The efforts of our courageous and dedicated soldiers should not be diminished by virtue of the poor leadership of the Commander-in-Chief.

Afghanistan had a chance to become a model democratic state, had we stayed the course and not diverted our attentions and resources to fulfill President Bush's vendetta war. We abandoned it along with our focus on capturing OBL. Let us hope that this nation can overcome its profound difficulties. With any luck, a new administration will be able to give it the assistance it deserves.

V. Iraq

Saddam Hussein was a bad guy and it's good to be rid of him. However, doing what we did, when we did it, and, most importantly, how we did it, were mistakes. It is simply not enough that he was a bad guy, for there are lots of them around the world. The president ruined our international standing with his preemptive war and his arrogance; it could take years to repair the damage he has done. Even those who supported us did so without the majority of their citizenry behind them, and, more than likely, because they were reluctant to defy us. And their support has been weak, all along, and primarily symbolic, with very few troops committed to combat roles and very little financial support. Whereas other countries bore the financial burden (about 90%) of the first Gulf War, we took on nearly the entire burden of the current war and the reconstruction, something our economy could ill afford, and all as a result of the president's utter arrogance and lack of finesse in dealing with the world community (and I do not mean just the insufferable French).

Now, the worst thing is that our planning for the aftermath of ousting Saddam and the occupation of Iraq was completely inadequate. The results speak for themselves. Over one thousand American lives have been lost and thousands more have been wounded....most of which occurred after the president's stupid declaration that "Major combat operations are over" and his "Mission Accomplished" display of bravado. What is more, and we don't hear as much about this, over ten thousand Iraqis have lost their lives. Thousands more have been wounded, lost their homes and businesses, and their lives have been left in shambles. Yes, Saddam is gone....and no one laments that fact....but did the Iraqi and American people need to pay such a high price? Certainly we could have managed things better than we did after the invasion. For example, disbanding both the Iraqi Army and civilian governmental infrastructure were catastrophic errors, actions based on the advice of the neocon crony and Iraqi expatriate, Ahmed Chalabi, a man of very dubious character and of virtually no influence among Iraqis. Clearly, we could have waited until we had made more progress in Afghanistan and in capturing bin Laden, not to mention completing the WMD inspections in Iraq, and gathering sufficient international support for further action. The president and his staff blatantly took advantage of the heightened emotions surrounding 9-11 and implied at every step along the way that there was a connection between Iraq and international terrorism, including al Qaeda, despite the fact there was no evidence for this.

Yes, we all believed there could have been weapons of mass destruction. After all, we depend on our president to tell us the facts on such matters. But notwithstanding this belief, no respected military analyst ever maintained that Saddam posed an immediate threat to the United States...this, pure and simple, was concocted by the politicians in the Bush Administration, especially Vice President Cheney and the neo-conservative echo chamber. I cannot say that I would never give countenance to striking another country preemptively, especially if it posed a grave and imminent threat; but it is clear that Iraq was not the best candidate for such an action, and that inspections and international diplomacy could have gone on for a longer time.

The president has capably shifted the blame for his malfeasance to the FBI and CIA, upon whose information he says he relied. This should not surprise us, for the president has a long track record of not accepting responsibility for his actions, one that dates back to his youth. Had he listened to the professionals (as opposed to the political appointees) in the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense, and State Department, he might have come to a different conclusion, waited until we had exhausted all alternatives, completed the job in Afghanistan, and developed a workable plan for occupation. The bottom line is that President Bush is responsible for the decisions he makes and, ultimately, for what occurs in government on his watch, including intelligence and planning failures.

VI. Civil Liberties

From a domestic standpoint, the most important reason to fire President Bush is not the economy. It will right itself in due course, with or without him. One thing that is even more vital to our nation's well being, that which separates us from all other nations today and in history, and the reason that we are the beacon of hope for so many around the world, is our liberty. President Bush, who likes to say our enemies "hate us for our freedom," has himself shown that he has very little regard for human rights: holding people for months without charging them; not providing them with legal counsel; not even disclosing who is held; flouting not only the principles we hold dear and purport to defend, those enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but also those codified in international convention. And then, of course, there are the various abuses of prisoners....physical torture, humiliation, inhumane living conditions, even forcing old men to live in their own excrement, all of a piece of the utter contempt for civil liberties that began in the Oval Office and worked its way down through the ranks, even to the point of disgusting career military commanders. Of course, President Bush and his staff would like to blame this on privates and corporals. And this is the man who is likely to appoint the next two Supreme Court justices. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.

VII. Miscellaneous

In addition to all of this, President Bush has the worst record on environmental issues in modern history; he has abandoned decades of progress and ignored scientific evidence. He has stood by while the medical insurance crisis grows, allowing more Americans to join the ranks of the uninsured every day. He has permitted Medicare premium rates to soar, increasing the already difficult burdens of the elderly. After promising not to do so in his campaign, he has dipped into Social Security funds to hide his gross fiscal irresponsibility (and his supporters say he is consistent!). A shameless pawn of the gun lobby, he has not renewed the assault weapons ban, thereby jeopardizing the lives of innocent citizens and members of law enforcement for the gun industry. And, as he has shown time after time, he is simply unwilling to learn or to admit error, elevating consistency to a moral principle, even when the facts clearly warrant a change in direction. Consistency is not in and of itself a virtue, however, and especially when one is consistently mistaken.

VIII. Character

Much has been made of the President's character. His self-proclaimed piety and his dedication to moral principle are simply not supported by the empirical evidence. A set jaw and powerful, belligerent words behind a podium do not exemplify one's character: one's actions do. One can forgive him for his youthful indiscretions...including being AWOL when others served, substance abuse, driving while under the influence, business failures, and so forth...but what about examining his more recent actions? How about the way Senator McCain was smeared by the Bush campaign with such calumny and innuendo in the 2000 primaries, even questioning the senator's heroism during Vietnam (sound familiar?), and suggesting that his children were illegitimate, appealing to the basest sentiments of some because his kids are of a different race? What about lying, for example, by taking credit for health care reform in Texas during the presidential debates, when, in fact, as governor, President Bush was an ardent opponent of the reform? Who could forget his admonishment of past administrations for not being sufficiently "humble" in our international relations, something that must amuse other world leaders. Then there are his many declarations of being against "nation building," no doubt, something that would surprise the good people of Iraq, those who have had to suffer under his own inept version of it. And what about the contempt he shows our brave veterans, sending them off to war, utilizing his position as Commander-in-Chief to curry favor with them with pomp and circumstance, and then leaving them high and dry when it comes to providing veterans' health benefits, which he has systematically reduced?

One of the most galling traits of this president is his penchant for showing his contempt for those allies who disagree with him, whilst, at the same time, he shows no shame at all when he hobnobs with the brutal, medieval royals of Saudi Arabia. He is willing to show a good time to these benefactors of fundamentalist madrasahs around the world, the cauldrons of hate that taught many young Muslims to despise America. He is willing to fete the people who practice all manner of cruelty and oppression against their own citizens, who are enemies of our most basic principles of liberty and democracy. His hypocrisy is shameful.

IX. Conclusion

Past is not necessarily prologue in predicting how a president will fare once he is in office. The experience of other presidents, even great ones, could not have been foretold by their lives before they took office. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was an undistinguished trail lawyer, a one-term congressman of lackluster accomplishment, and a failed senatorial candidate. FDR was an effete aristocrat, even something of a dissembler and a cad. Theodore Roosevelt was an egotistical seeker of glory, a medal hunter, just as young Winston Churchill was across the Atlantic. But each of these men rose to greatness once they were office and events tried them. The fact that a president had an unremarkable past, or even a questionable one, does not mean he cannot rise to greatness.

However, once a president has been in office for over three years, we no longer need to rely on his record in other positions to imagine what kind of president he would be. We know. We have had sufficient time to see what he is made of. We need not speculate about how President Bush will perform: he has already failed. He has mismanaged the economy; we have not caught or killed our number one enemy; we are not appreciably safer than we were before 9-11; we went to war with someone who did not attack us based on false information and misrepresentation, for we were misled into believing we were fighting international terrorism in Iraq; we have incurred the wrath of the entire Muslim world because of our ham-handed methods, and we have provided new incentives for terrorism among the disaffected; our defense forces are overextended and overtaxed; we have failed thus far in both our occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq; our international relations, even with our traditional friends, are in complete disarray; and, not least of all, our most sacred civil liberties are in jeopardy.

Unless the leading alternative can be shown to be even more flawed in his character and judgment, George Bush should be sent packing. It is true that we always take a chance whenever we elect a new president. But the facts are clear, our nation has already suffered enough as a result of the last election, an election that did not reflect the will of the majority, and, at the very least, that was of very dubious legitimacy. It is certainly a chance worth taking.

On God

2004-06-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

On God

By Michael E. Berumen 3-4-96

I think it unlikely that there is a god, if by that we mean an intelligent, directed force or personality with extraordinary, supernatural powers, a being that is able to create something from nothing, the prime mover of the cosmos. This, of course, would include the various depictions of the god or gods of the religions now extant, as well as those that have passed into history. It would also include the less anthropomorphic, and more sophisticated, metaphysical being, the ineffable force of intelligent design suggested by some philosophers and theologians. Why? Because there is no evidence for such a being, and logic does not require us to believe that there is one.

All of the classical arguments are flawed. The ontological argument, which has appealed to many philosophers, essentially states that the perfect being that we can imagine must include
the property of existence; they therefore conclude, the perfect conception must exist. This is simply circular, however, and it assumes that the predicate "perfection," which is implied by a definition, is true, which is to conflate logical validity, semantics, and reality in nature, leading us to suppose the predicate corresponds to a fact simply because we imagine it is necessitated by our words. Immanuel Kant, among others, exposed this fallacy.

The venerable and more ancient cosmological argument says there is something, and something does not come from nothing, therefore, a first and persisting cause, and an unmoved mover, must be non-contingent. The notion that cause and effect are inextricably linked was handily shattered by David Hume, so we need not go there. Moreover, there is no reason to assume there even was a first cause, a beginning, and every reason to assume that the universe simply is, without beginning or end. Indeed, if we can conceive of a non-contingent being, a first cause without an antecedent, we can just as easily conceive of a non-contingent, enduring universe.

The teleological argument, the argument from design, suggests that where there is a design, there must be a designer. In other words, if we find a watch, we can infer a watchmaker. This is the favorite argument of creationists and the like. The assumption, here, is that there is a design, as opposed to unplanned order in the physical universe. But we are inferring entities without evidence, assuming the arrangement of the universe and the objects we ourselves manufacture are analogous, which is a rather large assumption to make. We are creating explanations out of whole cloth. Ockham is surely rolling in his grave. Order does not imply a creator or even an architect. Order is simply a pattern; it need not result from intentional arrangement, as with flowers in a vase. What is more, the fact is that the overall direction of the universe is not towards order, but disorder, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. The order that we imagine is a transitory state, a snapshot of a universe heading towards increasing entropy, which, physics tells us, never decreases. Disorder, chaos, would hardly seem to be the best "design" one might expect from omnipotence.

Since logic and science provide no help, some have said that we need god in order to have an "objective" moral reference or standard, without which, we are consigned to moral relativism and an "anything goes" ethos. This is no better than the other arguments. Universal morality does not depend on our belief in god, but on impartial and rational judgments. Indeed, various renderings of god's judgments have resulted in all manner of immorality throughout the ages. And, as Plato once said, what is moral is not moral because god said it, but because it is moral and god recognizes it as being such. Morality is quite independent of a belief in god. Indeed, morality is not even primarily about what one believes, it is about what one does, and in particular, what one does in relation to others. I have shown elsewhere at great length that the objective properties of morality result from judgments being subject to logical rules and its evaluative aspect.

Another kind of argument is that we would be prudent to hedge our bet and believe in and worship god simply because we might be wrong and, as a result, could suffer eternal damnation. I find this view to be especially curious. It seems to suggest that omnipotence is unable to detect our insincere motives. My own view is that if god is good and does not intentionally promote suffering, the decent folk among us need not worry. If he is not or if he is indifferent, there is nothing we can do about it, anyway.

I myself doubt that omnipotence would be dependent upon our worship or approval, or that he could be as vain or petty as the god often depicted by the major religions that emerged from the Middle East. Moreover, it seems to me that making us depend upon faith rather than veridical evidence serves nothing but a mischievous and somewhat devious kind of purpose, a most unlikely motivation for a perfect being. And it simply defies reason, not to mention compassion, to suppose that an omnipotent and omniscient god would allow the horrors of the universe, the death, suffering, and destruction both nature and man produce. Perhaps a lesser god or a god that is not good would engage in such acts. And then we must ask, is such a god worthy of our worship? I think not.

There are those who will say we should not presume to know the mind of god, and that it is simply preposterous to suppose his benevolence is subject to our own standards or that his purposes can be remotely understood by us. This is yet another strange sort of argument, for it says we should not seek to know the mind of god while, at the same time, it presupposes certain aspects about god. To say that we cannot understand something and then to proceed to describe the something we cannot understand is specious on the face of it.

Of course, the concept of omnipotence also poses great logical problems, that is, if we really mean to posit an all-powerful being. Such a being ought to be able to defy the laws of reason, the most fundamental logical axioms. But of course, this is inconceivable. A=A is true, here, now, yesterday, tomorrow and everywhere, and A & -A is false, here, now, yesterday, tomorrow and everywhere. I will further posit that it is equally true that 2+2=4 and lim ƒn x = ƒ means lim ƒn ═ ƒx for every X E x or lim ƒn = ƒ, notwithstanding god's desires for any of these propositions to be otherwise, whether in this or in any other reality.

That omnipotence in the most complete sense of the word, which is to say, all powerful, is able to will anything is simply an illogical construct. God could not will anything true. This is simply indisputable, though I realize many desire and believe otherwise. One must therefore settle for near omnipotence, very powerful, a god of middling power, or whatever, not unbound power.......(I myself think all of these alternatives are about as likely as the universe existing in a soap bubble). Believers can take comfort in the fact that god, no doubt, would not want to be viewed as illogical, anyway!

If it were not the case the omnipotence is shackled by the rules of logic and reason, then we would have to admit to a great many antinomies:

She could make something she could not lift.
She could make a round-square cupola.
She could make all bachelors married (while still bachelors).
She could make herself into having never been.
Etc.

Religion, of course, is a different, though related matter, for it depends on a belief in a superior power, and on others believing that its hierarchy possesses some special insight into the mind of providence. As far as I am concerned, however, religion is little more than organized superstition. To be sure, it has inspired good music, art, and charity, and it has offered comfort and hope to millions. On the other hand, it has stood in the way of knowledge and progress, sanctified all kinds of suffering, intolerance, and oppression, and it has been the source of countless wars and conflict. I believe we would be better off without it.

I think the root of religion, mysticism, and the belief in god and the supernatural, generally, springs from three very human traits. First, there is the fear of the unknown, and perhaps most particularly, our fear of death. Religion gives us hope that something good lies ahead, notwithstanding our lack of understanding, which comforts us, most particularly if we are living under hardship.

Second, there is our desire to understand why things are the way they are, our need to have an explanation. No doubt our early hominid ancestors, bereft of scientific knowledge, began to ascribe natural phenomena such as the seasons and lightning to supernatural causes. This continues to this day, though often at a more sophisticated level. When early man dreamt, and then sought an explanation for it, perhaps the idea of a soul and of immateriality began to take shape, which, in turn, gave support to belief in an afterlife. Also, our penchant for explaining things is related to our need to ascribe a purpose to everything, not least of all, our own lives. Many feel that there must be some reason for our existence beyond random occurrences, a biological imperative and natural selection.

Third, there is our awe and wonder at the mystery and grandeur of the universe; our feelings of connectedness to it; and our own sense of transcendence and spirituality that contribute to our predisposition for religious belief. These feelings have all led to wonderful creativity in art, literature, and music, among other things.

Scientists have even suggested that our propensity for having religious feelings is hardwired in our brains, and that some people are particularly prone to them. It might even serve to explain why people who do not believe in the supernatural, as such, nevertheless share in a sense of awe, for example, in the seemingly transcendent beauty of mathematics and science. Indeed, it might explain why great minds who could not succumb to the superstitions of the masses looked for god in more rarefied places, as in Plato's timeless world of perfect forms. It is perhaps no coincidence that mathematicians and philosophers were especially enamored of the "logic" and seeming purity of the ontological arguments.

Of course, nothing of what I have said has shown that there is not a god or a supernatural realm. I have only shown that the arguments in favor of them are not especially compelling, and that there are even explanations for why we believe as we do, notwithstanding the lack of evidence. No doubt some might conclude from the foregoing that I am an atheist or agnostic. In fact, I am not. Atheism implies that we know there is not a deity, whereas I believe it is unlikely, not impossible. Indeed, I think atheism as it has been promoted by some, most notably, communists of the Marxist sort, has many of the same attributes as a religion, a belief in a supreme power (dialectical materialism), a sacred text (Kapital), and even messianic leaders (Marx, Lenin, Mao, etc.), not to mention a belief in paradise, the communist utopia.

Agnosticism, properly understood, suggests that we cannot know, and that we are doomed to uncertainty. I think this view also claims too much. It is not difficult at all to imagine how the deity might make himself known to independent observers and how he could become subject to evidentiary scrutiny. Many who call themselves agnostics really mean to suggest that they do not know of god's existence, which is different than saying it cannot be known. This strikes me the correct view. In any event, there are better ways to spend one's time than worrying about it. Pursuing knowledge and happiness while, at the same time, not harming others and, when we can, promoting their happiness, strike me as much more deserving of our attention. I should think a benevolent deity might agree.

Good Old Days?

2004-06-16T07:52:00.000-07:00

Reprint from June, 2004 issue of The Valley Business Journal

Those Good Old Days Were Not So Good
by Michael Berumen

An acquaintance recently told me that he thought society was more morally depraved than it ever was. He went on to say that he misses the old-time values and the tranquility of those halcyon days of yore. Nearly every generation embraces the belief in a bygone “golden age,” when people were at once happier and more virtuous. According to historian Arthur Herman, “Every culture, past or present, has believed that men and women are not quite up to the standards of their parents and forebears.” Each generation tends to view its progeny’s ideals and habits with opprobrium; therefore, it is not altogether surprising newer ones even come to believe the past is preferable.

Notwithstanding these sentiments, the fact remains that now is the best time in history to be alive. The average person’s life, today, is vastly better than it would have been in the idealized past, even the more recent past, which people are too apt to confuse with a heartwarming Norman Rockwell scene. Consider the millions of lives lost to war in just the last several centuries. Nearly 100 million people died in the two World Wars in the first half of the 20th Century. Please describe the greater moral sense that allowed many millions to die in German death factories, in the Gulags of the late U.S.S.R., because of tribal warfare in the heart of Africa, or on the killing fields of Southeast Asia. What was morally superior about enslaving millions in the 19th century and before, or as recently as several decades ago not allowing people of color to drink from the same public fountain? No doubt, women miss the superior morality of an era when they could not vote or hold political office. You get the point.

Today, world life expectancy is 64, up from 46 in 1950. In 1950, 29.2 out of 1,000 babies in the United States did not live to see their first birthday; today, only 8.5 out of 1,000 will die before then. An African-American male born today can expect to live five years longer than one born in 1970. In 1960, 25% of American families lived on an income below 125% of the poverty level; today, 16% are subject to this misfortune. In 1960, 21 out of 100,000 workers were killed on the job; this number has been reduced by 2/3rds to 7 out of 100,000. Today’s worker is 35% more productive than his counterpart was in 1970 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and yet, he works roughly the same hours per week. And, the average American spends three times as much money on recreation as he did in 1970, so who says we don’t have any fun?

So much for the good old days. No doubt, aspects of the past surely merit admiration, even a bit of nostalgia. However, the notion that the present is not as good as the past, at least for most folks, is simply false. It is a great time to be alive, especially if one is lucky enough to have been born in the United States. Things are not perfect here, to be sure, and too much suffering remains in the world. On the whole, though, conditions and, yes, even values are better than ever before. The great news is this: if past is prologue, the future that lies ahead will be even brighter.

Man of the Century: Einstein vs. Churchill

2004-06-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

By Michael Berumen

Given the number of extraordinary developments in science over the last hundred years, it is not altogether surprising the editors of Time Magazine selected the greatest scientist of our age, Albert Einstein, as their Person of the Century. His name is certain to remain associated with our era long after its other luminaries fade from memory. Nothing compares to the transforming and revolutionary nature of his discoveries, not to mention their multifarious and useful effects. No person better symbolizes intellectual achievement in our time. However, though Einstein's greatness as a thinker is undeniable, it is insufficient to qualify him as the greatest person of this century.

Scientific progress is only one of the 20th Century's great themes. We must not minimize another major theme, namely, the great struggle between good and evil, between tyranny and freedom. We must not forget that the history of the world once hung in a delicate balance, when one of the greatest evils ever invented by man, came close, very close, to becoming an unconquerable contagion. I am referring to National Socialism, an insidious scourge, which for several perilous years was poised to smother Western civilization, and dominate the planet. One man was more responsible than any other for saving entire populations from enslavement and unbridled perversions that could have lasted for generations. That man is Winston Churchill.

As France began to fall in the spring of 1940, most prominent members of the British Cabinet wanted to sue for peace, believing their position to be utterly hopeless in the face of the greatest war machine on earth. Indeed, by any rational standard it was hopeless! However, Churchill was not an entirely rational man, and the concept of defeat without a fight was abhorrent to him. More than anyone, he understood that to make peace with Hitler would quickly devolve into Britain's subjugation to the Reich. Germany would thereby gain the enormous strategic advantages of the far-flung British Empire and its military, then the second most powerful military force on earth. With the ability to concentrate his forces, he would then quickly subjugate the Soviet Union, his erstwhile ally. By this point, we Americans, slumbering in our isolation across the Atlantic, would have been helpless before such an awesome foe.

Some Americans might believe we could have defeated Germany at any time. This is a delusion, as students of the period know. Had Churchill not stood firm against the odds for the two years before we entered the war in earnest, Germany would have been unstoppable by the time the Japanese aroused us in late 1941. While the Nazis were overrunning Europe, the majority of Americans were opposed to becoming entangled in European affairs. In fact, Hitler even had many prominent American admirers, and there was a sizable pro-German movement in this country. Only gradually, and with much cajoling, did Churchill convince F.D.R. of the necessity of stopping Hitler. While it was not politically feasible for F.D.R. to go to war before Pearl Harbor, he was able to supply Britain with much-needed munitions and supplies. The U.S. certainly played a critical role; and was indispensable to victory, but Churchill made it possible by leading the way.

Churchill came to power only after spending years as a lone voice decrying the rise of Nazism, and warning of the dangers that lie ahead. His political contemporaries and the British intelligentsia believed him to be something of an embarrassment, a throwback from a prior age. Even the leaders of his own party considered him something of a laughingstock. They handed him the reigns of power only when it was clear the nation had arrived at the precipice of the abyss. By then, those who would have made peace with the devil finally realized that he had been right all along. In their darkest hour of desperation, they knew, if there were any chance at all, only Churchill's boundless courage and unbridled passion could lead them from oblivion.

To my mind, saving our civilization is sufficient to proclaim Churchill as this century's indispensable man, and its greatest person. His life is also interesting in many other respects. Among other things, he fought gallantly in close combat on three continents; he escaped from captivity as a prisoner of war; he was an aviator, a painter, and the greatest orator in the English language; he was a journalist, novelist, biographer, and historian; he won the Nobel prize for literature; and he served in the House of Commons for nearly six decades. Perhaps it is also worth noting that Time selected him as its person of the half century.

The editors of Time did at least seriously consider Churchill, and they acknowledged his singular courage. However, they said he was on the wrong side of history on issues such as women's suffrage and colonialism. This seems rather unfair. Churchill came to support the enfranchisement of women several years before it became the law in Britain, and seven years before it was extended to women in the United States. Moreover, Churchill was born into a colonial power; but he did not create it or add to it; in fact, he presided over much of its disintegration. While it is true that he was a stalwart defender of the Empire for most of his life, he was equally unwavering in his support of democratic institutions, and a vociferous opponent of tyranny and injustice.

Einstein was surely a great thinker. Given the fact that his writings were banned in Nazi Germany, one cannot help wonder, if it were it not for Winston Churchill, would we be free to read about him today? I rather doubt it.

The Golden Rule

2004-06-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

The Golden Rule
By Michael Berumen
October 1987

I suspect no single moral principle has such an ancient lineage and continues to have such widespread acceptance, today, as the Golden Rule. Indeed, on many occasions I have heard non-philosophers identify it as the best of all possible moral rules, and that this rule is all we really require to lead a moral life. Perhaps the most well-known basis for the Golden Rule is found in the New Testament, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this was the law the prophets (Matthew 7.12).” More modern formulations include, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you,” or, alternatively, “Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.”

Of course, the Golden Rule predates Christianity by many centuries. Ancient philosophers such as Isocrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others had variations of it. Five hundred years before Christ, the Chinese sage Confucius said, “What you do not like when done to yourself, do not do to others.”

While I would not deny its efficacy in many situations, the Golden Rule really is not the best of all moral rules and, in fact, it is inadequate in a number of circumstances. It is certainly not suitable as a universal rule, which, by definition, would require everyone to follow the rule at all times. At the very best, it is a rule that one ought only to use some of the time.

Here is the problem with the Golden Rule when it is considered as a universal rule. It presupposes that we treat everyone in accordance with the principles that we would have them use in their relations with us all of the time. Perhaps the most obvious problem with this idea is that our principles are often not in accord with how others would want to be treated. But the more serious problem is that the things we would have done to ourselves are sometimes harmful or immoral when we apply them to others. For example, a misanthropic person who enjoys provocation from others would be entitled by this rule to be quarrelsome with them, since that is what he would desire from them. A masochist, someone who wants others to cause him pain, would be entitled to be sadistic towards others and to inflict pain on them. After all, as a masochist, he would want pain to be inflicted on himself. One can think of similar scenarios where it would be inappropriate to apply principles to others that we would want others to apply to ourselves, which rules out using the Golden Rule as a universal principle.

One common variation of the Golden rule is the inversion, “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” This emphasizes the need for understanding and empathy as the basis of our behavior. Moreover, it does not presuppose any uniformity of principles, as in the case of the more traditional formulation of the rule. However, this, too, is problematic, for the implication is, ultimately, we simply ought to do whatever anyone else wants. Ought I therefore to refrain from turning a criminal who steals from me over to the police? Obviously, there are a variety of circumstances where our interests collide with the interests of others, and when doing what others want does not make any sense.

A truly universal application of the Golden Rule would sometimes require us to do things that are clearly immoral, and it would even require us to do things that are patently absurd. Presumably, most policemen would not want to be caught or put in jail if they were to commit a crime themselves; therefore, by this principle they ought not to arrest criminals. One might object that the criminal is not himself following the Golden Rule, and that, of course, would be correct. However, the Golden Rule does not say follow it only when the other guy does; it says do what you would have him do unto yourself, without regard to the circumstances. Teachers would not want to receive a bad grade themselves; therefore, teachers ought not to flunk their students who perform poorly. One could go on like this. The point is this: it does not fit every circumstance, a requirement of a truly universal principle.

So why, then, has the Golden Rule received such acclaim, perhaps especially among those most innocent of philosophy? For the simple reason that we usually conceive of morality as having some basis in our own interests, which is to say, we think of moral rules as being the rules we would want applied to ourselves. And, indeed, there is some truth in this notion, for universal morality is grounded in our rational prohibitions, the things we avoid, namely, death and suffering, that is, unless we have a reason. No rational person wants these objects for their own sake. Sometimes we do want what would otherwise constitute an object of irrational desire, but only in order to satisfy other, more important interests. It is perfectly rational to do so in such cases. For example, I might desire a certain amount of suffering in order to avoid greater suffering, or even because it gives me pleasure. The salient point is that whenever I do desire what would otherwise be an irrational object of desire, I have a rational reason. However… and here is where the mistake comes in… this would not be adequate in order to justify inflicting on others that which I would want for myself.

The Golden Rule does require us to do the morally right thing in a great many cases. However, it does not all of the time. It also generates some obvious absurdities from a moral perspective. It is therefore not viable as a universal principle. At best, it is a useful device for considering the importance of how our own feelings and needs compare with those of others, and as a means of furthering our compassion, sympathy, and empathy, all important sentiments, but insufficient grounds on which to base universal rules of behavior.

Why? A Poem

2004-06-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

Why?
A Poem By Michael E. Berumen 10-19-98

Why does it matter to know exactly what we are?
What does it mean to live, only so soon to die?
From whence do we really come: from the mind of God or from bits of a star?
How do we distinguish an ultimate truth from a hopeful lie?

Questions like these have vexed many men over the ages.
The certain answers of some have inspired more than one war.
Each generation has its high priests and soothsaying sages;
With their verities destined to become forgotten lore.

So it goes, time and again, and forever after;
Answered in different ways, though, the questions remain the same.
The gods must be beside themselves with laughter!
Does our nakedness or our purposelessness cause us the greater shame?

In the end, this much I know: life is to live!
Whether coincidence or design; whatever our true origins might be.
For, no matter what bounty or travail Fortune may give,
A life without joy and passion, to live without really living at all, is surely not for me.

Remember 2000? A Reminiscence in Verse

2004-06-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

The Shrub

by Michael Berumen (and lots of help from E. A. Poe) 12-04-00

Once upon a Tuesday dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over a butterfly ballot with chads marked for either Bush or Gore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my voting booth door.
"Tis some visitor," I muttered, tapping at my voting booth door--
Only this, and nothing more." Ah, distinctly I remember, it was a bleak November,
and each expelled chad wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished for the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From his last debate a kernel of wisdom from that total bore,
The mediocre and hyperbolic candidate known as Gore--
The uncertain punching of each ballot for these middling men
Thrilled me,--yes, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"Tis some voter entreating entrance at my voting booth door-
Some impatient voter entreating entrance at my voting booth door;
This it is, and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is, I was considering for whom to vote, and so gently you> came rapping,> And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my voting booth door.
That I scarce was sure I heard you" here I opened wide the swinging
door;-
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting dreaming dreams no sane voter ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken was the whispered phrase "don't vote for... Gore."
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the words "no, definitely not for Gore! "
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the booth turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely there is something outside this infernal booth: Let me see, then, what threat this is and then this mystery explore-
Let my heart be still a moment, and then this mystery explore;-
Tis the wind and nothing more."
Open here I flung the door, when, with a jaunty prep-school strut,
In there stepped a man faintly resembling another from days of yore;
He sniffed, he blinked, and then he smirked, but not a word did he say,
But he snorted a powdery substance, standing before my voting booth door-
Standing and snorting and smirking before my voting booth door-
These things he did, and nothing more.
Then his vaguely familiar visage beguiled me into smiling
By the rather silly countenance that he wore.
"Though thy smirk causes me to laugh," I said, " thou art certainly a very ordinary person
Silly me, I now see, he is the favorite son Texas, the governor 'imself, a Bush in miniature
Wandering in from the Florida shore.
"Tell me what you are doing here, blocking my voting booth door!"
Quoth the Shrub, "NeverGore!"
He then said something about federal programs, and how social security
wasn't one, not really,
And how he wasn't that drunk when he drove that evening long before,
Then I said something about being 'absent without leave' in the National
Air Guard,
"Ah," he muttered, "certainly not while I defending the dangerous Texas shore,"
A post arranged by Daddy's old 'pard', and never mind, please, that many others did much more,
Quoth the Shrub, "NeverGore."
Startled at the stillness broken by these words, even without a teleprompter, and so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what he utters is his only stock and store,
Taught by some unhappy English master
Required to instruct this syntactical disaster
For so little else could he much say, cogently, anyway,
Beyond Never-----that's right "NeverGore."
But the Shrub was still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
So I walked inches in front of the smirking and sniffing man blocking my voting booth door; Then I realized, with my heart sinking, he could be the one, and now he was winking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this dim progeny of a Bush of yore-
What this smirking, snorting, sniffing, under-the-influence-driving, AWOL
preppy spawn of a Bush of yore,
Meant in croaking, "NeverGore."
I knew my dimwitted booth-mate could state no syllable expressing,
Much beyond this phrase burned into my bosom's core;
His purpose, and more, I stood divining, with my stylus ready for punching
Through the chad, and the lamplight gloated o'er,
Soon to be hanging, dimpled or ignored, with the lamplight gloating o'er, I shall press now, ah, alas, is it Bush or Gore?
Then methought the air grew denser, scented from a malodorous censer
Swung by his stooges Harris and Baker
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee, by these Republican lackeys he hath sent thee Respite---respite and nepenthe, from my memories of Gore!
Quaff oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this Internet-inventing,
show-off and bore!"
Quoth the Shrub, "NeverGore"
"Idiot! said I, "dimwit you are, whether likable or not!
By that court that stands supremely above us...and that Constitution you
pretend to adore-
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, that in the distant new year,
We shall at last be finished with you, my smirking, sniveling friend,
And though maybe an evil still, should we not have the lesser one, whom we
all know as a total bore,
Something worse you say, maybe even a money-raising whore?
I'll take him still, over you, an even more insidious prevaricator about your Lone Star record are you,
Oh personable party boy, with much too modest an IQ.
Quoth the Shrub, "NeverGore."
"Be that word our sign in parting, foolish little man, " I shrieked, upstarting--
"Get thee back to Texas, oh adenoidal, Bob Jones hugging, Confederate flag waiving, son of a Bush!
Leave no foul chad nor indentation as a token of the lies which thy soul hath spoken!
Leave me alone and quit my voting booth!
Take thy awful smirk away from me, and thy racist and anti-Semitic form
from my booth! "
Quoth the Shrub, "NeverGore."
And the Shrub, sniffing and always smirking, still is standing
Blocking the way in front of my voting booth door;
And his eyes are as vacuous as his reasoning is specious,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his spindly, effete, prepster shadow on the floor; And my ballot that gives my vote to Gore Shall be counted------Nevermore!

The Importance of Evil

2004-06-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

The Armchair Philosopher (opinion column from The Valley Business Journal)

by Michael Berumen 10-04

There is not enough space for an in-depth philosophical analysis in a newspaper column, and that probably will suit most readers just fine. Thus, I shall get to the point. We need to be more concerned about avoiding evil than we are about promoting good. As Plato said long ago, there are innumerable ways to do evil, while there are comparatively few ways to do good. Moreover, the greatest evils, which I define as death and suffering, generally, though not without exception, are much more intense and long lasting than the greatest goods one can imagine, for example, the various types and degrees of pleasure and happiness. Consequently, the most important ethical rules are those requiring us to avoid causing others harm, not the ones telling us to promote this or that conception of the good. This is why injunctions such as “do not kill” and “do not cause pain” are much more important than rules that require us to perform charitable acts or promote the interests of others.

There is another reason that rules that tell us to avoid causing others harm are more important than rules that require us to promote good, namely, we can formulate universal rules, rules that apply to everyone, everywhere, all of the time, much as physical laws operate in the world of physics. All rational beings can avoid intentionally causing others harm, everywhere, and all of the time, whereas, no one can promote good universally. For one thing, there are obvious physical limitations: one simply cannot promote the welfare of others 100% of the time. For another, there are rational limitations, for promoting the interests of others can be completely contrary to one’s own, vital interests (e.g., starving so that another can eat), or the vital interests of one’s family (e.g., paying for someone else’s child’s education on the basis that more utility will be derived by virtue of his greater intelligence). And, not least important, many of us disagree about what constitutes “good,” whereas all of us, insofar as we are being rational, agree on certain basic concepts concerning our own death and suffering, namely, that they ought to be avoided unless there is an overriding reason.

The most basic principles of morality comport with what most of us would consider to be the very essence of common sense; that is because these basic principles are extensions of the most basic aspects of rationality, which is to avoid doing harm to our own self, unless, of course, one has an overriding reason for doing so. For example, a person might cause discomfort to himself in order to avoid incurring an even greater harm, much as one often does with certain kinds of medical treatment. However, to desire pain or death for its own sake, without an overriding reason, simply would be irrational. These rational prohibitions are egocentric considerations. How do they relate to our treatment of others? Here is where the concept of impartiality comes in: our willingness to extend these rational prohibitions… these rationally required rules of behavior in relation to ourselves… to others, and to do so without regard to who benefits or loses, much as an impartial judge applies the law, or an impartial referee applies the rules of a sport. Combining our rational prohibitions with the conjoint principle of impartiality enables us to develop universal, moral rules, which is to say, rules that all rational people can follow and understand.

Just as we sometimes have an overriding reason or justification to induce our own harm, for example, in order to save the life of another, sometimes there are justifications for violating the general moral principles, rules that govern our conduct towards others. Take the rule “do not kill,” an impartial extension of the rational prohibition against causing one’s own death without a reason. I think most would agree that there are cases of self-defense or of a just war where violating this rule would be appropriate. The same is true of causing pain, for example, when a surgeon causes another to have pain in the course of treatment that is required to avoid even greater pain or worse, death. The key to making such exceptions is to ask ourselves if we would apply the exception in every conceivable circumstance sharing the essential properties of the one at hand, even if one were the potential victim of such an exception. In other words, could we will that the exception become a universal law, given the same relevant facts?

Now, this does not mean that I think that the promotion of various conceptions of good is an unimportant consideration for the formulation of moral principles of conduct. However, I want to make it clear that such concepts cannot be the basis of universal rules, which, it stands to reason, ought to have precedence over rules that do not apply to everyone, everywhere, all of the time, or to rules that all rational people cannot reasonably be expected to understand, agree upon, or perform, as is often the case due to different cultures and backgrounds (e.g., different religious beliefs). Thus, I am suggesting that rules enjoining us to not intentionally cause gratuitous death and suffering, which is how I choose to define evil (though the rules do not depend on this definition), represent the sine qua non of morality, for all rational people are able to understand and act upon them all of the time, in contrast to other kinds of rules that purport to be moral rules.

My Republican Friends

2004-06-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 6-12-04

Most of my friends voted for George W. Bush. I did not. I am a Democrat, though not of a partisan sort. Indeed, the truth is, I rather dislike the Democratic Party, and I sometimes think I should declare my independence from any party. However, I dislike the Republican Party even more, and, in our primary system, independents have relatively little influence over the choices for major offices. I do not want Republicans to win. Whereas Democrats are wooly-minded on several economic issues and are beset with a good deal of politically correct claptrap, to which they mostly pay lipservice, Republicans are dominated by an unholy alliance of religious zealots and corporate welfarests and monopolists, which I view as more inimical to liberty. Yes, everyone likes to say, "Vote for the person." In a strong party system, however, the person is beholden to the party. Therefore, one votes for the person....and his party, not simply the person himself.

I live in Orange County, California, a bastion of Republicanism. What is more, I have spent the better part of my adult years in commercial affairs, and most of my colleagues have been Republican. I even belong to several social organizations that consist largely of Republicans. I am surrounded by them. I suppose it therefore is no surprise that many of my close, personal relationships would end up being with Republicans. Some of them have hoped their predilections would have rubbed off on me by now, but if anything, I am even less enamored of their party than ever before.

Now, to summarize, I think the Republican Party has gone downhill since Lincoln, and I think the Republican platform consists of some very stupid positions. Moreover, I think George W. Bush is one of the "greatest mediocrities" (as in "jumbo shrimp?") to occupy the White House, which is saying a lot, since most of our presidents have been, well, quite mediocre men. It was a mistake to reelect him; however, I am comforted by the fact that even the most lackluster minds are correct an amazingly high percentage of the time. It's the other 10% that concerns me. I shall keep my fingers crossed.

In any case, you can well imagine the kinds of discussions I have with my friends, given my views. Some of them are quite vigorous, indeed. Even so, at the end of it all, somehow we always manage to laugh without taking ourselves too seriously and move on to other, more interesting and, oftentimes, more important things.

How is it even possible that I can befriend someone with whom I have such fundamental disagreements? Perhaps it is because there is so much more to life than politics. And, it is also the case that most of us agree on more topics than we disagree, so there is a good deal of common ground. Most importantly, however, I think that we Americans, as a group, are far less ideological than people living in other places in the world. We are a uniquely pragmatic people, and we tend to look for particular solutions to particular problems, rather than deriving our answers from a body of interdependent, systematic, overarching principles, from which all other views must spring. The latter tendency is far more prevalent in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Also, the truth is, we Americans are not an especially political people. We do not have the same, strong views about how our neighbors ought to live their lives (George W. Bush being an obvious exception) as people in other countries often have, or at least we are less likely to act on our views. Moreover, we do not particularly care for politicians as a class. We don't trust them. I believe these are among the main reasons why many Americans do not vote. This is sometimes mistaken for apathy. Americans are not really apathetic in the sense of not caring about their country; they are simply more interested in minding their own business and letting others do mostly as they choose, at least, to the extent their doing so doesn't interfere with their own liberty.

I think our relative lack of interest in politics has as much to do with simple practicality as it does anything. If the choices available to Citizen X are not going to have a dramatic effect one way or the other on the things that matters to him, personally, he does not want to waste his time with politics, especially believing that others will inevitably choose among either unobjectionable or equally objectionable alternatives, anyway. On the other hand, if something is important to him or likely to affect him in an untoward way, he speaks out: "Don't tread on me." No motto could be more apt to an American. And, again, Americans, if nothing else, are a pragmatic people.

Ideologues are especially prone to dealing harshly with any deviation from the accepted Weltanschauung, with a marked propensity to view disagreement as heretical. For the ideologue, rejection of even an aspect of the received wisdom is tantamount to a departure from all of it. They take their beliefs very seriously, and, because these beliefs deal with how society ought to be arranged, they take other people's beliefs much more seriously than do most Americans. Americans concern themselves much more with how people actually behave, with what they do, than with what they believe. We value action over belief, utility over ideology, and liberty over authority. And, unlike Europeans and others, we are very suspicious of intellectuals and would-be philosopher kings. Given their track record in running the world in various places at various times, I'd say this is prudent. Many intellectuals and dons of academe think things would be much better if they were in charge; there is certainly no historical evidence for this. Personally, I wouldn't follow the average professor in order to find the lavatory, let alone allow him to structure how I live.

Even though Americans are more religious than others in the industrialized West, they do not treat their religion in quite the same way as their European counterparts did in prior centuries, or as the faithful in many Muslim countries do today. With few exceptions, they are more tolerant of those who believe differently, and far less likely to condemn them, except, perhaps, on Sunday. Europeans fancy themselves as more enlightened than we are because of their non-religiosity; but the fact is that their rather strident intolerance of believers (e.g., banning religious symbols or dress in public places), their elevation of secularism into a sort of religion, is much more reminiscent of their former Inquisitional selves, sans deity, than they are likely to admit. While we're at it, add to this their shameful treatment of immigrants. And, having recently (in historical terms) caused the loss of around 100 million lives through war, genocide, and political correctness, Europe is in no position to brag about its superior enlightenment to anyone. But I digress.

My principal point, here, is that it is not really necessary to agree with people on everything in order to get along with them, indeed, even to like them or to love them. It is quite possible for people to disagree with one another without becoming disagreeable, and, more often than not, to find some common ground. My own life is a microcosm of this. Passions might get heated, occasionally. But this generally subsides when things are put into proper perspective. Indeed, our differences can make things much more interesting and, I might add, as a society evolves, even more successful. Despite its many problems, the place we call home, America, consisting of many races, interests, and divergent beliefs, is perhaps the clearest proof of this.

Easy Patriotism

2004-06-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

Easy Patriotism
By Michael E. Berumen 7-1-04

One of the things I've noticed is that age seems to affect the patriotism of many men. Along with their gray hair and a paunch comes an increased interest in going to war. Could it be that this is because the business of war will now be done by others, and now that one is out of harm's way, one can more safely cheer them on from the sidelines? Isn't it also strange how generals, men whose occupation is to wage war, are far more reluctant to go to war than are men who never served? Perhaps it is not so strange, for they are more familiar with the price that will be paid.

Some of the powerful people who are assigning our soldiers to dangerous duties were able to avoid military service in their youth, even when their nation actively sought their participation. Some took steps to avoid being drafted or, with the help of powerful allies, saw to it that they would be out of harms way in an assignment reserved for the privileged few. President Bush managed to jump over many other, more qualified applicants for a coveted Air Guard slot, and then both the records and eye-witnesses (this is not the Dan Rather stuff, but that which was properly authenticated) say that he failed to show up to duty for months on end, and that he even violated direct orders to take a flight physical. Vice President Dick Cheney received multiple draft deferments, recently reporting that he had "other priorities" at the time. Several of the most prominent red-meat conservative, talk-show hosts avoided military service. These armchair patriots have one characteristic in common: they seem to revel in seeing others perform duties that they themselves were unwilling to do.

What is wrong with this picture: a man who shirked even his comparatively cushy duty, and his sidekick who avoided the draft, were viewed as more deserving of our trust in defending the nation, in making it more secure, than John Kerry, who volunteered for combat and served with distinction? It is testimony to the power of marketing. Kerry was castigated as a phony for seeking medals for his service (Winston Churchill, whose physical and moral courage no one could deny, was an active medal hunter), and people argue over whether he was wounded quite enough. An inch or two difference could have meant his life....but this was too far from death to count. He was later thought unfit to command for standing up for his beliefs, beliefs that were eventually shared by the majority of Americans, whilst his opponent, a partying frat boy who only became an adult at age 40 is somehow viewed as more reliable in the face of danger. The President was sold as a model of dogged gallantry because of his words and his visage, not anything he ever did.

Our president swooped down from the sky in his airplane onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, with his set jaw and flight jacket, strutting across the stage as if he were warrior-in-chief, the macho cheerleader from Andover, using then, and at every other opportunity, all the subtle and not-so-subtle symbols of our military might to bolster his own image and standing amongst voters, while his supporters denigrated his opponent for having the audacity to even bring up his own military service. They criticized Kerry's supporters for bringing up the President's inglorious past, saying such matters are now irrelevant. Better yet, they asked, incredulously, how can we even know what really happened so long ago. Of course, it does not stop them from assuming "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492;" however, the historical evidence of little more than 30 years ago, we are told, is completely unreliable. That is, of course, when it is not in their interest. Others are not even this charitable, however, finding Kerry's combat service (the Navy brass clearly thought otherwise) altogether inadequate.

The reality is that many of the veterans who opposed Kerry (keep in mind that many also supported him) are mostly angry that he later spoke against the war, which, I believe, caused them to think that it impugned their own record of service. It did not. Soldiers do not start wars; politicians do. Some thought he exaggerated the degree to which war crimes occurred. But that there were war crimes in Vietnam is well documented and undeniable. And he never said all soldiers were guilty of war crimes. People have a way of forgetting the unpleasantness of the past, but I well remember those difficult times and the multifarious reports of the tragedies and horrors of that war.

I myself suspect that a consequential number of the votes for President Bush came from people who also had an opportunity to serve in the military during the Vietnam-draft era, but who managed to avoid it, and who have subsequently sought a kind of vicarious redemption for their own failure to do their duty, redemption through the service of others, service managed by their fellow, erstwhile shirker, who is now Commander-in-Chief. They do not criticize him for what they themselves did, indeed, he is their redemptive symbol: an armchair warrior raised from the ashes of a feckless youth.

A friend once asked me if I thought only those people who had served in the military ought to be eligible for offices that can commit troops. I do not. But I do think that they should be people who at least were willing to serve their country in some capacity. I am reminded of an article I once read by economist, Uwe Reinhardt. He was criticizing those who think that patriotism is mere sentiment and love of country. Such a lukewarm, facile definition allows the likes of John Wayne, George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, or other showy, grandiloquent lovers of country to pose as quintessential patriots. Reinhardt pointed out that nearly everyone loves his country. In this one, what, after all, is not to love, given how lucky most of us are to be here? But patriotism requires more than this. Reinhardt quoted from his dictionary, which defined a patriot as one "who loves, supports and defends his country." The emphasis, here, should be on defend. I would only add, showing a willingness to defend.

Our wars, by and large, are fought and won by the boys of Main Street, the ghetto, ranch-style tract homes, and the trailer parks, and not of posh prep schools and fraternities. That they would trust and welcome compassion and support from their commander-in-chief, notwithstanding his own lackluster history, is no surprise. They are soldiers, after all. The fact remains, George W. Bush had his chance to serve; instead, he drank and cavorted, and he didn't show up for his meetings. He failed to do his duty. At least Dick Cheney had the honesty to say that he had more important things to do.

Mind and Self

2004-06-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 7-5-04

What presents itself is the given, whether it is representation of something external or not. It need not correspond to anything real or other than itself. The presentation can be simple and immediate, such as an instance of a patch of color, a sound, a smell, a taste, or a tactile sensation. It can be a memory of something past. It does not matter that the memory might be false, and that, in fact, it might have only occurred in the here and now. It can be a feeling of pain or pleasure, an awareness of self, or even a memory of having experienced these things, not to mention a wide range of more complex ideas or passions.

That there is perception or awareness at some level, that there is a given, is indicative of existence, of being. It is something. There need not be any thought or idea about the experience, just the experience itself, an object with no sense of subject or self-awareness, no sense of separation between perceived and perceiver. On the other hand, the perception could lead one infer that there is an act of perceiving and a self that perceives, that there is some difference between the two. Perhaps this occurs at some primitive level without any idea about self, as such, just an awareness of the separation between that which is apprehended and that which apprehends it.

The more complex idea of self, an "I" with a continuous past into the present and a future is but an inference, one we do not ordinarily even think about at any given moment. Only philosophers pay much attention to such things. When we do, however, the immediacy of the present awareness or mental state is itself known to exist (I use "known" advisedly). The sensation, feeling or thought that is before us, and that which is inferred need not be a representation of reality, including the inference of a self that exists through time as some quasi-permanent personality or perceiver. In other words, Rene Descartes did not go far enough with "cogito ergo sum," for he assumed too much in postulating himself or a kind of receptor for sensations and ideas, in assuming that "I" exist.

At a minimum, we can say with certainty that there is an awareness of something, even if that something is the perception. I might begin to have ideas about my awareness, ideas that I can separate, for example, from the table that I am observing, the sensation of color or hardness; ideas about the table, which is about the shape, color, and hardness, but that is not the same as my actual perception or sensation of the table and its constituent parts. While I am looking at it, for example, I can imagine how it might look if I were to move it to another location or if it were a different size or color. I can also shut my eyes and no longer see the table, but, at the same time, I can continue to have an idea about it, one that does not depend on my having a present sensation or perception of the table, but that (we assume) might depend upon my having had such an experience at some point in time, directly (my own perception), or indirectly (having been told about it or something like it that enables me to imagine it).

David Hume showed us that we cannot find the connection between then and now, cause and effect, one event and another, and that we are always reduced only to knowing correlation rather than causality. We are forced to assume a uniformity of nature that we are unable to demonstrate. Immanuel Kant showed that we cannot step outside of ourselves to know reality as it might exist in and of itself, for our awareness of the external world is our own representation, not something external to us, and that what we imagine it to be is inferred and filtered through our senses and the categories of our understanding. The noumenal world, the world as it exists in itself, is forever beyond our reach.

Philosophers such as Berkeley and Hegel came to the conclusion that all is mind, that reality is perception. They of course also said that perception requires a perceiver. Indeed, taken to its extreme, that which is perceived does not exist without having been perceived. Is it not the height of philosophical and anthropomorphic hubris to suppose that the world is mind, and that it depends on being perceived, whether by us or a superior being, one who happens to take on many of our own characteristics?

Of course, modern philosophers rejected the extreme view of the universe as mind perceiving itself. They embraced the common sense view that the table is there in space and time, and that it does not depend for its existence on our having perceived it. It remains after we have closed our eyes and when we leave the room. My body and mind seem to follow one another around, and when I have a particular urge or thought, my body behaves in a particular way. When I will my arm to go up, it does. Further, there are other minds and bodies, other persons, and they can do similar things. And, though reality and the way it appears to me might not have a direct correspondence, there is a relationship between them, and what I apprehend through perception is roughly what is real. The way the tree appears to me is roughly the way the tree really is.

While I have considerable sympathy with this common sense view, some of its major proponents have made a fundamental mistake, one that has resulted in considerable confusion. They have reduced our mental states to bio-chemical, brain processes. Just as the Hegelians rejected dualism by casting aside the physical world, so did they, but instead of everything being mental, it was material, something that ultimately can be described by physics, biology, and chemistry.

But my awareness, my sensation, feeling, or thought is not itself a material thing, something that I can locate in a microscope, on a MRI, or on a graphic representation from some electronic gizmo. I might get a synaptic burst here, an indication of neural activity there, or a wiggle on my register, but such phenomena are not the same as my awareness. Seeing my synapses and neurons behave in a particular way is not tantamount to seeing my thought. Mind is not brain tissue. Indeed, my awareness might be precipitated by such organic processes, but the thought is not the organic process, itself. And it is not a program. If there is a program, an arrangement, a design (whether from natural selection or Providence), it is not the same thing as what I am thinking.

Mind is a property of some or all of the things that make up our mental processes, such as the biological, chemical, and electrical activities, but it is not the same thing as those activities. It is more akin to the whir of the motor. The whir is not the same thing as the motor, but it is a property of it, and it depends on the motor for its existence. There is a duality between the whir or the motor and the motor, wetness and water, music and the piano. These are not perfect analogies, but, alas, nothing is quite the same as mind is. But it is also clear that mind is not the same thing as the body, the physical being; it is, however, a property of it. There is a kind of duality between mind and body, but not of the sort Descartes and others imagined.

Though mind and body are not the same, the mind does not exist independently of our brain processes; at least, there are no reasons to suppose that it does. While inferential and not apodictic, wherever my body goes, at least while I am conscious, my mind is present, and vice versa. My mind does not exist in the same sense as a stone, a house, or a brain does. It is more akin to the stone's texture, the house's shape. It is not a separate, non-corporeal entity. It is a property of a substance, a property of the arrangement of the physical components that we call ourselves, more specifically, our brains, within which activity correlates significantly to our having sensations, feelings, and thoughts those things that collectively constitute the property, mind.

Awareness is the first principle of mindedness: awareness of something. Scientists now believe that emotions, such as the limbic senses of pleasure and pain, that which animals naturally seek or avoid, might well be the first stage or even the necessary condition for the development of consciousness and hence, of our self awareness. Emotions would therefore seem even more important than rationality in our mental development. These perhaps represent the most incorrigible, incontrovertible, and direct of all of our perceptions, our most important sense of self, for we know for certain when we experience pain or pleasure.

Sentience is having the power of sensation. Awareness at its most primitive level need not entail a sense of self. The most primitive creatures that have a capacity for sensing might simply exist moment to moment with no sense of having had prior ones or of there being the possibility of others. The inference of a continuous being that is in some sense substantially the same from one moment to the next, with a past prior to the present continuing into the future, and with some sense of separation of that which perceives from that which is perceived, is what it means to be aware of oneself, an awareness that presumably allows creatures with various capacities to "plan" for something that will occur later, perhaps most importantly to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure (the latter is a much more complicated matter than pain). This, in turn, leads to a more advanced stage of self-awareness, which is being aware of our awareness.

How, though, can a person whose skin and organs and chemical composition change throughout its life, such that it is not the same one moment as it was during the last one, or as it will be in the next, be the same person. What is it about me that is different from, say, replacing every part of the space shuttle and then calling it the same ship? How can I identify myself as that person I was yesterday, a year ago, ten years, ago, and before, or the one I will be tomorrow, or ten years from now? How does my personality or personhood remain constant when my body and my mind have changed completely or nearly so? What is there about "me" that continues from past into the present and future that remains constant, that enables me to continue to be me? This is more than fancy, philosophical trickery, for, among other things, it has important moral implications. How, for example, can I be held responsible for my actions of yesterday, a year ago, or ten years ago when in every physical (and even mental) sense, I am a different person at this instant than I was then?

We assume there is a connection between our past and our present and our future, and the glue that binds these things (other than the trivial point of our name or description) is our mind, that collection of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, including our memory, which, in combination, have something to do with our personhood, our personality. As with our physical self, the mind is in flux. But it is aware of itself in the present and, to a large degree, its former self, which it manages to incorporate into the here and now, and it makes plans for its future self. Our mental nature, we presume, has much to say about what we do, our actions, our behavior, which is how others come to judge us. The fact that there is a relationship between our thoughts and our actions (or lack thereof) is the critical path to moral agency. Not only does the mind prompt (many of) our actions at any given moment (others are presumably instinctive or autonomic without forethought), but also what we will do later.

Our minds, therefore, provide the continuity between our former selves and our future selves, what we were before, what are today, and what will be tomorrow, notwithstanding the fact that what we do today or in the future might be different than what we did before, or that we might be, in many respects, different people. It is this continuity of mind and its presumed power over our behavior, which enables us to think someone is the same person as before and, assuming he is rationally capable, to make him morally responsible for his actions.

Christian Nation

2004-06-08T14:31:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 11-11-04

Many conservative Christians describe the United States as a "Christian nation." Now, it is true that most people in this country are Christians of one kind or another. However, most people are also white, Protestant, and female. Nevertheless, people usually do not say we are a "white nation" or a "Protestant nation, " at least, not nowadays, and I have never heard anyone say we are a "female nation." When people say that we are a Christian nation, I think they often mean to describe something other than the dominant religious outlook of our population. I think they mean to say something along the lines of what was once meant by saying that we are a white nation, namely, that the nation is for Christians, just as many once thought it was for white people. In other words, I think it mostly is intended to imply exclusivity, and not to describe our demographics.

The more broadminded conservatives settle for saying , "Our nation is founded on Judeo-Christian principles." One hears this a great deal, nowadays. When people say the country is founded on Judeo-Christian principles, they are displaying their ignorance about our history and of the ideas of the Enlightenment, which helped to set the stage for the American Revolution. This is not to say that Judeo-Christian principles had no influence, for they most certainly did; but it would be a great overstatement to suggest that they were the main ideas behind the Declaration of Independence or of our Constitution, our most important founding documents, or that they were the principal ideas that informed the Founding Fathers. The greatest direct, intellectual influence on our political origins resulted from the ideas of the 17th and 18th centuries, which, in many respects, were a reaction against both religious belief and religious institutions. If one wonders how the Western world might look, today, had the Enlightenment not occurred, one need only look to the majority of the Islamic world, where no comparable intellectual revolution has occurred, a world that suffers from the unholy alliance of despotism and religious dogma.

I think some people are wont to conflate the ideas that influenced the formation of our nation with the motivations of those who fled Europe to avoid religious persecution and with the decidedly religious tendencies of the colonials and even several of the founding fathers. The principles of individual liberty, democracy, and equality, however, owe much more to the Enlightenment than to the subjugation of the individual, authoritarian outlook, superstition, and anti-science bias promoted and supported by religion prior to the 17th century. Of course, some of the radical ideas championed during Enlightenment also owe a great deal to ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, which had nothing to do with the Judeo-Christian tradition, and also to English common law, which has roots in pre-Christian Britain and Nordic Europe.

While it is true that most of the Founders were Christian, most of their ideas of governance had little to do with Christianity. I think that a case can be made that Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, along with the histories of ancient Athens and the Roman Republic, had more to do with their ideas about government than anything that would be found in either the Old or New Testaments. I suspect the writings of John Locke and Thomas Paine, among others, had much more to do with their conception of individual rights and democracy than anything that could be found in the tracts of Martin Luther or John Calvin, let alone Thomas Aquinas. In other words, it would be even more accurate to say that we are a nation founded on Greco-Roman or Enlightenment principles than on Judeo-Christian ones.

Of course, the powers that be of both state and religion resisted nearly all of the most important developments of the Enlightenment. One might correctly observe that certain Enlightenment figures occasionally used Scripture to bolster their progressive arguments. Perhaps Locke's First Treatise on Government is the best example of this, wherein he argued against the divine right and absolute power of kings by an analysis of the succession of Adam. Of course, it must be further said that Locke used it to show that the prevailing religious doctrine concerning the matter, one that was promoted by both the Protestant and Catholic authorities, was incorrect. When Enlightenment scholars did use Scripture to support their arguments, which they did only rarely, they almost always promoted an unconventional view, one that did not comport with the so-called Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, a good many of these views were considered heretical and downright inimical to the "one true faith." But I stray from the subject at hand....

The text of the Declaration of Independence makes three general references to a deity, namely, "Nature's God," "the Creator," and "Providence." No religious principle, as such, is ever explicated, and there certainly is no special reference to a Judeo-Christian God. In fact, the general references are much as one might expect a non-Christian, Deist such as the Declaration's author, Thomas Jefferson, would make. Of course, the Declaration of Independence is historically significant, but it is not a legal document. The U.S. Constitution, our nation's foundational legal document and our government's organizational template, makes no reference to Providence whatsoever. Furthermore, it only refers to religion in the so-called Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, which says clearly that there will be no official religion or restriction of religious practice. The Federalist Papers, perhaps our best guide to the original meaning of the Constitution and the intentions of the Framers, is clearly a product of the Enlightenment, not of religious doctrine. Surely, if we were a Christian nation or one founded on Judeo-Christian principles, our Constitution would have made this clear. On the contrary, it makes it very clear that our nation does not prescribe a religion of any kind.

People who say our nation was founded primarily on Judeo-Christian principles are demonstrating a profound lack of knowledge about both our nation's history, and, in particular, of the marked tension between religion and the principles that were most important to our founding ideals, the concepts of liberty, equality, and democracy, which were given their best defense during the Enlightenment, and which were fought by religious authorities at every turn in their development. I therefore wish they would stop saying it.

Why I No Longer Eat Meat

2004-06-07T15:35:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 1-13-05

All of my life I have enjoyed eating meat. Lots of it. No one I know enjoyed eating it more. Nevertheless, for nearly forty years, I have had some serious reservations about my cravings. About ten years ago, I concluded that I ought to give up meat. Even so, my will and intellect were overpowered by my desire for it. Recently, however, I took the plunge and became a vegetarian. Dealing with my carnivorous tendencies is a day-by-day affair. Moreover, it is a bit of a challenge to explain myself to others. Notwithstanding these obstacles, I am committed to not eating meat, forever.

Let me begin by saying that I am not going to try and convert people or make a big deal about this. If people ask me why I am doing this, I will tell them why as politely and succinctly as I can. I am writing this primarily because it is convenient to refer others to it and, thereby, I hope to avoid a discussion that might result in my offending someone. I can accept that others will consider me to be eccentric. Many already do. I do not want others to feel that my own choice causes me to look upon them with any opprobrium. With that said, I do hope that my decision will serve a purpose. I should like to be a relatively quiet example without beating others over the head with it. I do not intend to join a radical animal rights group or start raiding laboratories and ranches. I simply want to make my own, small contribution to reducing the extraordinary amount of suffering in the world. Perhaps subtracting my own demand for meat won't make much of a difference, but it is at least something, and it is something that I am able to do.

I have argued elsewhere that the root of universal morality, the most fundamental rules of moral conduct, is the avoidance of suffering. Rationality does not require us to be moral. Immoral actions can be perfectly rational. Our conceptions of goodness are inadequate as a basis for universal rules, for everyone cannot act on these ideas all of the time and everywhere, a requirement for universality. Rationality allows for multiple, conflicting conceptions of goodness, so not every rational person can agree on them. On the other hand, it is quite irrational for one to desire or cause his own suffering without an overriding reason, and every rational person understands it. How, though, does this fact relate to morality? The way we get to a universal moral judgment is to introduce impartiality, which extends the rational prohibition of desiring or causing one's own suffering to others. I adopt impartiality because it is intuitively obvious that from the perspective of the universe my interests are not any more important than the interests of others. Thus, I maintain that impartial rationality is the basis of universal morality. Indeed, for reasons I will not belabor, here, I believe it is the only basis for universal moral rules.

It is problematical when we arbitrarily demarcate equal suffering among parties on the basis of who suffers, say, for example, distinguishing between the suffering of smart people versus stupid people, tall people versus short people, black people versus white people. In the same way, it is difficult to say that the suffering of other animals ought to be excluded from our calculations. Impartial rationality requires us not to discriminate based on who suffers. What I mean to say is that impartial rationality requires us to treat equal suffering equally, and unequal suffering in proportion to what we could will as a universal principle of action. I hold that we must extend morality to all who are capable of suffering, with consideration for the degree to which they can suffer, this latter point being largely a question of science. There is an exception to all of this, I think, namely, when we can will an action for all similar circumstances in conformance with reason, even when one could imagine oneself as the potential victim of the action.

I should like to make it clear that being moral towards others, including other species, does not mean that we ought to found our rules on mere compassion, for compassion provides an insufficient ground for morality. While desirable, even commendable, most of us are not always compassionate, and certainly not reliably enough to base morality on it. Impartial rationality requires us to apply the rules of morality, rules centering on the avoidance of suffering, without regard to our own feelings or predilections towards others, including even a lack of compassion towards them.

Anyone who is familiar with my ethical system, which I have only touched upon here, will understand how I arrived at the conclusion that we should not kill or eat animals as a matter of routine. It simply follows. This, however, does not mean I believe that we should never kill or eat animals. Animals that will do us harm should be killed when there is no reasonable alternative. Similarly, if we must kill other animals in order to eat and survive, then we should do so. However, we should do these things only when we are able to will exceptions as universal rules, given the facts at hand, and only when we can do so in conformance with reason.

The fact is that there is no necessity for a large percentage of mankind to eat meat, most particularly in the industrialized world. We have many alternatives available to us, and we are not subject to an instinct for hunting and eating in the same sense that other animals are. We are able to surmount our primordial tendencies, our predilection for meat, much as we overcome other rapacious behaviors that are more prevalent in a state of nature.

I am not suggesting that we should never use animal products, either. The skins of dead animals, for example, are utterly useless to the dead animal. What matters is under what circumstances we acquire the skin or other animal parts. I also think it is morally acceptable to take milk and eggs from well-treated cows and chickens. Liberty is not something cows and chickens understand. Their lack of understanding is partly what distinguishes a chicken's or cow's life from a human's life. Their lives are not equal to ours. Said another way, their death, or, more precisely, their loss of consciousness is not as important, for they do not have as much to lose. However, this is not to say their lives are unimportant. We should avoid taking their lives when we can. Also, as with humans, cows and chickens and a great many other organisms (though not all) can and do suffer pain, and that is what we seek to avoid or reduce, that is, unless universally prescribable exceptions for are warranted.

When I say we ought to be impartial towards suffering, this does not mean that I support bovine suffrage or other such absurdities. Nor do I mean to suggest that other animals are moral agents. Moral agency requires rationality. Being eligible for moral treatment - being a member of what I call the moral realm - merely means one can suffer or lose consciousness. I do not mean to suggest that cows are equal to people. I mean that we ought to compare the loss of their consciousness to the assumed gain (e.g., preventing a greater evil or promoting a benefit) before we act to extinguish it, and that we act only when we can will it as a universal rule for similar circumstances. Similarly, we ought to take their suffering into account and should act in a manner that would cause them to suffer only when we can accept our action as a universal rule when the relevant facts are similar.

To the extent it is possible, we must even try to imagine the suffering that our intended actions will cause the other species. To some this will sound absurd. However, our ability to empathize with the suffering of members of our own species enables us to more accurately weigh the consequences of our actions. While dealing with another species is certainly more difficult, it is not so far-fetched to suppose that those with a nervous system experience pain and disability in a manner not entirely dissimilar to the way we experience them. Perhaps this is most obvious with those species that are genetically similar to us, as in the case of the great apes. It is more problematic where the genetic differences are greater; nevertheless, it is not beyond our ability to extrapolate and imagine.

If our species survives, I am convinced that the day will come when our killing other animals for food or products will no longer be acceptable conduct. Indeed, I think it will be seen as a barbaric vestige of our past, just as we presently look upon certain habits of our forbearers. It will be many generations before this occurs, to be sure, and it is quite unlikely to take place before both poverty and illiteracy are eradicated. But I am convinced that it will be the standard of human behavior one day.

So, that is essentially why I have decided to stop eating meat. I have never been much of a vegetable or fruit eater; one might say that my abstinence is a form of self-inflicted penance. In any event, I am hoping that my friends and family will continue to invite me to dinner parties and such. I shall be quite content with the available non-meat dishes and I will be very glad to have their companionship. I also hope this little piece will help them to understand my reasoning, and, even though they might not agree with me, to at least accept my choice.

(author's note: regrettably, after several years, he has strayed, but aims to get back on track one day)

When President Bush is Right

2004-06-04T15:01:00.000-07:00

by Michael E. Berumen 1-20-05

The certain and unreflective mind of George W. Bush is not always wrong, as some of his critics almost instinctively insist. Indeed, as with most healthy people of middling mental powers, the President is correct more often than not. However, he is occasionally mistaken on some large matters, and there is evidence to suggest that he finds it difficult to admit or learn from his mistakes, though, contrary to what some have said, he has shown that he can. His reluctance to learn and his lack of introspection, coupled with the fact that he is the most powerful person in the world, definitely give one pause. I myself believe it was a mistake to reelect him and that we would have been better off with John Kerry. Now we will never know one way or the other. With that said, being an optimist, I remain hopeful that the President's second term will bear fruit for both the nation and the world.

Some have likened the President's determination to overthrow the tyrannical regimes of the Taliban and Saddam to Winston Churchill's standing as a bulwark against Hitler's Germany. This is a great stretch, both in terms of relative dangers faced by Churchill, the latter's having gone for years without support from the public and his own party, and also in the very different personalities and intellectual make-up of the two men. One thing he does share with Churchill, however, is a dogged certainty in his beliefs, and a sometimes remarkable willingness to take political risks, even at the expense of his popularity. These characteristics can lead to disaster, as they did on more than one occasion in Churchill's long and storied life, or they can have very desirable effects, as they did when, nearly alone, Churchill inveighed against an implacable and evil foe, eventually rallying his nation and the free world to defeat him.

President Bush is quite correct about two very important things, namely, that we would be more secure if democracy were to take root everywhere in the world, and that individual freedom is everyone's inalienable birthright. The presence of democracy does not guarantee either liberty or pacific intentions, as history has shown. However, history also shows that the latter are more likely to flourish when the governed are sovereign. President Bush almost certainly did not arrive at these insights through any sort of philosophical ratiocination. His beliefs in these principles are grounded in faith rather than in knowledge, as is the case with many of his views. His faith-based temperament is quite problematical, to my mind, and even dangerous when he is mistaken; however, his tenacious adherence to principle is also useful, even admirable, when he is correct, as he is in his views about the importance of both democracy and liberty.

The President is also right about something else. The United Nations is ineffective and weighed down by moral torpor, if not downright corruption. He is also right to believe that consensus, while desirable, is not always attainable in the pursuit of just ends. Indeed, popular opinion can even be at odds with the moral choice. One need only inspect our own history on slavery and civil rights for the veridical evidence of this truth. The United Nations, which gives equal voice to genocidal dictatorships, has no moral authority on matters of human freedom and dignity, and it has proved lethargic and unreliable on matters of international security. This is not to say it is beyond improvement or useless, but the President is correct to not place our welfare, or, for that matter, the world's, in its hands.

The President was wrong in being too cavalier about the opinions of difficult but important allies in "old Europe," even the insufferable French. With Iraq, it was a mistake to not complete the weapons inspections in accordance with the inspectors' proposal and to exhaust diplomatic efforts with our friends , which might have enabled more of them to offer their tacit consent. And whilst the popular Colin Powell has positioned himself as an innocent voice in the wilderness, the fact remains, he was utterly ineffective as an international diplomat. I rather doubt we would have gained much more in the way of participation, though, for save a few of them, most notably Britain, the Western European nations have little appetite for sacrifice. In any case, it is simply a fact that the ham-handed way we handled things did considerable harm to our standing in he world, even amongst our friends, not simply the leadership, but much more importantly, with the populations of these countries. It will take hard work and time to recover from these diplomatic blunders.

President Bush was right to attack and overthrow the Taliban. His rationale and timing for going after Saddam were mistakes, however, though the assessments that he was dangerous, that we needed to get rid of him, and that it was critical to begin democratizing the Middle East were quite on the mark. The administration's early handling of Afghanistan, the search for Osama bin Laden, and the post-war reconstruction of Iraq were deeply flawed, and in the latter case, many lives were lost unnecessarily. However, with the exception of finding bin Laden, things would now seem to be improving, indeed, perhaps they have even been put on the right track. The President and his administration deserves criticism for their early performance, to be sure; however, they also deserve praise for what is going on now, including what would appear to be a successful transition to self-government by both Afghanis and Iraqis.

Bush's critics are simply mistaken in believing that the world is not better off by having a more democratic Afghanistan and Iraq. Democracies are much less likely to go to war with other democracies. Moreover, with bedrock protections of individual rights built into their nations' constitutions, pluralism will flourish, people will be free to express themselves and exercise their beliefs, and minorities will be protected from both individual tyrants and even the tyranny of the majority. Freedom of commerce, the corollary of individual freedom, will also serve to eradicate widespread poverty. As a result of these things, the despair, intolerance, and hatred that have nourished oppression and terrorism will diminish. What is more, these countries will stand as exemplars to other nations in the Islamic world, thereby creating a more salubrious climate for rapid, positive change. I believe the neoconservatives are quite right in this belief, though it was naive of them to believe this result will come overnight and without great cost.

That a heavy price has been paid for these things by Americans, Afghanis, Iraqis and others is undeniable; however, our energies should not be sapped by disgruntlement over how things happened or what we imagine, but do not know, would have been done better by another President. Yes, the ends do not necessarily justify the means, as is often said, but they sometimes do. It is sometimes necessary to avoid a greater evil through a lesser one. Moreover, the ends are sometimes such that it is worth taking risks, making sacrifices, and even making mistakes in their pursuit.

What agitates many of President Bush's critics is that his main reason for attacking Iraq seems to have been conveniently forgotten, and the emphasis has been placed on different ends altogether. Primary emphasis in justifying the war was originally given to Saddam's great stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and now it turns out he did not have them. Today, the President and his cadre speak of freedom and democracy, as though those were our principal causes at the outset of the invasion. Of course, the U.S. Congress would not have approved going to war had those been the primary reasons, let alone the only ones. It was not that the President and others never mentioned these matters as having importance, but they clearly were not the causis belli for either public or congressional consumption.

On the other hand, one certainly could cogently argue that, little by little, when we can and where we can, freedom and democracy do represent legitimate reasons to act, even at a cost of lives, not only for the greater good of the inhabitants of other nations, but for our own security. Of course, it is very difficult, if not impossible to arouse popular support for going to war over such abstractions. Indeed, it took an attack on our shores before it was politically feasible to declare war on Japan and Germany. With the kind of foes and weapons we face today, however, we must defend ourselves against those who would destroy us before they attack, which is a difficult thing for many to grasp. This is the sensible prevention of catastrophe that is required in today's world.

In any case, I do not think we need to wring our hands forever over the fact that our major premise for going to war in Iraq was mistaken, for it was only a matter of time before we would have had to deal with Saddam, anyway; and while there has been a not-so-subtle shifting of emphasis, perhaps even some dissembling on the part of the President and his administration, the fact remains, the sacrifice was clearly not in vain. In this respect, among others, and contrary to what some critics have carelessly suggested, our involvement in Iraq is very different from the war in Vietnam, where thousands of lives were lost for no good reason.

Mistakes, serious ones, were certainly made in the early stages of the war against terror and the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq. Let us therefore hope that we have learned some valuable lessons along the way. With this said, we should not lose sight of the fact that the world is very likely a better place than it would have been had we done nothing at all. And one other thing that we should hope for is a very successful second term for President Bush, notwithstanding one's personal preference in the voting booth last year. Much else depends upon it. The President's opponents, and I am certainly one them, should not hope for his failure, for the unacceptable consequence is that our country and, indeed, much of the rest of the world also fails.

The Pope

2004-06-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 4-5-05
It might surprise some to know that I believe Pope John Paul II was the greatest man to have occupied the world stage over the last fifty years, both in terms of his personal character and his generally positive influence on world affairs. I am a non-Catholic. I do not believe there is a God. I also do not believe in the supernatural or in any kind of afterlife. What is more, with few exceptions and for most of its history, I think religion and religious belief have been largely harmful to scientific and political progress, and also to human relations and development. Christianity is no exception. With that said, I have long admired the late pope, even to the point of having read many of the things he has written and several accounts of his life. Of course, as in the case of other great persons in history, he is not without flaws, primarily in continuing several anachronistic policies and in not dealing aggressively with criminality in his own ranks. While I believe his strengths vastly outweigh his deficiencies, permit me to get some representatives of the latter out of the way.
Setting mysticism and theology aside - granting that is rather hard to do with a pope - I find John Paul II wanting on several major issues, and perhaps none more than his stance on birth control, especially regarding the use of condoms. The idea that sex ought only to be used for reproduction and only whilst in a state of marriage is unrealistic and, as the empirical evidence abundantly confirms, it is contrary to human nature, not to mention, prudish and silly. The notion that spermatozoa are sacred and wasted if not put to use is an unfortunate vestige of the Old Testament and of more recent expressions by St. Thomas. Aside from this superstition, the prohibition against birth control has had deleterious consequences to whole populations in impoverished parts of the world, and failure to use birth control has doomed many to lives of privation, and, even in more developed parts of the world, it has added to the number of unwanted and unloved among us. And, of course, having sex without condoms has contributed significantly to the spread of disease and the death of millions from AIDS, especially in developing nations.
Now, let me hasten to say, the pope himself did not cause these deaths from disease, nor did he cause world overpopulation, as some of his critics would seem to suggest. Ignorant people did. However, given his influence in the world, the pope's wrongheadedness certainly did not help when it could have.
While divorce ought not to be taken lightly, I believe the pope was wrong to not permit it, and that the Church's policy has caused a great deal of misery throughout the ages because of it. Moreover, the Church has administered the rule unfairly, for the privileged have often been able to annul their marriages while millions are doomed to lives of unhappiness.
I also think that the Vatican has been guilty of malfeasance in handling the sexual perfidy of priests in America. The Vatican's failure to deal more severely with the systematic cover-up by Church authorities in this country is an outrage. This undoubtedly has taken place in other places in the world, though it has not been exposed to the same degree. I also suspect this kind of thing has gone on for centuries in the Church, which, without due care, can easily become a haven for deviants. While failure to deal with it effectively is a blot on his pontificate, I think that some of the pope's personal missteps in this area can be attributed his declining health. Others do not have such an excuse.
I am not concerned about some of the issues that agitate some in the Catholic laity, especially in Western Europe and the United States. I strongly support civil rights for women and homosexuals; however, I do not much care if there are ever women priests or if homosexuality is one day sanctioned by the Church. It is up to the Church and its members to deal with these issues and to accept or change relevant Church doctrine. I suspect priests eventually will be allowed to marry; it will be necessary simply as a matter of survival. Homosexuals have an uphill battle for the foreseeable future.
Notwithstanding the aforesaid differences, I believe the late pontiff was profoundly correct on a number of social issues. For example, I think his views on abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty are mostly right. I won't dwell on the several exceptions, here, for that would simply serve to obscure the central truth of his message. The pope's beliefs were principally grounded in religious principle; but his personal experiences with the Holocaust and in living in a slave society also enabled him to recognize the slippery slope of devaluing life through small steps. He was always consistent in fighting for the value of each individual, even individuals whom society would judge as lacking worth for any number of reasons. With stunning clarity of vision, John Paul II understood that society becomes increasingly brutalized when the lines for demarcating when life is worth living or sustaining are continually moved, and the definition of personhood is so easily changed in order to accommodate our ever-growing intolerance of inconvenience.
The pope also rightly saw through the evils of collectivism, including its inevitable squelching of the human spirit, and the oppressive nature of states that reach into every aspect of our lives. He had much to do with ending communism, both as pope and earlier as a prelate in Poland. Much is said about Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in bringing about the end of the Soviet Union and its stranglehold on Eastern Europe. It is no exaggeration to suggest that they helped to do this, though the Soviet economy was bound to implode from its inherent flaws. History will show, however, that the pope's role was greater than that of any single person in precipitating the dissolution of this evil system, for he convinced entire populations that they could cast off the yoke of totalitarianism and be free, thereby severing the psychological chains of the dictators, and setting the stage for liberation. This was especially true in Eastern Europe and, specifically, in Poland, where the Pope's influence and active support had much to do with the rise of the Solidarity movement, which led to the fall of the communist government there. This had a cascading effect throughout the Soviet Bloc and in the Soviet Union itself.
The pope was a relentless critic of societies and institutions that treat people as means to ends without considering their individual dignity or caring for their most fundamental needs. His essential messages were that each life had unique value and that we had obligations to one another. He was especially attentive to the downtrodden: the poor, the unloved, the hopeless, the helpless, and the sick. And while he effectively railed against collectivism, we must not lose sight of the fact that he also inveighed against the evils of "unbridled and savage capitalism," where the profit motive and property interests supersede the constraints of basic morality. While capitalism is allowed by morality, and socialism is certainly more problematical from a moral perspective, this does not mean the former is exempt from basic moral rules. The pope understood that economic efficiency does not trump all of our moral obligations, even when profits or property rights are adversely affected.
Pope John Paul II was a man of exemplary personal character and integrity. His was much more than a life of uttering noble sentiments from a position of power. Long before he was powerful or well known, his words and deeds were consistent with moral principle, even when he was under extraordinary pressure by the authoritarian regimes of the Nazis or Communists, which controlled his homeland. Not only did he courageously resist what others would not, he also went out of his way to minister to the needs of the least fortunate among us, often to the point of risking his own life.
He also did some things that were historic as head of Christianity's largest sect. For one thing, he apologized for Christianity's long and shameful history of persecuting the Jews and others. He is the first pope to make anti-Semitism a sin. The pontiff assiduously worked to build bridges to Protestants and people of all faiths, and he was persistent in reaching out with a message of humility, peace, forgiveness, reconciliation, and a love of mankind. Through all of this, he never pandered to popular opinion and was willing to take controversial stands when he believed principle required him to do so, but he nearly always emphasized the promotion of life rather than the condemnation of sinners, a subtle but important difference from many other religious leaders. Indeed, he would not turn away anyone he thought could further his mission for social justice, including tyrants and murderers, whom he would not hesitate to lecture on matters of principle, but was simultaneously ready to embrace for their own humanity, and, to the occasional dismay or disapproval of others, even forgive. To the shock of many, this same spirit motivated him to visit his would-be assassin's jail cell in order to express his love and forgiveness.
Throughout the turbulent history of mankind, no single person, in my view, has used both the world stage and his personal authority more effectively across diverse populations and beliefs to promote tolerance and human kindness, and to discourage hatred and violence. He was a master communicator, and he made use of all of his personal powers, jet-age transportation, and modern communications technology to get his message out to hundreds of millions of people. This alone makes him unique and great among men.
Of course, it is well established that the pope was a learned man. He respected science; indeed, among other things, he acknowledged natural selection and evolution as correct, something a many other religious leaders have stupidly denied. He also admitted to the Church's role in blocking human knowledge in history, most notably in the case of Galileo. He was an extraordinary linguist and could speak eight to ten languages fluently, and he was able to get by in as many more. He was a gifted writer, a teacher, a poet, a playwright, and an actor, and he was well versed in philosophy, literature, and theology. Even so, he was no detached, ivory tower intellectual. Not only was he well acquainted with popular culture, more importantly, he understood and identified with the lives of ordinary people. They were not mere abstractions for him; he understood them and cared about them viscerally.
Finally, the pope always seemed to me to be a very kind and happy person. There was none of that supercilious and phony piety that so many religious leaders have. He found genuine joy by being around people from all walks of life, whether they were low or mighty, young or old, sinners or saints, and in living every breath of life to its fullest, notwithstanding its inevitable tribulations. The suffering of others moved him, and he devoted his life to finding ways to reduce it. He was no stranger to suffering himself. He lost all of his immediate family in his youth; many of his friends were taken away to death camps; he nearly died as the victim of an assassin's bullet; and he endured considerable pain from several illnesses during the last decade. Through it all, though, he never wallowed in self-pity; he had no time for it, for he saw that others were in need. I am one non-believer who loved this pope. I feel an overwhelming sense of grief in losing this great and good man. May he rest in peace.

The Religious Mind

2004-06-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

by Michael E. Berumen 5-1-05

Having said something nice about the late pope, I would not want anyone to assume any sort of recantation or a moderation in my views about religion. I think John Paul II's positive attributes are largely despite his religious beliefs, not because of them. I should like to make it very clear that I am generally suspicious of people with religious temperaments, not because I think they necessarily have untoward motives, but because I think their propensity for irrational thought is harmful, not only to themselves, but to others. Allow me to explain.

It seems to me that people of a religious bent are especially apt to confuse their beliefs with understanding or knowledge. Things are thought to be true simply because they believe or desire them to be true, and not because of their having acquired any knowledge through testable, first-hand acquaintance or from the verifiable description of others. They prefer to rely on intuition instead of evidence, and on their feelings as opposed to logical analysis. Faith is favored over ratiocination, ex cathedra proclamations over rigorous demonstrations. It is this tendency, in particular, that has been a major impediment to progress in science and technology over the centuries, and, consequently, to the improvement of the human condition.

Equally bothersome is the fact that many religious people are not really motivated to do good works or to avoid evil out of their feelings of compassion, a love of mankind, or even out of a sense of duty, but from the fear of punishment in Hell or the desire for a reward in Heaven. There is something much less noble, I think, about the good deeds of one whose primary motive is the approbation of his deity versus one who gives no thought to either reprisal or recompense. Much of religion strikes me as having this unseemly, egocentric, utilitarian bent, one rooted primarily in personal gain, even cowardice.

Now, religious persons and ideologues on both sides of the political divide have much in common with one another. For example, they usually have a sacred text and a messianic, charismatic leader. They believe and work towards a kind of Utopia, whether in the present or in the afterlife. They adhere to a set of principles from which they believe everything else can be explained, notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary, for contradictory evidence is always found wanting, no matter how compelling from a scientific or logical perspective. They have a predilection for systematic and comprehensive worldviews, one where any new bit of information or idea that is inconsistent with its fundamental principles is automatically branded as mistaken. They also have a strong desire to have everyone else believe in the same things, and they are highly intolerant of those who do not. There need not be a supreme being involved for one to have a religious frame of mind. Indeed, one might even subscribe to atheism, which in its most strident form is tantamount to a kind of religion.

The most ardent members of political movements are in fact quite "religious" in their outlook. In recent history, I would include as examples communists and Nazis. Dialectical materialism in the former case and the imagined blood ties of the Volk in the latter represent the cosmic forces substituting for the deity; Das Kapital and Mein Kampf represent the holy scripts that explain all; Lenin and Hitler are the messianic leaders whose mission is to lead the chosen people to paradise. The extremists on the political right and left, today, are birds of a feather with the ultra-religious when it comes to their fanatical righteousness. They would have many of us in camps, I believe---if not to exterminate us, then to "re-educate" us to the proper perspective. Their behavior is largely indistinguishable from the would-be theocrats that have been disturbingly prominent in American politics during recent years.

To my mind, there are several principal features of the religious temperament that stand out more than others, namely, fear of the unknown and a need for certainty; the requirement for shared beliefs; magical thinking; a mystical outlook; and a desire for purpose. One or more of these characteristics is usually apparent, perhaps especially the first two. Their relative proportions and the degree to which each of these traits dominate a person's behavior will vary by individual. I shall briefly describe each of them.

Fear of the unknown might be the most pronounced of these attributes, for it is related to our primal fear of death. We want to know what lies ahead, and we want an explanation for the things that frighten us, not just any explanation, but one that will quell our sense of dread and one that will provide us with comfort through having some sense of certainty about the future. This has no doubt been true since our hominid ancestors first witnessed nature's unpredictable and sometimes devastating fury. We humans want to understand why there is so much privation in the world, for such knowledge gives a modicum of control, which enables us to ameliorate the trials of daily living. It is, therefore, not surprising that we would develop systems of belief, sometimes very elaborate ones, in order to help us deal with the world and, as much as anything, to provide some emotional succor.

To some extent, the need to understand and systematize the world is an attribute that the religious and scientific perspectives have in common. However, while the motivation is similar, the end product in behavior is quite different. Those who are compelled by a sense of curiosity and discovery, and who are more adept at using logic and analyzing empirical evidence, are more inclined towards a scientific outlook, one which constantly challenges assumptions and findings, and one that admits error more readily; whereas, those who need reassurance from authority figures and who require a sense of unquestioning certainty are more likely to turn to religion or ideology.

The scientific mind goes wherever logic and evidence lead, whereas the religious mind discounts anything that contravenes his worldview. The latter uses the scientific method rarely and selectively, and only when it supports his assumed dogma. So, for example, the creationist observes human footprints and dinosaur prints in the same place on an ancient riverbed, and then surmises they must have lived contemporaneously, before the great flood wiped out the dinosaurs. This further "demonstrates" to the creationist that the earth is much younger than mainstream paleontologists and geologists have maintained. All of these claims have been shown to be bogus, of course, and in most of the cases the footprints alleged to be human are not human at all (one so-called human print, for example, is the size of an elephant). Dating techniques have shown others not to be contemporaneous.at all. Such nonsense is typical of creationists, though, and entire "creation" museums are devoted to such things. Gullible people unfamiliar with science continue to be persuaded by creationism; unfortunately, sometimes these people are in positions of influence.

A hallmark of the religious mind is what appears to be an overwhelming need to have others believe the same things. It is reassuring for many to know that others agree with the same set of invariant principles and that they can be expected to behave in a similar way. Believers draw strength and even more conviction from fellow believers. Realizing this, religious leaders have used mass meetings to great effect to strengthen the confidence of believers and to cement connectedness among the faithful, not to mention to exert control over them. By their very existence, nonbelievers, deviants, and apostates shake a believer's confidence in his view of the world, which he finds wholly intolerable and, therefore, actively seeks to change, if not through persuasion, as history has unfortunately shown time and again, then by force.

In this vein, much of religion is geared towards public activity. Religious people want you to know that they are religious. They, of course, confuse piety with morality and belief with action. Many religious people, perhaps most notably, politicians, want others to think of them as being quite devout. They go to great extents to show that they are virtuous with their public displays of churchgoing and their references to God. And no politician in America ever could be elected to a major political office without having proved his religiosity.

I must confess, it sends chills down my spine whenever I encounter some of these true believers with their sanctimonious "Jesus and I love you"-phony smiles; for it is easy to see through their controlled and supercilious politeness to their seething, inner anger. They of course really despise you for your non-belief, and they fully expect and, I think, even savor the idea that you shall soon experience eternal suffering and damnation with all of that gnashing-of-teeth business that a disconcertingly high percentage of Christians prefer to the Sermon on the Mount. Some are sincerely concerned about our souls, of course; but, I fear, not all of them are.

Magical thinking has deep roots in man's history. The more we know about the world, and especially the more we know of science, the less prominent a role this kind of thinking plays in society, but it remains a factor to a disquieting degree. Even in relatively advanced societies, such as the United States, where the populace avails itself of the many fruits of scientific knowledge, the average person remains astonishingly ignorant of the workings of nature, especially as described by the so-called hard sciences, and he is consequently susceptible to all manner of preposterous beliefs. Large numbers of people in the industrialized world who consider themselves sophisticated and civilized also believe, for example, in faith healing, angels and demons, miracles, astrology, and so forth.

Religious people seek explanations for natural phenomena in hidden, supernatural causes, which they find easier to grasp than, for example, the principles of physics or chemistry. This might result from simple ignorance or from just plain stupidity. I suspect it also results from a simple intellectual laziness on the part of some. The account that science offers might not comport with their own desires or preconceived notions, so religiously-minded people will opt for the more comforting explanation that superstition offers. This latter tendency is sometimes true even of those who should know better, people trained to understand the scientific method, who nevertheless refuse to believe where it leads. Perhaps this is most evident in the modern age with so-called intelligent design theory, a slightly more sophisticated alternative to traditional creationism, which typically has currency among the more simple-minded.

Magical thinkers have great difficulty imagining such things as a universe without a prime mover, a designer invariably endowed with anthropomorphic and fatherly qualities. To them, all things are caused, and there is always a first cause in a chain of events, therefore, something had to cause the universe. When asked what caused the first cause, with great assurance they advise that their deity is uncaused, has always existed, and has neither beginning nor end. It is a curious thing that they have difficulty imagining a universe beginning from nothingness, or thinking it absurd that always existed in some form or another, but they have no difficulty whatsoever in imagining that there is a bearded friend in the sky that has existed forever. Desire obviously trumps reason.

The magical thinker also usually believes in the power of prayer. This is perhaps a most understandable thing for primitive humans who were at the complete mercy of nature with little to go on but the hope that the mysterious forces that beset them might take pity on them as a result of their pleas. It is much more difficult to understand in the context of today's relatively recent, major religions, which hold that there is an omnipotent and benevolent Creator. Omnipotence, which by definition already knows what one desires even before we know ourselves, is apparently fond of supplication and groveling. Our entreaties are not always answered the way we want, however, because even though we are the creations of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and completely benevolent being, we are nevertheless imperfect and, more often than not, quite undeserving of the generosity of the All-powerful One. Is it only me or is there not something a bit sadistic about such a Creator? The inevitable answer: who are we to question the methods and ends of God? I find that to be most unsatisfactory response, even unseemly, the sort of answer one might expect from downtrodden slaves, not free men.

The mystical aspect of the religious personality is similar to the magical one, but not quite the same. Whereas most religious people have magical beliefs, relatively few are truly mystical. Pope John Paul II, for example, had a decidedly mystical side to him. The mystic believes he has an insight and a special connection into an ethereal kind of reality, one beyond the reality that the rest of us see. Most religious people simply believe there is something behind the curtain, whereas, the mystic believes that he actually sees what's going on behind it. The mystic is often captivated by the grandeur of nature, and he tends to have a more fanciful explanation for it. Mystics also often believe they are in contact with spirits and that they can see into the future. It is not uncommon for a mystic to be in a trance-like state. Mystics do not devise the consistent, axiomatic systems more typical of pedantic theologians and churchmen, striving to appear scholarly. The mystic's writings and sayings are much more obscure and seldom direct, using metaphorical and allegorical language to make their points.

Of the major religions, it seems that Buddhism and Hinduism produce more mystics than the others do, although Christianity and Islam certainly have had their share. I think a mystical trait is often present in some of the great artists and composers throughout history, and perhaps we ought to be thankful for that. Surely Michelangelo and Bach, for example, had a very obvious mystical side. Various religious tracts, such as the Bhagavad Gita, Sefer Yetzirah, and even some parts of the Old and New Testaments are steeped in mysticism, and in places they each represent some of literature's most beautiful, creative, and lyrical prose. The apocalyptic visions of The Book of Revelations are foreboding, consisting of dark imagery with multilayered meanings, but are strikingly conceived. The poetic writings of St. John of the Cross are among the most moving in the Christian catalogue. For better or worse, however, the doctrines of both Catholicism and Protestantism were more heavily influenced by the juridical and prosaic mind of Paul than the musings of mystics. And, in any case, notwithstanding their literary or other artistic merits, fantastic assertions that cannot be measured by logic or evidence, whether from Shakespeare or a sandal-wearing ascetic who hears voices, remain little more than flights of the imagination or delusion.

I think the religious personality demands a purpose in life that is somehow grander, more fulfilling, and more permanent than the ones that we invent for ourselves. The thought that we are only the product of random forces and natural selection, that we have no cosmic purpose beyond the biological imperatives, leaves some unbearably forlorn and without hope. Surely, there must be more to the existence of intelligent, feeling beings than reproduction, a constant fight for survival, and in short order, death. I am reminded of the young Bertrand Russell's own struggle against such feelings. He yearned for something more, but nothing that could satisfy him emotionally could also pass muster with his intellect.

As I mentioned before, many believe we are the product of design, and a design implies an antecedent Designer, an intelligent and directed force; it only follows that the Designer had some purpose in mind for His creation. Some creation stories would have us believe that our primary purpose is merely to keep the Designer company, to amuse Him as though we were pets. One cannot help but ask how He could have permitted, indeed caused---and knowingly mind you, for He is at once all powerful and all knowing---so much misery and pain to be visited upon His companion creatures? Yes, there is that ancient and venerable excuse: our free will. That dog won't hunt, though, for He already knew what we would choose, and our choice was a product of His creative act, consequently, our "free will" is a mere sham of an excuse in the final analysis. After all, how many have truly chosen their own misery. Some will complain that we carry the mark of Original Sin, notwithstanding our own motives and deeds, and that it is the choice of our ancestors that haunts us. How small, vindictive, and even sadistic it is for Omnipotence to saddle innocent people with the error of others. Honestly, it is hard to take such views seriously. I myself contend that our freely chosen purpose ought to be to rid the world of as much of this suffering as possible, and, in the meantime, Providence will simply have to take care of Himself, including any problems with low self esteem, which one might infer from the descriptions of His apologists.

Abortion and the Right to Choose Wrongly

2004-05-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 6-12-05

The argument that a woman has the "right to choose," which is to say, she has the right to kill the fetus within her because, after all, "It's her body," is an argument that I have long thought flawed. In a great many cases, it is logically equivalent to saying, "I won't support my child, since the labor involved requires the use of my body, and for various reasons I don't want to do this ." Notwithstanding the silliness of the "It's my body and I'll do what I want to with it" argument, many so-called "pro-choice" proponents believe that killing the fetus is morally permissible, and that there ought to be few, if any restrictions or reprisals from the government, and no opprobrium by society for having done so. They hold that the fetus is not really a person, and that the mother's right to control her body, upon which it surely depends, is inviolable. The disposition of her body, insofar as the fetus goes, cannot be made subject to extra-personal, objective standards of morality, and is absolutely off-limits to society. Society has nothing to say about a fetus. What happens to it is completely up to her, and the decisions in relation to her own body, we are told, ought not to be questioned by others, for only she is in a position to know what is truly right on such matters. It is a perfect form of moral relativism, with no preferred, objective standard by which to adjudicate or assess acts and judgments, each woman knowing, subjectively, what is moral for her and for the fetus.

As I have argued elsewhere, the principal objectives of the most important rules of morality, so-called universal rules, rules that apply to everyone, everywhere, and all of the time, are to avoid causing others to die--which is tantamount in practice to permanently losing consciousness or self awareness--and causing them to suffer, in just that order of importance. Impartial rational people will take into account both the lives and the suffering of those who have some capacity for consciousness or suffering. This applies not to humans, but to everything that has awareness or that can suffer. The potential for suffering or awareness among beings with complex brains and nervous systems is greater than that of creatures with relatively simple ones; we must therefore take into account their relative suffering in making moral prescriptions in relation to them. However, we must not ignore another being because its capacity for suffering or awareness is not as great as our own. Not causing others to die or suffer is the default position of morality. Exceptions to these proscriptions can be made, but only when they meet certain tests.

Some would have us believe only the lives and suffering of rational persons have moral standing. They hold that a non-human animal or a fetus would not qualify as a rational person, and, as such, they maintain other animals do not enjoy the same moral standing as fully rational persons. Some might distinguish a fetus at a later stage in its development---as one might with a young child---from other animals on the basis of being pre-rational, or having the potential for rationality, something it is presumed other animals do not have. However, rationality is not a discrete condition, but a continuous one, progressing from less to more, and beginning in utero. And it would seem rationality is not exclusive to humans. Adult chimpanzees, for example, are undoubtedly as rational, or in some instances, even more rational, than young human children, and even some human adults. It is also quite clear that some humans are more or less rational than others.

Basing one's eligibility for moral treatment on rationality would imply that the lives and suffering of the most rational among us ought to be accorded even greater weight than those whose capacities are not as large, which implies that the lives and suffering of infants, children, or the mentally disabled ought to be considered less important than those adults who are deemed to be "normal." Taken to its extreme, such a view would justify giving greater moral standing to people with IQs over, say, 150, than to people of less intelligence, including people of average intelligence, the bulk of humanity. One can also easily see how such reasoning leads to excluding groups on the basis of their race or for simply being out of social mainstream, or whatever unpopular group is branded as being less rational.

It is quite plain that having the capacity to suffer is a much better criterion than rationality is for determining one's eligibility for moral treatment. People sometimes are wont to confuse this eligibility criterion for the moral realm with the principle of moral agency. A moral agent is one who is obligated to behave morally by virtue of of his understanding. This does require at least the minimal ability to understand one's rational prohibitions and to formulate impartial rational judgments, for this is necessary in order to understand the fundaments of morality. However, the only requirement for moral treatment is the capacity to suffer. And, to bring this to the central point, a fetus can certainly suffer at a very early stage in its development.

Some would suggest that we should only be concerned morally or legally about the fetus from the point it becomes "viable," and only at which time it is thought by some to be a "person" with legal or moral standing in society. Thus, they would say, a fetus in the last trimester ought not to be aborted, for it is presumed to be viable. What does viability really mean, though? An infant is no more viable than a fetus is, after all, if by that we mean it is no longer in a state of dependency, able to function on its own. By such a definition of viability, many medically disabled and elderly people could not be considered viable, for they also would be dependent upon others, and to a very great extent, on the bodies of others, since, after all, the labor of others is but an extension of their bodies. If viability means functioning on one's own or independence, consistency would demand much more than excluding the fetus from the moral realm. There is clearly a great deal of ambiguity, indeed, even arbitrariness in determining what constitutes viability.

The fact is, the more consistent proponents of choice are not as concerned about viability, per se. They would impose no restrictions if they had their way, for, in their minds, what is at stake is really the control of the woman over her body, without regard to the status of the fetus within her. This is why they would not exclude so-called partial-birth abortion during the latter stages of pregnancy. They are actually less disingenuous than those who say that the ability to survive outside of the womb is their principal criterion for determining when abortions ought to be allowed. To illustrate my point, here, the day might come, however, when medical technology enables even a two-week old fetus to survive outside of the mother's womb. Does anyone seriously think that the proponents of abortion then would willing to deny the women's "right to choose" after two weeks? Of course, this is not what they really want. What they want is for women to have the freedom to shed any unwanted dependency, the personal freedom to avoid being inconvenienced by someone else, even when doing so means that the latter must die. They simply realize that most can make this decision earlier.

One might reasonably ask why the most radical pro-abortionists do not also propose infanticide? The grounds for this practice certainly logically follow from the very same "It's my body argument." Most mothers, even the most radical pro-abortionists, would not consider this, of course, for this is well beyond what is socially acceptable, even amongst radical abortionists. Besides, from a practical perspective, post partum bonding can arouse the most hardened person's maternal and protective instincts. And then, the father is presumed to have more say in the matter. But on an abstract level, infanticide is completely consistent with some of the main arguments of the pro-choice group.

We now know that the fetus is fully capable of feeling pain at a very early stage in its development, and that it begins to be self-aware in a matter of weeks. Morality, therefore, requires that we take its suffering and consciousness into account. Now, morality also permits us to depart from the general prohibition against causing others to die or suffer, but only when we can prescribe the same exception in all circumstances sharing the same universal properties, having taken into account the relevant facts of the matter, including the perspectives of the potential victims, in this case, both the mother and the fetus, and, of course, only when our analysis and the exception that we prescribe are in conformance with reason.

As difficult as it might be, we must try and imagine what the perspective of the fetus would be if it were accorded the information and reasoning powers of an adult. What is more, we must imagine ourselves and those we care about if they were in the same position as the fetus, given a similar circumstance (e.g., the health of the mother, prospects for living without unmanageable pain or disability, dire poverty, and the impact on the mother's life plans). We must also examine the perspective of the mother as if we or others were in her position, and even imagine how the fetus itself might react (having mature perspectives), if it found itself in the mother's position. In other words, we must be willing to evaluate all of the angles, reversing the positions of the participants and potential participants in various ways, examining all of the relevant, universal properties at hand, including the various psychological perspectives, and then we must be willing to apply the exception to all similar circumstances, including ones in which we or our loved ones are involved. This is the total nature of impartiality, applying the universal rules of morality (i.e., don't kill or cause suffering) or any proposed violation of those rules without bias and without regard to any preferred outcome.

The bottom line of all this is that we must weigh the loss of consciousness or suffering that will occur by aborting versus the loss of consciousness or suffering that might be avoided if we were to choose differently. Thus, for example, we might conclude that the risk of the mother's death from the pregnancy or delivery outweighs the interests of the unborn child. We might also conclude that a fetus without a brain, who would be doomed to an empty existence, or one with a severe and irreparable disability that could result in its experiencing extraordinary pain over a short life span, ought to be terminated. In the former case it is tantamount to being dead; in the latter, death is preferable to the amount of suffering involved. Then there are the cases of rape or incest, where some would argue the lifelong suffering of the mother and the "unnaturalness" of the conception are prima facie justifications for an abortion.

While they seem obvious to some, even cases of severe impairment, rape, and incest are not without profound moral difficulties, partly because of our limited understanding of the medical outcomes for both the mother and the child. Making judgments about a person's prospective physical and mental capacities rely on our very tentative understanding of science and our limited ability to predict the future. In the latter cases of rape and incest, or at least many of them, one might argue that the suffering of the mother cannot be entirely reversed no matter what we do, and that some of it might even be alleviated through putting the child up for adoption, and that notwithstanding the tragedy of rape and incest, the mother's suffering does not exceed the potential value of the life to be exterminated. I myself remain uncertain, though I would be inclined to approve of abortion in such cases.

In any case, it is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of abortions do not result from rape or incest. Most arise from a lesser degree of suffering or anticipated suffering, usually on the mother's part, and primarily, I fear, as a result of the inconvenience she shall incur during the gestation period. Here I mean the usual kinds of inconveniences associated with raising a child: impoverished circumstances (though many of the proponents of abortion, and, I suspect, many who have undergone one, are relatively affluent); the ignominy of a pregnancy out of wedlock; the introduction of a significant obstacle to one's life plans; or having the physical discomfort and pain associated with carrying a child to term and childbirth. Keep in mind, however, I do not mean to understate the gravity of the inconvenience that is sometimes or even often involved, but I believe these examples of suffering are far outweighed by the kind of suffering many unborn fetuses experience as they undergo an abortion procedure, not to mention their having permanently lost their consciousness and their entire life's potential.

Some might say, have said, I am not a woman, therefore, I am incapable of weighing in on evaluating a woman's predicament, her suffering, or making comparisons to others. It is quite true: I am not a woman. I also have not leaped off of a skyscraper, either, but that does not imply that I do not have some idea about its consequences. Many less dramatic examples come to mind. It is a silly argument. Men and women are equally qualified to make moral judgements about one another. Males, females, and fetuses share more than that which separates them, and that which makes us different is not wholly or even mostly outside of our ability to make reasonable inferences. Indeed, our entire understanding of suffering, our understanding of other minds, is highly inferential, notwithstanding one's sex. This does not render such judgments meaningless. They are necessary in order for us to function in society.

The "It's my body argument" has other limitations. The fetus is not a part of the mother in the same sense that a kidney or a finger is. The relationship is more of a parasitic one, whereby the fetus is the parasite and the mother is the host, and the former is completely dependent upon the latter. In a very large sense, this state of affairs is no different than our relation to a human infant, which is also wholly dependent upon an adult, usually its biological parent, though not always, and even though there is no longer an in utero biological connection. For one to say that she ought to have control over her body, and therefore the dependent fetus' existence, is logically equivalent to saying that she ought to have control over the use of her body in all circumstances (e.g., her time and labor), and, therefore, even over a dependent child's existence. In other words, I believe that the underlying argument for abortion, when we strip away the bark, is logically equivalent to arguments one might make for infanticide or for not caring for others dependent upon us, even the elderly.

Some will rightly argue that we can easily regress to absurdity if we do not draw the line as to when organic tissue ought to be the subject of morality. There is always going to be some arbitrariness in choosing the criteria for when an abortion might be legitimate. The critical consideration is to what extent do the mother's interests outweigh the suffering of the fetus. We must of course first establish what the capacity for suffering is. While there is eventually some point where we can say the fetus no longer suffers, we are still left with the matter of potential---that is, the potential for a full life, for personhood, however we define it. I would not want to overstate the importance of this, however, for we can speak of the potential of sperm and ova, too. Notwithstanding the Catholic Church's view on the sanctity of sperm, based on some rather fantastic musings of the good Saint Thomas Aquinas, this seems to carry things too far. The critical difference for moral formulations is that sperm and ova do not experience suffering. Similarly, there is no reason to suspect the embryo at its earliest stages is capable of suffering.

The question remains, ought there to be legal consequences for an immoral abortion? It certainly sounds right when we say that the government ought to protect innocent lives; but this is perhaps too glib in relation to abortion, for the facts relating to homicides among the born are generally much less complicated than the facts and expected outcomes that pertain to pregnancy and abortion, and they certainly are not as subjective. What agreed-upon criteria would the government use, and who in government would be charged with determining whether or not an abortion is ever justified, as it surely sometimes is? I myself would not be too anxious to involve the government in reproductive affairs, even though I believe abortion is a very significant moral problem for individuals. As a general rule, I think that government power ought to be limited and well defined, for it tends to be abused and to grow in unintended and unwelcome ways. The evils that result from restricting our personal liberties can too easily outweigh the benefits.

Government ought not to be involved in preventing or even punishing every immoral activity individuals commit. It is usually immoral to lie and to break our promises, for example, but I do not want the government involved in trying to prevent every lie or broken promise, or to punish people for every transgression. Laws cannot protect society against every breach of morality. Not only is it impractical, it would be highly undesirable to have the state involved in nearly every human activity. With that said, I also do not want government involved in supporting immoral activities, directly or indirectly through funding, or in forcing others to do so (for example, forcing medical insurers to pay claims for elective abortions).

I should like to make it very clear that I am quite sympathetic with the special burdens women have as the bearers of our species' children, and as the ones who most often end up as their primary care givers, not to mention caring for nearly everyone else in the family. I am not saying that this is the way it ought to be. It is an empirical observation of how things are. It is a disproportionate burden to that endured by most men, and there seems to be no parity, perhaps especially in modern societies, for men are not required to protect and provide for the family as they might have been in former times.

Because of their extra burden, one that cannot be fully shared, it is reasonable for women to expect the support of society in ensuring their health and safety during pregnancy, and in providing minimally acceptable standards of living while raising children. Similarly, women who do not want to have children ought to be able to receive a basic level of care during pregnancy, and to have assistance in arranging for adoption of the baby upon birth and, of course, in helping to maintain her privacy. Moreover, women ought to be free from any social stigma or from any discrimination under the law as a result of a perfectly natural act. For society to provide anything less is patently uncivilized, not to mention hazardous to our own kind. I should think if society behaved more responsibly in these matters, women who had an undesired pregnancy would be much more likely to persevere through it. The fact is, however, our puritanical notions about sex and chastity, especially in relation to women, make this difficult.

And I do not want men to get off the hook, here, for their own sexual nature and their lack of control over their impulses, especially amongst younger males, often puts girls and women at an unfair risk of potentially burdensome consequences, particularly when the male does not marry her or provide continuing financial and emotional support to both her and the child. Young males need to be taught responsibility by their parents, including abstemious behavior, ideally, but also using proper birth control (condoms) and, if things go wrong, living up to one's duty to one's female lover and to one's children.

To conclude, I believe the proponents of abortion on demand are guilty of specious reasoning on various levels. They often hold very inconsistent views regarding the value of life. Their misunderstanding of the moral issues involved help to give license to a great deal of unnecessary suffering under the guise of the furtherance of liberty and rights. I do not believe the advocates of unfettered "choice" are evil, but I think they do fail to grasp the ramifications of their moral relativism. I do not advocate more govenrment intrusion into our personal lives; however, there is a very dark, even perverted aspect to the clamoring for "the right to choose." Calling the choice to terminate a life a "right" is itself a complete distortion of morality, and an example of Orwellian "newspeak" if ever there were one. This devaluation of life serves to coarsen society, and it is a tide that I hope we will reverse before it is finally too late.

Financial Prudence, Republican Style

2004-05-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 6-25-05

I am at once amused and rather annoyed by the myth that the Republicans are better managers of money than Democrats. It is a canard that persists, despite abundant empirical evidence to the contrary. Many assume that the party most identified with business is also good at dealing with money. The GOP's identification with business most likely got its legs under President Taft, following the apostasy of trust buster and party spoiler, Teddy Roosevelt, and it solidified under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, both sycophants of big business interests. The latter nearly made a religion of it when he wrote, "The man who builds a factory builds a temple. The man who works there worships there." And not least of all, Republicans have been adept at promoting themselves as astute financial managers. The fact is, they have always been better at marketing than at handling money, especially other people's money.

Business seeks political power to protect its own interests, and not in order to further the national interest, though those ends are sometimes congruent. Business has shown often enough that it will sleep with the Devil if it furthers the attainment of its ends. And because of this, the business class will just as easily cozy up to Democrats when it becomes necessary. Most business PACs, for example, play both sides against the middle, making contributions to both parties and to candidates holding opposite positions on an issue. It is certainly true, however, that business is more comfortable with the GOP, in large part because of Republican tax policies and anti-regulatory rhetoric.

I suspect the business class, as a whole, tends to be uneasy with the minority interests, messy politics, and petty intellectualism that often dominate the Democratic Party. Democratic politics are alien to their managerial sensibilities and what I think many Republicans imagine to be their greater pragmatism. In any case, the predilection businesses have for Republicans is certainly not justified by historical fact, for the overall economy has not performed as well under Republicans as it has under Democrats, and the federal budget has not been managed as effectively. Besides, as any student of business history knows, a very large percentage, perhaps even the majority, of businesses fail; so it simply does not follow that the political party allied with business also will excel at handling money.

Let us begin with the federal deficit, which many use as a measure of prudent management. Looking at Republican and Democratic administrations from Kennedy through Clinton, 20 years of each kind, and adjusting for inflation using 1996 dollars, we find that twenty years of Republican budgets increased our debt by $3.8 trillion, with an average yearly deficit of $190 billion. In contrast, twenty years under Democratic presidents increased the debt by $719.5 billion, with an average yearly deficit of $36 billion. During this same period, total federal spending rose at an average rate of 7.57% while Republicans were president, and at an average rate of 6.96% under Democratic presidents. OK, then, let’s take defense spending out of it, since some might argue Republicans were saddled with higher bills for a defense build up. In this case, under Republicans, our non-defense spending rose at an average rate of 10.08%, whereas, under Democrats it rose an average of 8.34%. In other words, that does not help the Republican case at all. It is of course quite true that Democrats tend to tax and spend. On the other hand, Republicans borrow unashamedly, and then they spend even more.

What about the general economy? Businessmen are especially apt to think things will go better for them with Republicans. Again, however, the evidence confutes the conventional wisdom. For twenty years in which Republican presidents submitted a budget, the average rate of GDP growth was 2.94%. For the twenty years in which Democratic presidents submitted budgets, the average rate of GDP growth was 3.92%. Using the same periods, the inflation rate under Republicans was 4.96%, whereas it was 4.26% under Democrats. As for unemployment, during these periods it averaged 6.75% under Republicans and 5.1% under Democrats.

The Stock Trader’s Almanac shows that since 1900, the S&P 500, perhaps the best measure of the general health of business in our country, averaged a 13.4% annual return under Democratic presidents as opposed to 8.1% under Republican presidents. What happens if we eliminate the extremes? By removing the Hoover administration, the start of WWII under Roosevelt, and Nixon’s inflationary second term, stockholders were still 2.7% better off under Democratic administrations. Not one significant measure of performance shows that Republicans are better at running the economy.

What about the longer view with the GDP? This doesn’t help them, either. In fact, it’s even worse for the GOP. Since 1930, which is the first year solid data became available, real growth averaged 5.4% under the Democrats and only 1.6% for the Republicans. In other words, just about any way one looks at it, the economy has performed better under Democratic administrations. And, let us not forget, Republican Herbert Hoover presided over the first several years of the Great Depression, our greatest economic catastrophe, and the several administrations that led up to it were also Republican.

Not convinced? Maybe you think it had more to do with who was in charge of the Congress. Alas, this does not help the Republican cause, either. According to Slate Magazine, since 1900, the Republican Senate showed S&P returns of 9.4% versus 10.5% for a Democratic Senate, and 8.1% and 10.9%, respectively, for the House of Representatives.

Some will no doubt say that such statistics are misleading, for they do not account for the time necessary for Republicans to make corrections, and that they unfairly allow Democrats to take credit for the work of others. However, the comparisons hold up just as well even if we eliminate the first year of office of both, giving them each time to correct the errors of their predecessor or to make new ones of their own. Republicans cannot win the argument by shifting time periods.

Then there’s the myth that Republicans deplore big government. This is especially laughable. Just in case the foregoing history of expenditures does not put that tall tale to rest, put this additional nail in the coffin: of the nearly 369,000 non-defense employees that were added to the federal payroll from 1961-2001, only 16% were added under Democratic presidencies, whereas, 84% of them were added under Republican administrations. And not one, again, not one Republican administration had a net reduction. In contrast, both Presidents Carter and Clinton presided over smaller governments at the end of their administrations than the ones they inherited. So much for the "Republicans dislike big government" argument; it is a demonstrably false proposition.

President Bush does not excel at very much in my judgment, and he and his Republican Congress have been simply disastrous when it comes to the economy and managing taxpayer money. His track record would make the foregoing numbers even worse. Time will tell if he can turn it around; but he’s quickly running out of time. According to economist Robert Samuelson, even excluding defense and key entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, federal spending has risen 4.8% per year under Bush, which is the highest rate since another Republican, Richard Nixon, held office. Indeed, Bush rammed through the most costly spending program since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society: the Medicare drug plan. And not one dime of its cost is paid through current revenue; it is all from deficit financing. In his fifth year of office, President Bush still has not vetoed even one spending initiative. President Clinton was positively parsimonious by comparison.

Now, some might think I believe Democrats are a whole lot better than Republicans at money management. No, I think they are only somewhat better, and certainly not enough to brag about. History, however, shows that Democrats are more likely to live within their means, and that they are less likely to create economic mischief, in part, no doubt, because of their lack of unity. I think history also shows that Democrats have done more for capitalism than Republicans in the last century. Just to cite several examples, Franklin Roosevelt squelched the seeds of a burgeoning socialist revolution by dealing with capitaism's rough edges; Jimmy Carter deregulated more economic sectors than Ronald Reagan, and he had the wisdom to appoint Paul Volker to the Fed, who did all of the heavy lifting to shackle inflation, for which Reagan falsely took credit, and which was the necessary ingredient for the expansion of the 80s and 90s; and Bill Clinton gave greater impetus to economic globalism (e.g., through NAFTA, among other initiatives) and the growth of capitalism, worldwide, than any president before or since.

To be sure, Democrats have a propensity to talk as though are going to implement a great many costly social programs, but mostly it’s just so much hot air. Once elected, they seem to become more circumspect in managing their checkbook than their rhetoric would suggest. In contrast, Republicans talk as though they are going to do a lot of belt tightening and cutting of useless programs, but that's also a lot of hot air; all they really manage to do is to spend even more than the Democrats on borrowed money, money that will have to be paid back by future generations, with interest. In other words, both parties tend to do the opposite of what one might expect. But they also will say what is necessary for them to get elected.

The sad truth is that the duplicitous rhetoric of campaigning is more significant in forming the perceptions of the party faithful about what their party stands for than is their party's actual performance while in office. That is one reason why those of us who are not so partisan and rather less faithful tend to be cynical about politicians of any stripe. In any event, one thing is certain, historically, the Republicans have done worse than the Democrats in the economic realm, and there is little evidence to suggest that this will change in the near term. I remain hopeful, nevertheless.

The Ludicrous Left, the Ridiculous Right, and Rational Objectivism

2004-05-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 7-15-05

Ideologues belonging to the extremes of both ends of the political spectrum have always had several things in common. Of course, they are loath to admit they are driven by some of the same tendencies. I should like to introduce my appellation for a contrasting outlook, namely, rational objectivism, which eschews the ideological approach. Rational objectivism is something about which I have written extensively elsewhere, though my focus was primarily on its applications to ethics and metaethics. It does have a much broader application, however; indeed, I think it represents the way one looks at things as a whole, even outside of the social realm.

I used to think that the descriptor liberalism conveyed my meaning. Alas, both self-described liberals and their shrill opponents have seemingly done irretrievable damage to the once venerable term. In any case, permit me to begin by describing some of the hallmark attributes of ideologues of both the right and the left, whose world views represent the antitheses of what liberalism once meant. Afterwards, I shall return to the matter of rational objectivism.

Perhaps the most obvious, shared characteristic is that ideologues of the left and right both adhere to a set of invariant principles that constitute the lens through which everything else is viewed. The mark of the ideologue of any stripe is that all of reality can be judged in terms of their fundamental beliefs, notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary. Thus, for example, the left-wing Marxist will find a way to relate dialectical materialism to developments in science, and the right-wing nativist will pin all of society's moral or economic ills on immigration.

Rightists tend to be much less concerned about having a systematic, consistent approach to understanding the world than are leftists. They can adopt the scientific method for some matters, say, for developing better technology for military uses, but they will not use it elsewhere when it does not comport with their other, more fundamental beliefs. For example, they are more than willing to set science aside when it comes to understanding the world's origins or human biology and psychology. The right tends to be suspicious of intellectuals, people who trade in words and ideas, and they are more inclined towards the visceral kinds of emotions that underlie nationalism and religiosity, and what they imagine to be the "common sense" outlook of the plain man, the man in the street, rather than university dons, those geeky, awkward kids that they made fun of in the schoolyard.

Leftists, on the other hand, love their systems, plans, and consistency, and they are prone to confusing intellectualism, a life of the mind, or what they imagine it to be, with intelligence. They find discrete thinking difficult, and, therefore, they will allow rigorous consistency with their most sacred principles to lead to the most absurd conclusions. Thus, for example, leftists correctly posit that everyone has equal moral rights (though the left is often confused about what they are), and this leads them to demand equality in every realm, not just equal opportunities, but equal outcomes in life. In effect, the property of equality is seen as being intrinsically virtuous, as opposed to its being a desirable property in relation to a specific social construct, such as the law or morality.

The left is no better with science than the right, either, as anyone familiar with the politicization of science in the former Soviet Union knows, especially the damage that Lysenkoism did to the genetic and biological sciences there, which were conducted in accordance with the uninformed pronouncements of Marx and Lenin instead of the empirical evidence of Darwin and Mendel. Point out to a leftist that there are differences between female and male brains, and she will undoubtedly accuse you of sexism. The leftist never lets science stand in the way of received and undemonstrated doctrines.

The intellectuals of the left prattle on about the needs of the working man and "the people," pretending to love the common man. In reality, however, they ridicule the average person's beliefs and the things that he holds dear, and they would have him adhere to a very different set of values than what he would choose for himself. They are in love with their own idealized and abstract version of "the people," not the people as they really are. The truth is that leftists despise the unwashed masses just as much as they do anyone else who does not share their views.

Another attribute the members of the extreme left and right share is the abiding need for everyone else to live in accordance with their ideals. They simply cannot stand the fact that others might see things differently; therefore, they are committed proselytizers, and they are highly intolerant of those who will not convert to their point of view. Socialists and religionists are equally uncomfortable with nonbelievers, and I think this is because their mere existence might cause the believer to have doubt. True believers, by their very nature, do not want to have any uncertainty. They cannot find peace with ambiguity, not only in explaining the past and the here and now, but more than anything, in understanding or dealing with the future.

This leads to the other common denominator, namely, a belief in a Utopia, either in this world or in the next one. Many of us would view such visions as being examples of dystopias. The left is looking for that giant campfire in a workers paradise, around which everyone sings from the same songbook in perfect harmony and in blissful comity, without deviation from the centrally-planned notes and lyrics of their self-styled philosopher kings. Leftists imagine themselves as lovers of freedom, but the reality is that they are utterly opposed to individuality and liberty, for they do not believe people ought to dispose of their fairly acquired property as they desire and they would deny people their right to be left alone. At every level the leftist intends to interfere with how a person lives, with the objective of molding his feelings, thoughts, and behaviors to comport to their ideal of how one ought to live. The leftist has an expecially censorious personality, and it is no coincidence that "political correctness" is primarily a creature of the left.

The right is primarily concerned that its tribe remains uncontaminated by impure elements, which often enough consist of other races, immigrants, and nonbelievers. Their Utopia consists of what they imagine to be a superior kind of citizenry, often based on race, and almost always nationality and religion. Rightists want their sacred rituals and symbols to be prominent aspects of daily life. They glory in displays of power, especially of the military sort. They do not necessarily begrudge the existence of other tribes, that is, as long as they remain subservient. They, too, want an authority figure, not a philosopher king, but an uber-father, for they are especially admiring of stern, authoritarian figures, the tougher and more belligerent, the better, whether this is in their choice of deities or tribal chieftains. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Christian right is much more at home with the intolerance of Paul and the prophets of the Old Testatment than with the peaceful homilies of Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount.

I don't want to let other kinds of political ideologues escape our attention, here. For example, libertarian ideologues fancy themselves as being neither rightists nor leftists, and something quite different that defies traditional political categories. Whether or not this is true, they can be just as extreme and silly as the others when they carry their radical individualism too far. In such cases, they deny the obvious: we are social animals with communal needs, and with social obligations that arise from necessity and our very nature. I cannot help but observe that some of the libertarians I have met would not fare well in the jungle, alone, surviving without the support of others. I suspect they know is true this and that their beliefs are not altogether genuine, and that their view arises from an idealized version of the rugged individualists that they imgine themselvesto be.

And those who believe moderation is the key to all things can also take their view to an absurd extreme. Modifying a pithy campaign pitch from the late Barry Goldwater, who was not always sensible, but who at times could be remarkably insightful, I do not think there is a great virtue in moderation in the pursuit of certain moral principles. Moderation for its own sake is not always praiseworthy; for example, a moderate view about slavery is hardly commendable. Moderation about genocide is deplorable. And what, after all, is the moderate position between truth and falsity? Is there some Aristotelian mean to be found there? I think not. There is no virtue in being moderate about the use of sound logic and veridical evidence, for example, especially if it means that we must accept some amount of nonsense for the sake of striking a balance. In contrast, there is most definitely a need to be moderate and tentative about one's conclusions, for we do not always use logic and evidence correctly.

Unlike the monolithic and systematic view of the universe or of our social arrangements that ideologues espouse, rational objectivism consists of the view that logic and evidence are the best tools for formulating our views about the world; however, it also requires that our conclusions ought to be constantly inspected for verifiability (or falsifiability, if you prefer). It is an outlook that holds that there are truths, but that our understanding of all but the most trivial and tautological among them is often imperfect and, therefore, subject to revision. As such, rational objectivism evaluates the facts on their own merits, and it allows them to lead to conclusions even when they do not comport with an overarching, antecedent theory.

For example, rational objectivism can accept principles from both capitalist and socialist frameworks, placing a high value on individual liberty, without denying our obligations to others in society. A rational objectivist would allow that capitalist acts produce greater prosperity for a greater number with the least amount of disruption to liberty. At the same time, however, he would admit that not everyone who succeeds in a free market "deserves" to be successful by virtue of the fruits of his mind or sinew, and, similarly, not everyone who is unlucky and is at the bottom of society is there because of his own indolence or lassitude. He would agree that many variables condition and determine the outcomes of individuals, and some of them are outside of a person's control. The rational objectivist sees merit in the notion that those who gain some advantages from society also have a duty to assist those who do not.

Rational objectivism is consistent with pluralism, but, at the same time, it enables us to distinguish between worthwhile cultural traits and immoral ones (e.g., the subjugation of females or minorities), and it does not require the preservation of the latter in order to hew to the absurd ideal of cultural equality, which many multiculturalists or cultural relativists promote. It does not respect the primitive or irrational simply because it continues to obtain in the world, and it does not believe everything is equally tolerable, such that, for example, the Taliban or other psychopathic social structures should be allowed to flourish.

Rational objectivism is not a form of Jamesian pragmatism, suggesting that truth is simply that which works, something that has "cash value;" instead, it accepts workability as a means of validating provisional truths. But it also maintains that there are final truths, truths independent of our perceptions and mental constructs, notwithstanding our inability to apprehend them fully. It is a method of looking at the world, but it does not offer a complete and certain picture of how the world looks, or even suggest that such a systematic rendering of reality is possible. It is a propaedeutic to understanding, a philosophy that emphasizes the means of discovery. By its very nature, it bespeaks of tolerance, for it encourages us to inspect and question what we accept as true, which necessarily allows for differences in belief. This is alien to all ideologies, for they purport to have final truths, and questioning, therefore, is tantamount to heresy.

Rational objectivism is not necessarily incompatible with our emotional and aesthetic nature. I do not propose to deny the importance of our feelings. On the contrary, along with David Hume, I do not think the ends of society or of individual human beings can be decided by reason alone. The determination of ends is primarily the province of our passions, our desires. However, I do believe that Nature's gift of reason, which, as far as we know, is what makes our species unique on earth, remains the best means of attaining them, or occasionally showing their incompatibility with our other, more important objectives. I think that rigid ideologies, of all types, and the dogmatic temperaments that adhere to them, represent significant obstacles to both reason and the realization of our most important aspirations.

The Road to Hell, Forgiveness, and Morality

2004-05-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

by Michael E. Berumen 7-20-05

Terrorists who place bombs on trains and buses and who ram airplanes into buildings are in love with their beliefs. So are the rest of us. Our thoughts, our capacity for belief, are among the things that make homo sapiens unique among animals on terra firma. Our beliefs give us comfort in times of stress; they inform the way we perceive the world; and they often guide our actions, or, at the very least, the way that we would like to act. Given their importance to each of us, our vanity in relation to them is understandable. We take our beliefs seriously. Our love affair with our own thoughts even motivates us to make our views known to others, the author obviously being no exception. And when others believe as we do, our confidence in our outlook is often strengthened. However, while we might hold certain beliefs very dearly, even passionately, we do not always act on them. And that is a very good thing; for if we did, more of us might be guilty of having committed horrible deeds.

I contend that the terrorists and other "true believers," people of unshakeable and unquestioning conviction, are fundamentally narcissistic, for their own worldview is the principal object of their attention, and, above all, they think that holding these beliefs give them superior moral standing. I believe this is what enables them to remain detached from their horrific actions, for the consequences are obscured by their utter fascination with and dedication to their own ideas. It is, for example, their belief in everlasting paradise; in being a martyr for God; in their cause and its higher moral purpose, whatever it may be, that is of singular importance. Nonbelievers, of course, are especially expendable to them; but it is noteworthy that fellow believers often are, as well, for the the perpetrators conceive of the act as being for the greater good, namely, the fulfillment of their belief system. This is why Islamic terrorists are not at all uncomfortable with the toll their actions take on other Muslims. The end, their belief made real, justifies the means.

The tendency of true believers to view believing in a particular way as an adequate measure of a person's moral value, and most especially their own, is a particularly subtle and important error among our kind. This perspective does not always trigger terrible acts, due, in part, to a healthy dose of cowardice and a strong sense of self-preservation on the part of most humans; but I believe it lies behind many of the tragedies that have occurred throughout history. I also maintain that those who believe that simply having the belief constitutes nothing less than a moral stance represent a special danger to everyone else, especially when they occupy positions of power or when they have highly destructive weapons within their grasp.

It is not entirely surprising that people place a great deal of emphasis on their beliefs, given, as I said before, the importance we place on our own thoughts. And this is perhaps most evident when we go to judge another's moral character, for a person's beliefs are thought to reflect his purity of heart; they are seen as a window to the inner workings of his soul; and they are believed to indicate his moral integrity or wholeness. The problem is that such personality traits are often deemed to be even more important than what one does, the actions one undertakes, and the concomitant consequences of one's conduct. And this speaks to one of the most persistent misconceptions about the nature of morality, for the most important rules of morality, universal rules that apply all of the time to every rational being, are not merely about what one believes or intends to do; they are concerned with our behavior, our acts, and specifically, the consequences of those acts, primarily the suffering that results (or that can be reasonably expected) from what we do.

Now, I do not for a moment mean to imply that what one believes is unimportant or that it does not affect one's actions. This, after all, is one reason why so many philosophers and moral leaders have focused on our motivation and the attributes that make up one's character. However, in my view, this emphasis on our individual outlook often has been disproportionate, and it has led many to think that if they only believe rightly, or if they have the proper motivation, they are moral because of it. This is simply untrue. Our beliefs might make us pious in the eyes of others; they may gain us entry through the gates of Heaven; they could cause approbation by Providence; but our beliefs do not make us moral. And, as the saying goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Our beliefs may be correct; our intentions might be good; our worldview might fully comport with the views of various authorities and sages; however, even so, if we act in a way that harms another without justification, our act is immoral.

The conflation of belief and knowledge is a large part of the problem. It is natural for us to think that what we believe constitutes actually knowing that something is the case. However, our beliefs have varying degrees of epistemic merit. For example, I can be certain about my experience of pain, but somewhat less certain about my belief that the sun will rise tomorrow, and even less certain about whether there is life on Mars. Most people believe that the earth is a sphere (to be precise, it is an ovaloid), but comparatively few people are able to demonstrate that it is with any rigor. A great deal of what we accept as true in daily life does not qualify as knowledge in the same sense as knowing that this is my hand, these are the tables and chairs in my dining room, and that person over there is my wife. Much of what we believe is not based on such direct evidence or on rigorous deduction. Many of our beliefs about morality, society, and nature are like this. The fact that we believe something to be so does not make it so. The difficulty with true believers is that they seldom know the difference. This is especially problematic on moral issues.

Some of all this emphasis on beliefs at the expense of a person's actions and the resultant effects, at least in Western culture, results from the seminal works of two Germans, namely, Martin Luther and Immanuel Kant. Other than Jesus Himself, Luther was arguably the most significant person in the history of Protestantism. Luther maintained that the grace of God does not come to us through our works, but as a gift freely bestowed by Him because of our faith in Jesus Christ and His teachings, which is to say, because of our beliefs. Having the right view in relation to God, therefore, is far more important than any action we could undertake in this world. Indeed, Luther railed extensively against the objectification of grace, or the idea that "good works" in life would suffice to purchase a place in Heaven. He protested against the Thomistic notion that our trivial actions could ever impress Omnipotence. It was what we believed that counted: our faith. Luther placed belief, our faith, on an even higher plane than mere knowledge, for how could such worthless creatures as ourselves know the mind of God.

Kant, one of the greatest and most influential moral philosophers of the modern era, believed that in order for our actions to possess moral merit, they must be formed by a good will, a will that is motivated to do good. Consequences are not nearly as important to Kant as formulating a course of action in accordance with reason and the dictates of pure motives. He thought we have no control over consequences, whereas we do have control over our motives, what we think. Conscience above all else mattered to Kant. This is probably partly a result of his Pietest upbringing. An act could not be deemed to have moral worth unless it was impelled by a pure motive.

While Luther and Kant were certainly not the first to emphasize conscience and motives over actions and their consequences (Augustine, for example, had a very similar view), they were perhaps the most influential. I have no doubt that many people who have never heard of Luther or Kant have been significantly influenced by others who have adopted their view that believing in the right thing (in Luther's case, having faith in the right thing) and having good intentions serve as paramount evidence of moral rectitude. In other words, they hold that we are able to judge another's moral character by what they believe, or more precisely, by what they say they believe, rather than by what they do. One could fill volumes by listing the number of pious evangelizers who have been thusly judged.

Good intentions are all well and good. I shall concede that they can be a sign of character and even how we might act. However, we can and we do act wrongly, notwithstanding our intentions. Just today, I was listening to Congressman Dick Durban on a talk show as he apologetically described how his recent statement comparing American prisons for alleged enemy combatants to the Gulags of the U.S.S.R. and Hitler's camps was "poorly worded." That is an understatement. When asked by the interviewer if, therefore, what he said was incorrect, he went on to repeat that his words were poorly chosen, but that his intention was correct, and that this, his intention, is really the important thing. He would not say that what he said was wrong; it was, after all, the belief, his motive, that mattered. While this is certainly not an example of an ethical breach, this well illustrates the disconnection that we sometimes have between our intentions and our actions, in this case, regarding a misstatement of fact. This very kind of disconnection can obtain when people act wrongly in much more egregious ways.

This also brings to mind a study done by psychologists some years ago of people with strong ideological or religious convictions versus people without such definite views, people who were more skeptical or agnostic. When put to the test, the scientists discovered that those with especially strong moral convictions were no less likely to cheat than those without them. In other words, the believers did not have a greater propensity to act morally. To illustrate this point in historical terms, one need only think of the pious, churchgoing folks of the Third Reich, people who were upstanding, polite, and who had very definite ideas about right and wrong, who stood by as Jews were marched into box cars and hauled off to death camps or, in some cases, even facilitated their demise. Consider also all of the passionate moralizers on the evangelical circuit in recent years who have proved to have clay feet. They are especially good examples of the fact that believing and talking about the belief is not enough to be called moral.

It would be very convenient, indeed, if all we had to do is to worry about our good intentions. One must also be accountable for what one actually does in the world. If I perpetrate harmful effects on others, the fact that I did not intend to do so might be a mitigating factor if, in fact, the acts were accidental; but not necessarily, for I might also be guilty of negligence arising from either selfishness or carelessness. Motive is not all, just as ends do not always justify the means. The fact that I blew up a building in order to send a strong message about my concern for the environment, a concern that might well be warranted, hardly absolves me from having destroyed another's property or from having caused injury or death to someone in the building, even if I believed no one was there. We must justify our actions, and having good intentions or having certain beliefs is not enough to do so.

Though one might be scrupulously devout, indeed, even righteous in the eyes of others, this is simply not enough to be deemed a moral person, for morality has to do with how we treat others, what we do to them, not merely what we think or say. All the prayer, sacrifice, and piety in the world do not erase one immoral act. And, this is true even if it contravenes someone's conception of what God does or does not want. Universal morality is not derived, ex cathedra, from spirits, prophets, or scriptures. It comes from our rational nature and an acceptance of impartiality, our common-sense understanding of what rationality proscribes for any individual, namely, causing harm to oneself, and then agreeing to extend these proscriptions to others who can also suffer. Morality, therefore, requires us to abandon our own egocentric nature and to apply our rational prohibitions to others.

Religious people and their non-religious, ideological counterparts often confuse doctrinal piety with morality. They are especially apt to characterize a person's devotion or obedience to certain principles as indicative of his moral worthiness. They are also quick to brand nonbelievers or deviants as immoral. Of course, their beliefs center on what they hold to be the inerrant words of their sacred texts or the revealed truths and promises of their deity and prophets. Such beliefs sometimes condition behavior such that some are willing to act on them, even without regard for the consequences to others or to themselves. We have seen this in recent years with Islamic terrorists. However, they are hardly unique, for believers claiming to represent other religions, including Christianity, have provided examples of similarly dreadful actions in the name of God. For the most part (though not always), societies that have nurtured the Enlightenment ideals of private property, tolerance, democracy, liberty, and the separation of church and state, have been able to avoid such things. However, such principles have never taken firm root in the Islamic world. It is also at once noteworthy and disturbing that some of these ideals of the Enlightenment are deplored by a growing number of Christians in the United States, and that in recent years they have enjoyed greater access to the levers of political power.

As a not entirely unrelated aside, I find it at once amusing and troubling that Christians believe that their sins will be forgiven if they only ask God for it in a sincere enough way. All Christians seem to subscribe to some version of this doctrine. Some Christian sects even have very specific procedures for seeking forgiveness. It is another variation of the idea that passionately believing in something is even more important than how we behave. It is undoubtedly a great relief to one who would commit evil to know that he can be so easily forgiven, especially by someone other than the victim. I have long thought that this idea, a central tenet of Christianity, and one that undoubtedly has given millions of largely decent folks some degree of comfort, also has been responsible for a great deal of evil over the centuries. The availability of such a facile option makes potential punishment in this life much more palatable to true believers, given that one can still look forward to eternal bliss. And if you're not caught, so much the better, you can still be forgiven in the end.

I myself think that forgiveness ought to be sought only from those who were adversely affected by our immoral acts, not from imaginary third parties. This requires more than mere praying, a solitary activity requiring little effort and no courage; it requires interaction with others with the very real possibility of rejection. Forgiveness does not come so easily as having it granted automatically from imaginary allies. And if we are lucky enough to get it from those in the best position to grant it, the victims, we might feel better about things; however, having received their forgiveness does not erase the moral transgression itself. What is more, not every conceivable offense is even forgivable, and, to my mind, it is even dangerous to foster such a view. I hardly think, for example, that someone who tortures and then kills an innocent child ought to be forgiven. We should not even hold out the possibility. Hitler's crimes against humanity are beyond forgiveness. There is no absolution for what he did. I am not suggesting that we should be unforgiving in all things, mind you. I simply would suggest that we ought not to make sinning against others so obviously convenient, especially in the most malefecent cases.

In any case, morality is not simply about our inner lives, our feelings, our beliefs, or our motives. It is about what we do. It is a social construct, not merely something residing in an individual's mind. Morality consists of a set of rules that proscribes or prescribes conduct in relation to others. A man with an unsavory character on a desert island with no prospect of human contact might well be contemptible for his thoughts, but he is not immoral as a result. Similarly, a man who has pure thoughts, prays every day, and who scrupulously obeys his religious code cannot be seriously characterized as behaving morally, other than in a trivial way, if he is bereft of any exposure to others capable of being harmed, which is to say, capable of feeling pain, lied to, cheated, disabled, or killed. This contrasts with the prayerful and pious man, who, like the terrorists with whom I began, brings unjustifiable harm to others. From a moral perspective, the latter are even more contemptible than our characterless islander who never acts on his beliefs. We must not confuse the strength of an individual's personal convictions, whether or not we approve of them, with the moral worth of his acts. There is often a relationship between them, to be sure; but they remain very different things.

Reality, Fact, and Truth

2004-05-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

Reality, Fact, and Truth
by Michael E. Berumen 8-15-05

Few subjects occupy as much space in philosophy as reality and truth, basically, our attempts to understand what obtains and to describe it accurately. Philosophers discuss the constituent parts of reality as represented by facts. The man in the street considers a fact to be what is real, but many philosophers mean something rather different, namely, that a fact is what we assert about reality, a proposition that purports to describe it, a string of symbols whose meanings have some rough to exact correspondence to what is or to what was or even to what will be. More specifically, a fact is a true proposition. And here is the source of much of the philosophical clutter, namely, trying to understand what it is that makes a proposition true.

Some facts or propositions are tautological, which is to say, they are true by definition. Logical and mathematical propositions are examples of tautological truths. Strictly speaking, a logical tautology does not require that its constituent parts be true, only its form. Thus, for example, the proposition "The pail is full or it is not full" is necessarily true (let's ignore the disputes on the law of the excluded middle for our purposes), notwithstanding the truth of its constituent parts or its descriptive properties. It is only the form "A v -A" that is important, not its content, at least, insofar as the logician is concerned. The truth of a tautology does not depend upon anyone's observation of states in the world or of any facts outside of logic and mathematics. The only "reality" such propositions describe, in and of themselves, is the reality of language and rules. When we bind these formal terms with cognitive content of one sort or another, they might be used to describe other properties of the world; but such content is not the product of the formal structure of the proposition or its terms.

Other facts are judged to be true by virtue of their having been observed to be true. They are judged empirically, and they are therefore true by virtue of their corresponding in some sense to what we apprehend through our experience, that is, from our perception. At the most primitive level, our apprehension of such truths is not aided by any process of ratiocination. They are not true by definition or through pure reason, other than in the sense that our language, or the way we use it, matches up in some way with our experience. The proposition, “The sun is yellow,” is something we judge to be true because we see that the object in the sky corresponds to our notion of a yellow sun , a notion that is expressed in words with definite meanings. While these words have definitions, our understanding of the essential truth of the proposition does not depend merely on these definitions, but on actually seeing the yellow sun. In other words, verifying the truth of the proposition depends on our actual experience, an experience that the words are supposed to describe in a way that both we and others understand. Our understanding of its truth does not emerge from the proposition itself or from some prior definition, but from the actual experience.

Obviously, a blind man can also “know” that "The sun is yellow" is true, or at least, he can know it in a sense, notwithstanding the fact that he is unable to see the sun or understand yellow in quite the same way. He knows it is yellow because he has been told that it is yellow by someone who is directly acquainted with it. In other words, he knows its truth indirectly, by description, rather than by direct acquaintance. A great deal of what we believe to be true, what we call knowledge, is like this. It is not based on our first-hand experience, but on the alleged experiences of others. Most of our knowledge of history, for example, is based on the description of others; indeed, a great deal of it is filtered by generations who have not had direct experience, but who base their assertions on the descriptions of others. It is also generally fair to say that our historical knowledge, as with most knowledge, comes in degrees of accuracy. For example, our knowledge of what happened in Philadelphia in 1776 is probably better than what we know about what happened in Rome in 44 BC. In general, however, if our sources and their methods are deemed to be reliable, we accept the statements of those who report on historical events as being true.

Much of what we consider to be true depends upon our having repeated observations. For example, “The sun will rise tomorrow” is a proposition we believe to be true because we have had many experiences of the sun rising at approximately the same time, leading us to believe that it will rise again with similar periodicity in the future. The statement, “It will probably rain soon” might be given a high degree of credibility because we see a giant cumulus nimbus cloud overhead, and because in many other instances, such a sighting is followed by rain. When I hear the doorbell ring, there’s a good chance someone will be there when I open the door; such as been the case on many other occasions. These are so-called inductive truths. They are not derived from pure reason, but from our experience. We assume that the future will resemble the past. Many of our endeavors rely on inductive reasoning, for example, science, business, and just daily living; basically, wherever we make judgments about the future based on what occurred in the past.

Now, inductive truths are notoriously less reliable than formal, deductive truths. They do not share the same apodictic nature of conclusions that depend only on definitions and rules. There are many things that can go wrong with our observations, for example, our senses can play tricks on us; appearances can be deceiving; and with particularly complex experiments, variables can be difficult to control. For another, as David Hume has shown, underlying all of this is the assumption that there is uniformity in nature, such that the future will resemble the past, and that what we suppose to be physical laws will continue through time and from place to place. It is not irrational to make these assumptions, for they would appear to work for us. However, that by no means proves the truth of our underlying assumptions. As we see in many areas, for example, the stock market, measuring insurance risks, and meteorology, there is no guarantee that the future will resemble the past, or at least, that we can understand the latter well enough to make completely reliable assessments of what will occur.

Beyond relatively trivial, formal truths, logical (or mathematical) arguments that, when combined with other information, purport to say something about the world, are true only insofar as the descriptive properties of the terms are also true. Scientific propositions are of this sort, for they often combine elements of formal reason with empirical data. Such truths are those that we (or others) observe to be true through repeated experience that, in turn, are buttressed by the formal reasoning of mathematics and logic. Science combines, formal deductive reasoning with observation. If our formal statements are properly structured, meaning that our arguments are valid, our conclusions are necessarily true if the constituent parts of the argument that depend upon empirical research are also true. In other words, if the premises are true in such cases, a valid argument guarantees a true conclusion. Obviously, when we are dealing with the uncertainties associated with observation, not to mention the underlying and very undemonstrated assumption of uniformity, all of this ifiness is not to be taken lightly.

Ludwig Wittgenstein famously said that the world consists of facts. Both in his earlier “Tractatus era” and in his later “Investigations era,” he essentially boiled the world down to what we say about it. Language was reality for Wittgenstein. He was mistaken. The world is more than what we say, and it consists of whatever it has. We make assertions about it, assertions that are themselves factual or not; however, that they are facts (or not) does not depend on our verification of them, any more than reality depends on what we say about it. The facts themselves are representations or descriptions of reality, which, of course do depend on the possibility of language. However, propositions are true or false or even meaningless even though they are unknown to us. Their truth, in other words, does not depend on their having been said, only on their having some relationship to reality.

Now it is important to get this thing straight. A fact is not reality itself. The fact that "Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492," is not the same thing as Columbus doing the sailing in 1492. The fact is a description, a proposition. When I say, "Columbus did such-and-such," and someone else says, "That is a fact," the latter does not mean what Columbus did and what I said are synonymous or identical. The proposition is not the reality itself. The proposition is the fact portraying reality. The factness is a supervenient property of what Columbus did. It is not what he did. When someone says, "Here is a list of facts," the list does not consist of the state of affairs in the world, only their portrayal of them (except, perhaps, in the trivial case of a list of logical or mathematical facts, though even that is debatable).

Reality is what is, it is the universe that exists, whether or not it is an object of perception. It is the collection of everything. If, as some have assumed, it depends on being perceived, it nevertheless is what there is. True propositions are facts. To be sure, they are also real in the sense that the words are real, and therefore part of reality, but they are not identical to what they describe. What is more, facts that are the case are true even before our having strung the words together. A fact does not depend on our having discovered it, only on its possibility and correspondence to reality. Similarly, truth does not depend on our having found it. Truth is not given or bestowed on a proposition by our having verified something. Truth is not an activity. Truth and verifiability, or our ability to test something, are quite different. That "The world is spirit" is a true or false proposition does not depend on our ability to ascertain whether it is, or even on anyone's having ever formulated the proposition.

Had our ancestors never climbed down from the trees onto the savannah, had we never progressed beyond the australopithecines, many of the facts that we "know" today would still have been facts, notwithstanding their having never been discovered by us, or our having any means of verifying them. The obvious exception are the facts that depend upon our having done something; but most of reality is not a function of our existence. The truth of facts ultimately depends on reality, not on our perception or on our understanding of them. In other words, truth is not merely an action on our part, something we do or a determination we make, it is a relationship between a proposition and reality, a kind of correspondence, even though the proposition was never been uttered by any being. A proposition is a possibility, even before it has been said, or if it never is.

There is not a necessary correspondence between the world as it is and our logical constructs, even though we are unable to conceive of anything else. The truth of the law of identity, for example, depends only on a formal definition. And while we believe that any object is identical to itself, because we cannot think of it as being any other way, as Immanuel Kant has shown, the nature of the object as it exists outside of or apart from our experience, or as he called it, "the thing in itself," independent of our perception of it, remains beyond our reach. It is unintelligible in the sense that we cannot know it purely, in an unfettered, direct sense, without imposing our own mode of understanding. We cannot set aside the limits of our faculties of sensation and perception. Nevertheless, we hope that what we infer from behind the wall that separates our understanding from what really is has some semblance to the truth. But that there is truth without our understanding it is undeniable.

Furthermore, there is no mystical realm of propositions. They do not exist before they are uttered, at least, not in the same sense that the other objects of the universe do. The are supervenient, even when they are mere possibilities (having never been formulated), and their truth depends only on reality. In the case of tautological truths, however, truth is definitional and, therefore, depends on the propositions themselves, and again, notwithstanding the fact they have never been formulated. In other words, Euler's discoveries were true even before he discovered them. Whether or not there is any relationship or correspondence between these and whatever else that might obtain in the world is another consideration altogether: an empirical consideration. Empirical propositions are not true by definition. They are true because they correspond to or accurately depict the physical world.

Believing a proposition is true is not tantamount to knowing it is true. To know that something is true is to verify it, to assess it using some standard, either through ratiocination, through perception, or some combination of these. Knowing is acting. Knowledge, unlike truth, does depend on our discovery, on verification. Determining that we know and how we know are epistemological issues. However, truth, while not altogether unconcerned with epistemology, deals with what is, with the facts in the world, and their relationship to reality. The act of knowing is not the same thing as this or that being true. It is the process of apprehending truth. The truth of a proposition does not depend on our understanding it.

We can have true beliefs without really knowing what we believe is true. Our knowledge often comes in degrees. Most people believe that 2 + 2 + 4. However, very few can actually demonstrate that this is the case. It took Russell and Whitehead many pages of abstruse reasoning to do so. People often confuse what they believe with what they know, even when what they believe is true. For example, many people correctly believe that the Earth moves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit. However, relatively few really know that this is true in the sense that their knowledge is based on a thorough understanding or on some process of verification, much as one might expect of an astronomer. It is important to understand, however, that the fact that something is or is not true does not depend on one's knowledge about it or on one's beliefs about it, though these are of obvious interest and importance.

Some philosophers have said that truth is basically what works for us, what succeeds within a particular operational framework. This is the pragmatic or instrumentalist philosophy propounded by William James and John Dewey. James famously described truth as having "cash value." There is no denying, in some sense, it is correct to say that in verifying that a given proposition is true we also mean that it successfully describes what the case is. But the pragmatists mean something more than that we have successfully verified something; they mean that truth, itself, is something that works for us, that it is something we have verified, notwithstanding its relationship to what obtains. Such a view of truth, I believe, devolves into a kind of silliness. For example, James holds that if a belief in a god brings us comfort and makes it easier to understand the world around us, it is therefore true, even if there is no means of verifying that there is a god existing independent of our belief. With such a conception, truth is reduced to a kind of psychological disposition.

To my mind, if something is judged to be true, its truth does not depend on its producing a commodious result, but on its being an accurate depiction of the world. This is not to say that we are often able to arrive at anything other than approximations, especially in the case of matters that we judge empirically and inferentially. What we hold to be true might well “work” within a particular framework, and later be shown to be incorrect or inoperable in another kind of framework, as in the case of Newton’s conception of action-at-a-distance versus Einstein’s theory of general relativity. But Newton’s conception is not true because it successfully got us to the moon. It was, we now "know", an approximation of the truth. We now believe Einstein’s conception of gravity and space-time to be an even more accurate depiction, and not simply because it successfully describes certain phenomena, but because we think it depicts the way things really are. Even so, we readily admit that it might not be the final word on the matter.

The most firm truths, the things we can hold to be absolute, such as the formalities of truth tables and the laws of Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens, are quite unimportant when considered apart from our experience. The more tentative truths that we most depend upon, for example, the truths of history, science, and just daily living, are much more crucial and, unfortunately, much less reliable. That does not mean there are no final truths beyond trivial, tautological ones; it only means that we ought to be wary of being too sure of ourselves. We need to be prepared to have our judgments proved false, even the ones we hold most dearly. However, illusive though they are, there are truths, just as sure as there is reality. And, notwithstanding the obvious and not so obvious difficulties we face, we should never stop trying to discover them.

The Desert God

2004-05-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

The Desert God

By Michael Berumen 6-18-06

The god of Abraham is not worthy of the worship of free men and women. He is a vengeful, petty, mercurial, vain, and mean god, and, often enough, he is an immoral one, too. This is the god depicted in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Each of these religions presents him as a variation of a common theme: a god who demands slave-like subservience with a host of silly and sometimes inconsistent rules, one who like the proverbial schoolyard bully inspires obedience and respect through the fear of retribution.

Given the eschatologies of these desert religions and what is held to be at stake, namely, everlasting bliss or pain, it is not altogether surprising that adherents avoid questioning the merits of their obsequiousness, not to mention the many preposterous doctrines adumbrated by their prophets and sages. Much more attention is paid to the possibility of incurring the wrath of this manic god and, more specifically, to avoiding it, rather than inspecting the logical, empirical, or moral foundations of his various prescriptions and proscriptions. And it is simply off limits, beyond propriety, to consider the personal character of the object of their worship, god himself, for he is supposed to be the epitome of moral perfection. And yet, if some of his traits were exhibited by a mere mortal, the person would be considered morally reprehensible.

Many believers claim god defines what is good or right simply by his having deemed it to be such. They are perpetuating a bit of rubbish that Plato dispensed with over two thousand years ago. They would have us believe that god is exempt from moral scrutiny, for he is the ultimate arbiter and definer of it. But as Plato asked, would not god love that which is good or what is right because he apprehends it as being such, and not simply because he loves it? To believe otherwise is to suggest that god might as well call anything he wants good, even changing that which most would consider to be amongst the greatest evils into good on a mere whim. Religionists who decry moral relativism (as do I) must therefore admit that their god is the ultimate moral relativist.

One ought to expect much more from an omnipotent, omniscient being than the one described in these holy texts. The creator of all things, the prime mover, the first cause, the one who knew all outcomes, necessarily also causes the suffering in the world, whether the suffering emanates from natural causes or the acts of man. In the case of man’s malefactions, free will is no sop, either, for god obviously knew what would occur beforehand, and he let it happen anyway. He cannot possibly be perfect from a moral perspective. Far from it. To the extent god is the creator and cause of all things, or even, I suppose, of most things, his character is in fact very flawed.

I come to this view, which is to me an obvious conclusion, simply because the most important moral rules, those rules that apply to everyone, everywhere, and all of the time, are those that require us to avoid causing others to suffer without justification. Of course, one might also posit that god is not all powerful and that he is not the creator of everything, and, consequently, we could admit to the possibility that he may not such a bad guy after all. However, this would not accurately depict the god of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths. Indeed, not only do these faiths claim he all powerful, they also claim he is all good, an absurdity on the face of it. The creator of famine, earthquakes, pestilence, deformity, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot is all powerful and simultaneously supremely benevolent? The religionists are simply shameless at every turn with their lack of logic, but that, after all, is the essential nature of religious faith: the utter suspension of reason.

Let’s face it, the god of the Old Testament is a paragon of cruelty and sadism. In Genesis 22, poor Abraham is told by god to murder his beloved son as a demonstration of his fealty; his blade stayed only at the last moment when his vain host is fully satisfied by Abraham’s utter obedience. A god of serious bloodlust, he was often feted with burnt offerings of fatted calves and lambs, their vivisections meticulously described throughout the Old Testament, and perhaps no place more than in Leviticus 8, where the lord commands Moses to purify an altar with a poor beast’s blood, followed by scorching its chopped-up organs and limbs.

If one were to disobey the various statutes god sets forth, even ones such as bowing before a graven image, disobeying the Sabbath, or looking upon our naked aunt, Leviticus 26 tells us god will “even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart.” If one persists in disobedience, “ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.” In Deuteronomy 23, we are instructed that a man who discovers his wife is not a virgin should arrange to have her stoned to death by the men of her village in front of her father’s house.

The god of the New Testament is a much more peaceable chap, having changed (at least according to his Christian followers) into his other aspect for an earthly visit by becoming his own son and masquerading as a man, whilst simultaneously remaining as the father in heaven. Omnipotence is handy for feats such as this. But every so often his old vigor returns, for example, when in Mark 3 Jesus proclaims that one who blasphemes his (other) alter ego, the Holy Spirit, shall suffer eternal damnation, or when in Matthew 25 he consigns sinners who turn their backs on him to everlasting fire. In Matthew 21 Jesus was displeased when a fig tree did not bear fruit, so he petulantly made it wither away, a childish act to say the least. The God of Moses is never far below the surface. There is plenty of talk of hellfire and gnashing of teeth and damnation throughout the New Testament.

To be sure, Jesus also tells us to give to the poor, to be honest, to avoid violence, and to perform other kindly acts, and he is on the whole exemplary in his personal conduct. However, none of these things is particularly original with him or depend on his having recommended them for their worth as moral precepts. I wish that his followers accepted the worthwhile tenets of the New Testament without all of the accompanying magic, superstition, and nonsense. In any case, notwithstanding his generally good demeanor, in terms of his overall temperament, Jesus still seems to fall somewhat short of the moral excellence of Socrates or the Buddha, neither of whom claimed divinity or was prone to fits of petulance.

The god of the Koran seems especially hateful. Hardly a page goes by without threatening nonbelievers or sinners with violent retribution. We learn early in Surah 2 that a special fire has been prepared for infidels, a fire whose fuel will be men and stone. In Surah 3 we are told all non-Muslims will be rejected by god and that their faces will be blackened (presumably by fire…the desert god is something of a pyromaniac) on judgment day. It is not enough to leave matters to god, though, for in the Surah 4 believers are told to kill non-believers wherever they are found and that there is a great reward for fighting religious wars. This obviously has some currency in contemporary Islamic circles. The god of the Koran tells us in Surah 8 that he will smite the fingers and necks of disbelievers, and that to not believe in him is by far the most immoral act. In Surah 30 we are told Christians will be torn apart for having ascribed a partner to god (Jesus). In Surah 58 we are told that believers will reject their non-Muslim relatives and friends, even their own children.

This is but a mere sampling of the violent temperament of the merciful, benevolent deity imagined by generations of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Of course, many believers would say that these stories and proclamations must be taken in the context of the ancient times they were uttered, that some are merely meant as metaphors for the purpose of instruction, and that many of the edicts (presumably including some of those relating to food preparation, dress, body hair, women, witches, homosexuals, slaves, and infidels.) are now out-of-date. How is it, then, that some of the words uttered 1500, 2000, even 3000+ years ago are more acceptable than others? How does one choose exactly what is and what is not applicable to today’s world, or what is metaphorical and what is not? Where is the formula in the word of god for determining the rules with which one ought to comply as opposed to those that are obsolete? The fact is that there is no such formula or meta-rule(s). Indeed, one would be stoned to death in a prior age or even in some places today if one were to suggest that some things are no longer applicable or that they are merely metaphorical tales.

Believers want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to believe in the things concordant with their world views and desires, and reject the rest, notwithstanding any evidence to the contrary. Fortunately, in recent centuries, the confluence of reason and science; growing compassion for people beyond one's immediate group; and the increasing appreciation for individual dignity, have caused many people to reject some of the vilest prescriptions in these holy texts, or at least, to ignore them in actual practice. Many religionists have even become more moderate and tolerant of others as a result. This more enlightened attitude has been greatly buttressed by the advent of the secular, democratic state, as well, making it more difficult for both rulers and the religious authorities, who were once often the same, to use religion as a means of controlling the masses and to perpetuate their power. We see in bold relief an example of how the theocratic state is apt to behave by observing what occurs in the Islamic world, today. It wasn't so long ago that Christendom was much the same. It is paramount that we who live in more liberal, enlightened nations take special note of this, and that we make every effort to protect the separation of church and state.

The problem with moderate religionists is that they still believe things, even the most preposterous sorts of things, on the basis of faith, and they are quite willing to ignore reason or evidence whenever it conflicts with their worldview. Moderate silliness is silliness, nonetheless. What is more troubling is that they also encourage tolerance towards the beliefs of fanatical fundamentalists, which helps perpetuate dangerous beliefs and practices, some of which could harm others. No doubt, from the perspective of the moderates, this tolerance of the most intolerant is meant to protect their own belief in and practice of their religion. It is difficult to ignore the danger of even moderate superstition when the core of that belief is that others are somehow less worthy for not sharing the same doctrine, or more importantly, and when tolerance is granted to those who would bring harm to others for the sake of their beliefs.

History bears witness to the adherents of each of these religions engaging in their fair share of wars, stonings, burnings, tortures, and beheadings , and all in the name of their desert god. Christians should not be too supercilious in judging the savagery of some followers of Islam, today, for the sordid history of Christendom is replete with bloody and barbaric episodes of intolerance, especially prior to the age of the Enlightenment and before the emergence of the secular state, an era that some leaders of the Christian right would hasten to reinstate if matters were left to them. And it is simply not enough to suggest that the desires of god must be distinguished from the aberrant ways of the faithful, as one sometimes hears, for the evidence is quite clear from the sacred texts of each of these religions, texts which purport to be divinely inspired or even the inerrant word of god: intolerance and the thirst for the blood and suffering of others are quite in keeping with the proclivities and commands of their deity.

I do not propose a secular religion in place of these or any other religious doctrines, which, for example, is what Marxist communism became. Instead, I hold that we should reject all doctrines that cannot be supported by logic or empirical evidence. And, while I believe tolerance is an important aspect of the liberal outlook, I do not take an extreme view that we must therefore tolerate everything, including the forms of religious intolerance that harm nonbeievers or society as a whole. Consider, for example, the recent editorial comics in the Netherlands that depicted the Prophet Mohammad. This created quite a stir among many Muslims. Ideas, even offensive ones, must be tolerated, even though we do not approve of them. But actions that harm others or incite people to violence need not be tolerated. Religious groups do not have license to riot in the streets and risk life and property because of their hurt feelings or because they believe their god or prophet has been blasphemed under the rubric of "freedom of religion."

If I am wrong about all of this, when I come before the god of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad for my final judgment, assuming that I have any courage left in me, I shall nevertheless feel compelled to inform him that he is a rather sorry excuse of an omnipotent being; that he ought to put an end to the needless death and suffering that he visits upon his living creations; and that he does not now deserve the worship or admiration of free men and women. I should also advise him that being all powerful, he is quite obviously capable of changing his character for the better and, in time, of even meriting my respect.

Why Be Moral?

2004-05-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 7-1-06

An old friend with an interest in philosophical matters inquires: “Why be moral?” The question, broadly interpreted, asks two things: why ought we to be moral, which primarily interests philosophers; and why do we seek or even desire to be moral, which is also a question for science. In my book, Do No Evil, I address both issues, though my main interest was to answer the former one. Let me take the easier one first: why do we seek or desire to be moral? The answers are found largely in biology, psychology, and anthropology.

Certainly one reason we desire morality is that we want others to behave a certain way towards ourselves, even if we, ourselves, choose to act otherwise. Indeed, an argument can be made that, given a certain moral framework, it would be quite irrational for one to want others to behave immorally, for doing so would be to our own detriment. For example, no rational person desires to be killed without some justification, some reason, such as saving the lives of others. Thus, to the extent "Do not Kill" is a moral rule, in most circumstances it would be irrational to want others to ignore it.

All organisms seek at least two things: survival and reproduction. No doubt the quest for survival is itself a function of the need to reproduce in order for the organism to continue its kind. Insofar as an organism seeks to survive, it also strives to avoid being harmed, to avoid what is bad for it, whether that means being damaged, impeded, or killed. Organisms with nervous systems all seek to avoid pain. There is not necessarily an underlying, conscious motive here. Such behaviors are hardwired at the most primitive level of existence, prior to any sentient capacity.

As with any other animal, humans naturally want to avoid being harmed. However, humans have minds and thoughts leading them to make conscious choices, the power of volition, whether for good or bad, and whether it is free or determined. We seldom choose a course of action that knowingly and purposefully results in our own harm . On the other hand, our choices sometimes involve incurring personal harm for some perceived benefit. Rationality, in its strict psychological sense, means we operate in our self-interest at some basic, minimal level in our daily lives, and, thereby, we are able to function as humans and all that this minimally entails. Rules of behavior, social rules, often help to guide our conduct with this in mind. Such systems, first and foremost, enable individuals to prevent harm to themselves because they also agree not to harm others or they are able to secure the protection of stronger members of society. While there are other reasons we choose to accept such codes, I think Thomas Hobbes was quite right about this.

We also have strong feelings towards others, feelings of beneficence, and they can be especially positive in relation to members of our family or our proximate group. We have compassion for those who suffer, and we also to want to promote the interests of those about whom we care, or at least their interests as we see them. Such feelings are rooted in our ability to empathize with the pain, suffering, and desires of others because we experience these things, too. While this capacity appears to be greatest with kith and kin with most people, improvements in transportation and communication, and the consequent contact with other places and cultures, have resulted in our extending our empathy and compassion to much larger groups than before, indeed, even to more abstract objects, such as a nation or humanity. Such feelings impel us to devise various systems that purport to promote the welfare of those dearest to us as well as individuals that we do not know and even society as a whole.

For these and, no doubt, other reasons, we choose to establish standards of behavior codified in morality, customs, and law, and, in each case, we can easily observe where the rudimentary principles informing these codes overlap and converge. But we have only touched on why we seek to become moral, or why we have a moral sensibility or inclination, and not why we ought to be moral in the most fundamental sense. In other words, we have not shown why we ought to choose this or that moral system without invoking its own assumptions or begging the question. This is a much more difficult thing to do.

Throughout the ages, most philosophers have maintained there are moral facts and moral truths. They come up with such facts and assert their truth using various methods, but usually it boils down to defining moral terms with other moral terms that have similar or equivalent meanings or, alternatively, by stating that we intuit moral truths and they are inexplicable, unverifiable, and, for example, act as atomistic or unanalyzable properties ascribed to other facts (e.g., as asserted by G.E. Moore). In other words, they end up either begging the question or simply asserting the truth of their existence without being able to demonstrate it. And nowhere are they able to point to a single, agreed upon standard or reference for such moral truths that does not itself assume what we seek to demonstrate.

One can quickly dispense with the idea that moral truths are intuitive by observing that people everywhere often arrive at different moral judgments even when the facts being analyzed are essentially the same. If there truly were intuitive moral truths, one might reasonably expect greater congruity of opinion, especially given the similarity of our neurological construction. The fact is that two otherwise reasonable people can hold opposite moral "intuitions." In contrast, no two reasonable people could hold opposite opinions about, say, the law of identity or the commutative axiom. There are no truly self-evident moral propositions nor is there evidence that their truth can be determined intuitively.

Plato offered several theories of morality in his writings, and each of them assumed there are moral facts in the world. In his most famous dialogue, the Republic, he sought morality through justice writ large in the state, which he maintained arises through the unity and harmony of the state. In other places, he saw practical morality as participating in and having knowledge of the purist of the universal forms, namely, the good. A facile rhetorician, in several places Plato tells us that no one would intentionally harm himself and, what is more, that to act immorally would clearly bring oneself harm (but not so clearly that he could demonstrate it); therefore, one ought to be moral simply out of self-interest.

Plato was onto something, but not quite what he thought. His line of reasoning has led many to believe morality is a rational requirement. Aristotle, his greatest student, thought everything ought to work in accordance with its purpose, and of course, he saw man’s principal purpose or function as rationality, which includes right conduct. But it is easy to show that one can lead a perfectly rational existence whilst harming others along the way; it is when we knowingly (or when we should know) bring harm our own way for its own sake that we are behaving irrationally. So, if we harm another without knowingly jeopardizing our own interests, we have not acted contrary to our rational requirements or to reason. On the other hand, as I observed before, it is quite rational to want others to behave morally and even irrational to want them to behave immorally towards oneself, that is, insofar as it entails harming oneself.

David Hume showed that as hard as we might try, we cannot point to anything in nature that has a moral correlate to a fact or judgment other than our own psychological disposition or sentiments. He claimed that there really were no moral facts. He therefore said morality is a subjective value judgment and that the ends of morality are a product of our passions, not of our reason. Reason can help us obtain our ends or desires, but not to select them. Matters of fact must be distinguished from matters of value. Hume was partly right, but he overstated the case when he said moral judgments were purely subjective and based on sentiments, as I shall show momentarily.

Some would say we ought to be moral because god wants us to be, but that still leads to the question: why. Is it simply because he wants it, which, implies capriciousness on his part and rudimentary utilitarianism or obsequious acceptance, ex cathedra, on our part, or is it because god himself apprehends the object, morality, as being what we ought to do, in which case the question of why remains.

Others will say because if we don’t choose morality we will suffer some adverse result such as punishment or the opprobrium of others, but that, too, is little more than saying morality is simply acting in our own interest, utilitarianism, or, more broadly speaking, consequentialism of one sort or another , leaving us to wonder whether avoiding punishment or other negative consequences, is the only reason why we ought to be moral. The more common flip side of avoiding adversity, of course, is to promote happiness or pleasure, the utilitarianism of the likes of Jeremy Bentham and John S. Mill. I contend that such views might explain why we often choose to be moral, an empirical fact, and not really why we ought to be moral.

For example, what if I can act immorally without incurring a negative consequence such as punishment? An absolute ruler of a state or deity might be in such a position. Why, then, ought he to act morally? What if I can get away with my malefaction without being detected or without an adverse consequence, much as Gyges did with his magical ring in Plato’s Republic? Is there any reason I ought to be moral in such a circumstance? Many of us believe that we should, but how can we actually demonstrate that this is so? And what if one can show that we can actually improve our interests by acting immorally (or, if you prefer, by harming others)? Logical consistency demands that the underlying principle of self-interest or utility should continue to govern our actions. If one posits that we should act to benefit society or increase average happiness, what, for example, if one were able to show that slavery would improve things for the majority? One can begin to see some of the problems inherent with such consequentialist systems, which I have treated at some length in Do No Evil.

Immanuel Kant believed moral judgments are the result of what he called practical reason, the product of our will to do good and our rational nature. His most simple formulation of the categorical imperative requires that we will any exception to moral maxims as though they apply as universal laws and that we include ourselves as potential victims. To the extent we cannot will such course of action, we cannot morally act on it. Kant was prescient in seeing the role logic plays in assessing moral judgments, however, his required construction was so generalized that one ended up with absurdities, such as one should never lie, even if we are foiling Nazis about the whereabouts of a family of Jews we've hidden away. His formula, however, is amenable to modification such that more specific facts are taken into account, which enables us to avoid such moral anomalies. Kant wrongly assumed rationality requires morality and he put too much emphasis on motivation as opposed to action. This is not to say that motives are unimportant, but to recognize that morality is about what we do, not merely what we believe or intend.

Metaethics, a more modern branch of ethics, deals primarily with understanding moral terms and the structure of moral arguments, and it seeks to treat the assumptions that underlie our normative systems. While some of his ideas are found in his predecessors' works, Hume is probably the first to focus on purely metaethical issues. While Hume himself would not have drawn this conclusion, many later philosophers have maintained that from a metaethical point of view, there is no reason to prefer one moral system over another, and that our choice (or belief) simply boils down to securing or expressing our own subjective preferences. In its most extreme form, this leads to a kind of abstract relativism, suggesting that there is no preferred standard for assessing competing, normative systems.

I think such a conclusion is only partly correct and only to the extent that the descriptive properties of moral terms apparently do not have correlates subject to truth conditions, as Hume suggested, and, consequently, we are left without a preferred standard for judging them. However, as hinted by Kant and shown more elaborately by more recent philosophers, such as R.M. Hare, moral propositions are also subject to the rules of logic, which surely are a function of universal standards. What is more, certain moral terms are more similar to formal, modal operators, such as “if” “and” “if, then” “is” and so forth, which also lack descriptive properties that are subject to truth conditions. Thus, for example, the word “ought” says something about the facts, even though the term itself does not have descriptive properties. When I say that one ought not to jump off the cliff, there is something supervenient about the term ought. It works as a formal operator. And finally, there is an evaluative aspect to certain terms such as “better” “worse” “good” “bad” that is not relativistic, much as when I say this wrench is better than that one over there, or this act is better than that act.

Modal operators and logic are objective in much the same way that mathematics is. This does not imply that formal, logical propositions or terms correspond to something in nature, however. That is a confusion people sometimes advance when they think of “objectivity” as being something “out there” in nature. The descriptive properties of moral terms are most likely predicated upon subjective states of emotion, our sentiments, preferences, and passions. However, Hume was mistaken to hold that everything about moral propositions is a subjective matter or a function only of our personal values, for it can be shown they have several formal aspects to them, properties that are quite objective.

This is not completely satisfying to those who seek a more robust justification for normative ethics. They would like for us to be able to say there are moral facts that inhere in the world and that these facts are subject to truth conditions. But no one has shown that this is true, and I myself rather doubt that it is. However, at the very least, we can avoid the stranglehold of the metaethical doctrines of extreme relativism or emotivism, which both lead one to the conclusion that moral propositions and arguments are essentially meaningless and that there are not any grounds for preferring one moral assertion over another. I cannot overstate the importance of simply being able to have a meaningful and logical discussion on ethical topics, notwithstanding the difficulty of evaluating any descriptive properties of, say, "the good." It at least allows us to assess normative formulations using some preferred standards of reference. We can not only discuss opposing moral propositions using meaningful evaulative terms, a process by which we might seek to convince others or work towards a convergence of moral perspectives, we can also assess their logical coherence. These things are true even though the properties of specific moral terms are not subject to truth conditions and lack cognitive content.

When we observe that moral propositions are subject to the rules of logic; that (some) moral words denote something more than mere preferences; and that moral judgments can be assessed using objective, evaluative criteria, we are thereby able to have moral discourse. If the truth were otherwise, moral assertions would amount to little more than nonsense, a view that some philosophers have actually held. Thus, for example, one cannot logically justify murder in one case and not in another when all of the same facts obtain. One cannot logically hold opposite points of view at the same time. When one says one ought to do such and such, “ought” clearly says something about the facts, much as the formal operator “and” does, even though neither correlates to one fact in the world. And positing that “feeding the poor is better than starving them” has meaning across the cultural and moral divide because of the objective nature of our evaluative terms, which, as Kurt Bair, Hare and others have shown, allows us to at least have moral arguments.

With this said, permit me now to state why I think we ought to choose to be moral, and more specifically, why we ought to choose impartial rationality as the underlying moral principle for establishing rules of conduct. To my own mind, it really rests on a variation of something the philosopher Henry Sidgwick observed. I cannot think of any reason we should assume one person’s worth, significance, or set of preferences is greater than any other person’s in relation to the standard or perspective of the universe. I do not think anyone else can, either. The reference to the universe’s "perspective" is a useful metaphor, only; for as far as I can tell, there is no real “standard” in the universe and it does seem to be quite neutral, indifferent, and without any perspective at all. But maybe this is the point. What it says is that there is no reason to believe one person is objectively more important or less important than another.

This seems to me to be as close to a "self-evident" truth in morality as one can get, but I stop short of saying that. However, I do put this principle of equal interests forth as an objective fact. I think I can further say that since it is empirically true that humans, like other animals and organisms, avoid their own harm, death and suffering, that there is absolutely no reason to assume that my own avoidance of death or suffering is intrinsically any more or less important or meritorious than any other person’s avoiding equal harm, and, consequently, that I ought (this is the leap) to extend this principle to them and they ought to extend it to me. Is that an iron clad case of reasoning? No. But it comes close. What is more, it also feels right, and as the great Hume said, reason ought to be the slave of passions. We must simply find a way to convince others to feel that way too, and I think that one way is to begin is with the argument of equal interests, or more precisely, of an equally disinterested universe, making one person's interests no more worthy than another's by any objective standard.

One of the properties of impartial rationality that strikes me as particularly important is the fact that it enables one to formulate universal rules. Various conceptions of the good and consequentialist theories can easily be shown not to be amenable to universality. Everyone cannot act on rules derived from such concepts everywhere and all of the time. Such concepts do not lend themselves to codes that are at once understandable and actionable by everyone. In contrast, one can construct universal maxims that require one to not cause others harm, for it is possible for all rational people to both understand and act on such principles. Such maxims are surprisingly consistent with our "common sense," which speaks to their being rooted in our rational prohibitions against causing our own needless death or suffering. It also stands to reason that rules that everyone ought to follow all of the time are the most important moral prescriptions. Such a system is simple and allows for divergent views on other moral matters, but only to the extent they do not conflict with them.

There may not be moral facts, per se. Moreover, rationality, alone, certainly does not require us to be moral. It is quite possible to act immorally and rationally at the same time. On the other hand, a rational person does want others to behave morally, inasmuch as not doing so could bring harm to himself, which no rational person would desire. Similarly, impartiality does not require us behave morally. One can administer the rules of a concentration camp quite impartially. Rational impartiality, on the other hand, does require us to behave in a particular way, for we then extend our rational prohibitions to others. I believe that such a system comes closest to being consistent with the principle of equal interests, and also to what we observe about ourselves in nature. And for this reason I believe we ought to accept it, though I cannot show that it is a requirement of reason. However, as Hume also showed, we must make a leap of faith in order to connect causes and their effects and to sustain our belief in the uniformity of nature, resulting in the so-called problem of induction, which, to this day, remains with us. The rationale for not becoming a practicing radical skeptic in the matter of causality or other epistemic uncertainties strikes me as no more compelling than the one for accepting certain elementary moral concepts.

A system based on rational impartiality, or what I have at various times called "rational objectivism," also simplifies morality, for it focuses our attention on making exceptions to what we might call the sine qua non of common sense, namely, avoiding harming ourselves or others without an overriding reason. However, I do not contend that such a system emerges ineluctably from empirical analysis as a scientific theory does, or deductively from a given as a mathematical proof does. Philosophers are sometimes trapped into trying to make ethics resemble science or mathematics, but to no avail. This is sheer folly. The best we can hope for is to make it clear that there are certain rules that flow from our humanity and the minimalist principle of an equally disinterested universe, and though such rules are not truly apodictic, neither are they contrary to reason or rationality and, I submit, they are the most defensible of the possible alternatives for rational, compassionate people.

Supporting The Troops

2004-05-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

Supporting the Troops
By Michael E. Berumen 2-10-07

It has become de rigueur to append any criticism of our military activity in Iraq with a profession of "support" for the troops, whether it emanates from the right, center, or left of the political spectrum. I doubt that many opponents of the war who utter such talismanic qualifications think much about the meaning of "support," other, that is, than a desire to distinguish the policies with which they might disagree from the people who execute it on the battlefield, while, at the same time, hoping to avoid appearing unpatriotic. They do not want to disparage the common soldier, even though the policy he implements is deemed flawed or even immoral, for soldiers are in some sense judged based on criteria other than what they do, for example, a recognition that their principal duty is to obey the orders of their civilian chiefs. Of course, those who actually agree with what we are doing in Iraq often use their "support" for the troops as a hyperbolic cudgel against the war's opponents, accusing them of not supporting the troops, which, they would have us believe represents the height of unpatriotic behavior.

Verbal denigrations of the military and worse (e.g., spitting on soldiers) have become a part of the lore surrounding America’s travails in Vietnam a generation ago, notwithstanding the fact that there are very few documented instances of such outlandish behavior. To be sure, there are examples of policies that failed to provide adequate support for the veterans of that era, and for that matter, nearly every other wartime era. Indeed, the same can be said in relation to veterans even today, but that's another story. After years of regret and introspection about Vietnam, evincing support for the troops, nowadays, is meant to have a prophylactic effect against doubts about one's own devotion to country.

Supporting the troops is a very complicated thing. There is the kind of support provided by financing military endeavors, on the one hand, and then there is the psychological support one gives to people on the home team, the cheerleading kind of support. Then there is that "love the sinner, hate the sin" kind of support religious people often promote. People who say they support the troops and don't support what they're doing apparently adopt something akin to the latter sort of support... we love you but a major portion of your life is spent doing immoral things.

One generally expects those who are the object of support to welcome the efforts of the supporter. However, I would guess that most of the troops despise the position of those who decry the war, yet say they support the troops. I have not done a survey, but I am confident that most military folk want victory more than they want the support of the anti-war crowd. Perhaps that would have been different with a military comprised of draftees, though even that is questionable; but today's soldiers are volunteers, not draftees. To be sure, they want the political support that will provide appropriate munitions and equipment. It is a safe bet that they would rather not be injured or killed. But they also want to win, and they see that end as an intrinsic aspect of their chosen vocation, certainly not a bad one to have if one aspires to be a first-rate soldier. The kind of support they really want is an anathema to those who would have them return without a victory, safe but defeated. Not only do these soldiers want whatever help they can get from their countrymen to defeat their enemies, when they are done, they want to come home to the approbation of their nation's citizens and to a government that is willing to take care of their needs.

Many of the anti-war types who want to bring the troops home and, at the same time, want to be in a position of saying that they “support the troops,” do not really support the troops in the way the troops themselves would welcome. I rather think that this kind of support rings hollow (loving the sinner kind of support) when one believes what they are charged with doing to be a mistaken or a lost cause. At the very least, it is problematical. How might it have sounded, for example, if a citizen in Hitler’s Germany had said, “I support the troops, but denounce the Nazi Reich that sent them into battle.” Imagine having said, “I support General Washington’s revolutionary troops, but not their revolutionary cause.” The problem is evident: it just doesn't sound quite right.

What I think critics mostly mean to say is that they want our soldiers home and unharmed, and that they want what they consider to be a misconceived mission and policy changed. Fine. There is no betrayal, there; however, this is not the same thing as supporting the troops. I wish those who do not support what the troops are actually doing would simply tell the truth. It is more honest to say that they want them to stop fighting the war and that they don't support what the troops are doing in Iraq, notwithstanding what the troops want, rather than prattling on about supporting the troops. Truth be known, I rather think that most of the troops would prefer that they just shut up about their support and to stop interfering with what they need to get the job done.

This is not to say that the soldiers are wholly uncritical of the policies are charged with implementing. They are not mindless automata, notwithstanding their obligation to follow orders. I suspect that a number of our professional soldiers believe policymakers are guilty of several grave tactical missteps, especially in the early phases of the occupation in Iraq, for example, when we disenfranchised much of the educated Sunni population with so-called de-Baathification. In doing so, we emasculated the Iraqi civil service, rendering the state's infrastructure inoperable, and we unemployed and impoverished thousands of young men by dismantling the Iraqi armed forces. The early aftermath of major combat operations were bungled when soldiers were not permitted to finish to kill or imprison thugs such as Muqtada al-Sadr, before they amassed power and influence. All of this was made worse by not providing sufficient forces (as recommended by the Army's top general at the time) to occupy the country and squash a cancerous insurgency before it became nearly uncontainable. If the judgment of retired general officers is any guide, I suspect many on active duty might be especially prone to make the last criticism.

Much of the travesty in Iraq resulted from our nation’s triumvirate of ineptitude, President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, all of whom were guided by an assortment of half-baked neocon soothsayers and intellectuals. Of course, the vast majority of soldiers support and trust their civilian leaders, even when not warranted by the facts. This probably explains why Bush and Cheney and many their predecessors prefer a military audience above all others. I also think it likely that many of our soldiers see the various vocal opponents of these malfeasants, including many erstwhile supporters of the war policy, such as Senator John Kerry, as simply compounding the mistakes already made by wanting them to retreat ignominiously before the mission is complete, without ever having given them the proper kind of “support” to achieve what they really want: victory. The troops would once again come home from another lost war (lost by politicians, not the military) to a nation whose only support amounts to little more than sentimental verbiage.

Whether or not "victory" is possible at this point, or what victory even entails from a policy perspective, remains debatable. I myself believe victory would be characterized by an Iraq that does not threaten anyone; a country that is a bulwark of individual rights (at least relative to neighboring countries) and economic prosperity; and a place that is not a home base for various psychopathic terrorists and religious nuts as it is now and to which our policies have contributed to no small degree. I also think the notion of a centralized government in Iraq is a pipe dream, and that the sectarianism we see today can only be quiesced through the formation of a loose-knit, decentralized federation, with Sunni, Shia, and Kurds having their own areas of dominance. Perhaps in time a greater sense of nationhood will develop. After all, it took our country nearly 100 years to get there, and not without considerable turmoil and bloodshed.

President Bush might well be remembered for having committed the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history. On the other hand, if, by some chance, we are able to pull victory from the jaws of defeat, in time, President Bush's bungling management in his administration's first six years will be overshadowed by a successful outcome. That is what we must work for, I believe. We must not give up if even the slightest chance remains, and I think that it does. I fear that the craven desire of many Democrats who want to see President Bush fail for their own political gain obscures the very dire consequences of failure, both for our nation and the world..

We certainly should not be motivated only by bullheadedness or for victory for its own sake. We have a moral obligation to do our best to repair what we have broken, otherwise known as Colin Powell’s "Pottery Barn" caveat: you break it, you own it. This is important so that so many Americans and many more Iraqis have not died or suffered in vain, and, most importantly, so that future generations of Iraqis are not left with their country in shambles, a condition for which the United States is now largely responsible. We should not have gone to war with Iraq when we did, and, it is now clear, we should have done things very differently once we did. However, we did go to war and we did make a mess. We must not leave an even greater mess behind, one that could have negative ramifications throughout the Middle East and the world for generations to come. To do otherwise is simply unconscionable.

The best way we can support the troops is to help them to achieve victory. Democracies, and ours is certainly no exception, show little patience for either failure or extended conflicts. We must not confuse our quintessentially American desire to be pragmatic, to cancel failed projects and move to the next one, with the irresponsibility of giving up when the going gets tough. This is especially true when our own mismanagement created much of the problem that we face today, and when abandonment entails leaving a country in disarray and a tinderbox of sectarian strife. One half of America cannot simply throw up their hands and say that is President Bush's problem. It is our problem as a whole nation. Defeat in Iraq is not an acceptable alternative. Not right about much else up to now, President Bush is quite right about that. What is necessary is an improvement in planning and execution, and there is evidence to suggest that is taking place.

I am certainly no fan of President Bush and his administration, though I don’t like those opponents who are taking advantage of the President's unpopularity, seemingly oblivious to what is at stake if he fails, or so cynical that they do not even care. I also reserve the right not to support the troops in this conflict or in any other when I don’t support what they are doing, which is certainly not the same thing as wishing them harm. The idea that one must offer any arm of the government unqualified support, notwithstanding the policies they are implementing, is at best silly and, at worst, immoral. It is not necessary to support people who are doing something that should not be supported, even when one wants them to stop doing so for reasons one considers to be for their own good. What is more, by not giving our armed forces, or any other unit of government, a blank check of support, I shan’t be one whit less patriotic.

End
Michael E. Berumen is a philosopher, businessman, and U.S. Army veteran (1969-1972) living in Laguna Niguel, California. Among other things, he is the author of Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business.

A Philosopher Examines Churchill's Moral Courage and Understanding of Evil

2004-05-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 8-7-06

Admirers and detractors might agree on at least one thing about Winston Churchill: he possessed abundant courage. The kind of courage he had, though, is of particular importance. Several millennia ago, Aristotle observed that it would be mistaken to confuse either fearlessness or recklessness with courage. He said that, as a virtue, courage lies between these at the mean, and that either extreme should be avoided. Aristotle thought that only when one’s willingness to take on a risk is done with the proper understanding could it be deemed as truly courageous, as opposed to being merely foolhardy.

I should like to argue that the most distinctive and important kind of courage is moral courage, the quality of not only being brave or of simply knowing what one ought to do, but acting upon what one knows to be right. While he was surely fearless in other respects, this is the sort of courage for which Churchill is especially admirable. I also believe that he had a profound insight into the nature of morality, especially in relation to evil, which, as I argue at length elsewhere, ought to be the primary concern of morality. Indeed, I hold that Churchill’s greatest virtue was his willingness to confront evil when he saw it, and to do so without regard to his own welfare.

I do not believe that courage, by itself, is a moral virtue. It is a personality trait, a matter of temperament; the capacity to face danger, endure pain, or suffer ignominy in pursuit of other ends; and a characteristic that can serve the ends of a pirate, a soldier, a stunt-man, a psychopath, or an athlete, something that could be ascribed to one engaged in any number of activities, including those we might deem morally neutral or even morally reprehensible. For example, Churchill’s nemesis, Adolf Hitler, showed ample daring as a courier on the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme. However, few would characterize Corporal Hitler’s actions as exemplifying moral courage. It is when one combines bravery, the willingness to sacrifice one’s personal interests, with moral ends, that one also has the possibility of true, moral courage, which signifies much more than mere bravery.

Churchill’s physical courage in battle was well established on four continents. He was an intrepid warrior and completely fearless. In October, 1941, he spoke to the schoolboys at Harrow and recommended the principle by which he himself lived, “Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” However, what made him singularly courageous was his acute understanding of the greatest evil of modern times, one not discerned by many others considered to be more sensible, that is, until it was nearly too late, and, importantly, his willingness to sacrifice his own interests in pursuit of its total destruction. What in retrospect seems a preternatural insight into the ultimate designs of Nazism and its Fuhrer, whom Churchill called “the mainspring of evil,” made him a laughingstock amongst leaders of his own political party and many others. We and millions before us are the beneficiaries of the fact that he cajoled and, finally, awakened his countrymen and allies from their somnolence, and then inveighed mightily against any attempt to make a false peace with evil incarnate, even when nearly everyone else was tempted to do so

Churchill had a deep understanding of morality, and more specifically, of the special nature and gravity of evil, which I would broadly characterize as consisting of death and suffering, outcomes that all rational people avoid for themselves without overriding reasons. He was neither a philosopher nor especially prone to analytic thinking. His singular intellectual talent was to drill to the heart of a complex issue and synthesize the relevant facts into a cohesive idea, one that he could then articulate in immaculate, sparkling sentences of English prose. Of particular importance, however, was Churchill’s ability to see evil for what it was, especially when others did not, and to denounce it even when others would not. It is clear that he closely linked evil to the suffering or potential suffering of others, illustrating, I believe, a finely-tuned moral sensibility. Before anyone else in a position of prominence, Churchill recognized and denounced the evils of Nazism, a doctrine that promoted blind obedience to authority, racial dominance, and a uniquely sadistic and oppressive ethos, values antithetical to the ones that Churchill cherished.

Every student of Churchill knows that he had his share of character flaws; but throughout his life, he remained a lover of humanity, in both its personal and its abstract senses. He was also an extremely sentimental and compassionate man, one who would come to tears easily, and who was especially moved by the suffering of others. However, a sense of compassion or sentiment is simply not a sufficient condition for morality, though it certainly cannot hurt. It is more typical to have compassion for those one loves or to whom one is close, such as one’s family, friends, or even one’s countrymen; but it is often more difficult to have it for people one does not know or see, and perhaps especially those with whom we do not identify or even dislike. Morality requires us to behave morally towards people we do not know or care about in any personal sense, indeed, towards those we even might otherwise detest. I believe that Churchill had a deep understanding of this, and that this is one reason he was inclined to speak out against malefactions that were occurring elsewhere in the world that, at the time, seemed irrelevant and of no real concern to many others.

Permit me a necessary but small amount of philosophy before returning to Churchill. Most rational people know right from wrong in a basic sense, though they might disagree about the facts pertaining to moral problems, for example, who did what to whom, what were the causes, what are the consequences, etc. I believe there is a connection between morality and our common sense. This is not especially surprising, for our moral sense comes from our ability to extend our own rational requirements to others. The rational requirements I have in mind are the most crucial among our common-sense tenets, for example, not causing our own death, pain, or disability, that is, not without an overriding motivation, such as to protect someone else or to prevent an even greater malady. When we enlarge these prohibitions to include everyone else, we are abiding by the most important moral principles. While we differ on matters of detail, I owe much of my thinking on this matter to the insights of the moral philosopher, Bernard Gert.

Thus, the most important moral rules, those that all rational people can both understand and act upon, emerge from combining a small number of rational prohibitions with a separate principle of impartiality. By impartiality, I mean a willingness to apply the rules fairly and without regard to the outcome, even if it is not one we would prefer. Thereby, we are able to extend our rational prohibitions to others, notwithstanding our own interests. The specific rules we derive, e.g., do not kill, do not cause pain, do not disable, and so forth, can be generalized into the single principle of not harming others without justification. We need not go headlong into what constitutes an adequate justification for the exceptions to this rule, here; for our purposes, it is enough to say that we ought to be able to make any exception to the rule, Do No Harm, apply to everyone, including ourselves and those about whom we care, whenever the essential facts are the same.

It is clear from Churchill’s behavior that he understood the importance of impartiality in relation to morality. He had a keen understanding of fairness, which the political philosopher John Rawls has said is the central concept underlying justice. Churchill was famously unwilling to sacrifice principle merely out of self-interest, as his colleagues cynically did with poor Czechoslovakia and other nations, powerless in the path of the Nazi juggernaut. His modern critics sometimes denigrate him for his support of empire, among other things, and, to be sure, he was a product of the Victorian age and he sought to sustain the apotheosis of Britannia. However, unlike many of both his era and even afterwards, he also firmly believed that democracy and liberty were universal rights, not just the rights of Englishmen or a chosen few.

Now, I have said that our rational prohibitions deal with our own death and suffering, which all rational people avoid without an overriding reason. This, I believe, is also how one might describe the underlying properties of evil. When we attribute evil to something, we also generally mean that we want to avoid it whenever we can. And what would one want to avoid more than death or suffering, whether induced by nature or by the hand of man? Of course, morality focuses on the latter issue, namely, how we behave towards one another. I would argue that morality’s most important prescriptions deal with not causing others to die or suffer, which is to say, to avoid doing evil, as opposed to other kinds of rules that would have us promote the welfare of others, which might well be important, but just not as important. Among other reasons, rules that promote our various conceptions of beneficence or utility are not rules that all rational people can understand and follow all of the time. And it stands to reason that a universal requirement would be of supreme importance.

Churchill understood that Nazism was intrinsically evil, and that by its very nature it portended untold death and suffering. While there are other examples of his power of insight, such as having sized up Bolshevism, it is his understanding of the full moral ramifications of Nazism that made him unusually discerning and prescient, for many in both Britain and the U.S. admired the Nazis for bringing order and relief to the Germans whose privation was especially great after the First World War. Churchill, however, understood that order, sustenance, and even peace are not worth any price, and that avoiding and preventing great evil had precedence over these perceived benefits. When one examines his writings and pronouncements, it is quite clear that he was focused on the kinds of harms that this wicked ideology would impose on the whole world, plummeting us “…into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science,” as he told the House of Commons in June 1940, after having sounded his first warnings nearly a decade before.

Understanding the root of morality and identifying a menacing creed, however, were not the main reasons for Churchill’s moral greatness. While one of the first to do so, he was not alone in his understanding of the evils of “Nazidom,” as he called it. There were other influential religious figures and politicians at the time who well understood the moral dimensions of what was occurring, people who even might have done something about it. Merely understanding morality, or having a belief in this or that principle or doctrine, whether derived from religion or philosophy, is not truly indicative of being moral. To be sure, one’s thoughts might well illustrate one’s piety, faithfulness, or even wisdom; but morality is concerned with what we actually do, how we behave, and not merely what we believe, say, or even what we intend. People are often confused about this. Churchill never was.

Churchill shared with other great leaders, men such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr., the determination to be moral even when it was not easy to do so. Many of us go through life doing more or less the right thing, but we do not often have occasion to choose a moral path over an immoral one when it is especially difficult, most particularly when our own interests or reputations, even our very lives are on the line. This is also what makes the depiction of Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s movie, Schindler’s List, so compelling. Here was a very flawed man, a con man, war profiteer, and a womanizer, who confronted evil against overwhelming odds, and, thereby, saved over a thousand people. In so doing, he lost his personal fortune and risked his life. Meanwhile, surrounded by indescribable brutality, millions of pious, church-going, and polite people... people who in more ordinary circumstances we might characterize as being more “moral” than Schindler, did absolutely nothing. Nothing! Schindler met evil head-on despite the personal risk, which, is exactly what Churchill did, ultimately helping to save millions, including future generations, from this most odious of regimes.

The reason Churchill’s name will resonate throughout the ages is not only because he was instrumental in saving Western civilization, indeed, perhaps the world, from prolonged horror... though this certainly would be enough to guarantee him a prominent place in the history books. There is something else that is especially captivating about him, namely, his penetrating understanding of what morality requires, and his readiness to act on it, which is to say, his moral courage. Virtually alone, often ignored, he struggled to show others what he knew, at last, and not a moment too soon, dragging them to their senses. Studying Churchill stirs something inside of many of us, I think, perhaps even something noble; for, while we are unlikely to ever face such tests, we would at least like to imagine ourselves as doing what we know he would have done.

End

Michael E. Berumen is a philosopher and businessman living in Laguna Niguel, California. Berumen has given expert testimony to the U.S. Congress on health insurance, appeared on television news broadcasts, and addressed academic, business, and community audiences on a variety of topics, including ethics, political theory, science, and economics. A member of the Churchill Centre and the Bertrand Russell Society, he is the author of Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business (2003).

In Praise of Error: Gerald Ford's Legacy

2004-05-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

In Praise of Error: Gerald Ford’s Legacy
By Michael E. Berumen 2-16-07

Gerald Ford has been dead and buried for over a month now. A cavalcade of politicians paid tribute to one of their own with wall-to-wall praise for his sagacity during a brief and seminal presidency. Most of all, they praised him for the curative pardoning of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, an act that the politicians now tell us restored the people’s faith in government and allowed them, the politicians, to get on with the important work of running the country without the unnecessary distraction of Nixon on trial and, perhaps, even the imprisonment of a former President. The nation, we have been told repeatedly, could not have withstood any more traumas from Watergate, and the unseemliness of a President behind bars would have been unbearable, doing incalculable damage to the office. President Ford, we are told, spared us from these misfortunes, and for that, we should be grateful. What a bunch of stomach-turning drivel.

Okay, let’s get a couple of obsequies out of the way. Ford was a decent man, and he did some praiseworthy things, particularly in relation to his administration’s dealings with the Soviet Union. I’m going to overlook the shameful way we left Vietnam under his watch. He was ordinary in the best sense of the word, and, given the unparalleled hubris of his predecessor, he provided us with a much-needed tonic of openness and down-to-earth humanity. But the hyperbolic panegyrics upon his death have left me unmoved and, frankly, they have reinforced my general distaste for political people.

Of course, politicians love to put on a good show for nearly any reason, and funerals are an especially auspicious occasion for being seen, posturing, and eulogizing about one’s partner in virtue, the dear departed. When a political opponent passes from the scene, one can appear magnanimous, even statesmanlike, in making favorable reference to him. The occasion is opportune for self-flattery through associating oneself with the person and his exemplary acts. Furthermore, it provides one with excellent camouflage for criticizing one’s contemporaries through the time-honored rhetorical device of praising the departed’s qualities that stand in bold relief against the inadequacies of, take your pick: i) members of the other party or ii) the deceased’s lesser political progeny, as was on ample display throughout the funeral rites of President Ford. "I have come to bury Caesar," sayeth the orator, and on it goes.

Let’s make something very clear: the vast majority of politicians seek political office because they want to tell others how they ought to live their lives. There is something intrinsically dangerous about that which impels them, even when their power is put to good use. These worthies go to great lengths to disguise paternalistic, meddling natures with incessant talk about personal sacrifice and public service. It is too unseemly, even for a politician, to speak directly about his own toil, so he leaps at the opportunity to speak fulsomely of another’s, thereby, enabling him to bask in reflected nobility. And what occasion could be better than the death of a popular former President to facilitate such a performance? Listening to their various orations, interviews, and commentaries concerning President Ford, I could not help but feel there was a lot of insincere, supercilious BS shot through it all.

So, let's get back to the pardon, for which President Ford has been so recently lauded by politicians of all political stripes. Nixon was a crook. Among other things, he conspired to commit burglary, illegal wiretaps, fraud, tax evasion, perjury, obstruction of justice, suppression of free speech, and embezzlement, and not for any purpose other than to further his own political ambitions. Many have been incarcerated for years for far lesser crimes. If ever a case deserved prosecution, Richard Nixon’s subversion of the Constitution that he swore to uphold did. It was an egregious mistake to pardon him, and the added perspective provided by the passing of time has not mitigated either his utter venality or lessened the requirement of impartial justice, which should apply as much to a dishwasher as it does to the President of the United States.

It is simply false, no, silly to suggest that Ford and the rest of the government could not have done their jobs with the potential distraction of Nixon on trial, as many have said, or that a jailbird Nixon would have done irreparable harm to the presidency. Our government has faced far greater distractions, including a civil war and two world wars, and it still managed to do its business. Trying Nixon would have been clear evidence that no man is beyond the reach of justice. And Nixon in jail, had it come to that, might have resulted in future Presidents employing greater conscientiousness in exercising the awesome powers of the office, and I think it would have been far more effective in restoring faith in the rule of law and our civic institutions than putting it aside. The very idea that the presidency is in some way a protected, sacrosanct position, or that its occupant ought to be exempt from punishments meted out to the common man, is an abomination, an anathema to our founding principles.

No, the fact of the matter is that many now see Ford’s actions through a lens colored by fondness for an affable man, and also by the light of Nixon’s dogged and remarkably successful efforts to rehabilitate his historical standing. Pardon my distrust, but I also believe that some have made an oblique attempt to inoculate themselves from public scrutiny and future ignominy with displays of high-mindedness and bipartisanship. Senator Edward Kennedy, a latter-day admirer of President Ford, comes to mind. Nixon ought to have been prosecuted for his criminality and for his chronic perfidy (we’re well beyond lying about oral sex, here) at the expense of the American people. Had he been found guilty, as seems likely, then he should have suffered the consequences prescribed by law. Some have argued that his shame and reduced standing in history was punishment enough. I rather doubt they would make the very same argument on behalf of an infamous felon from a lower station in life, allowing his public shame to substitute for a term in the big house; this simply demonstrates their lack of impartiality.

Many see Ford as heroic for having sacrificed his political career by doing the “right thing”. The pardon is not the only reason he was not elected to serve again, though it was surely unpopular at the time. Ford pardoned Nixon within mere weeks of taking office, when he still might have recovered politically. He was damaged at least as much by the internecine battle with Ronald Reagan toward the end of his tenure, which Ford well understood, and for which he never forgave Reagan. The fact is that the world would have been better off if Nixon were not pardoned and if Ford had been elected to serve another term. Then we most likely would have never had Jimmy Carter as President, a proximate cause for the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and even Bill Clinton, which, in turn, has led to the apotheosis of mediocrity, George W. Bush, if not the worst, certainly one of the most inept Commanders-in-Chief in our history.

Ford’s defeat was the final nail in the coffin for a Republican Party that once had room for liberal and moderate voices. It presaged the consolidation of power of an unholy alliance under Reagan that began with Nixon, namely, the erstwhile Southern Democrats and the law-and- order (code for anti-civil rights) contingent; the corporate-welfare set; and the intolerant, religious right, a coalition that has controlled the party since then. The good news is that George W. Bush may well have unwittingly put an end to their stranglehold on the party and, thereby, returned the GOP to people with whom President Ford himself would have felt more at home, people who like to balance their check books, stand on their own two feet, and who are tolerant of others. Despite the latter’s profound blunder of years ago, that would be a very good thing, indeed.

End.

Michael E. Berumen is a philosopher and businessman living in Laguna Niguel, California. Among other things, he is the author of Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business (2003).

Bertrand Russell and The Conquest of Happiness

2004-05-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

Bertrand Russell and The Conquest of Happiness
By Michael E. Berumen (From Article in Free Inquiry, October/November 06)

Bertrand Russell was the most influential philosopher of the 20th century, having written some of the most seminal works in both mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. During his long life, he was also one of the world’s most celebrated public intellectuals. While occasionally infamous for his unconventional views, he was bestowed with many honors, including the Nobel Prize in 1950.

Russell had a narrow view of the proper subject matter for philosophy. He came to believe that even ethics was outside its scope, for its main assertions were not empirically or logically verifiable. This did not stop him from sharing his views on ethics or on many other subjects, though he was careful to mention he was not working in his capacity as a philosopher. Russell’s felicity of expression, not to mention a devilish wit, made him popular with audiences who had little interest in his technical work. Several academic peers evinced contempt for Russell’s fame outside of philosophy, believing him insufficiently profound and too glib. Among other things, he wrote about history, politics, education, marriage, atoms, relativity, religion, and happiness. It is the last of these subjects that I shall expand upon, focusing mainly on the themes of his little book, The Conquest of Happiness, first published in 1930.[1] However, I should like to begin by saying something about Russell’s long life.

Born in 1872 at the height of Britain’s power, Russell had deep roots in the English aristocracy. Several family members were historically significant, including his grandfather, John Russell, who was prime minister in the mid-19th century. Russell’s parents died when he was very young. Reared by his paternal grandmother and educated by a series of private tutors, he was a bookish and lonely boy, and he wrote that only his love of mathematics kept him from suicide. Once he reached Trinity College at Cambridge, he found others with similar interests, whereupon his life took on new meaning. His interest in philosophy soon blossomed. At Cambridge he came under the influence of another student, G.E. Moore, with whom he would co-found the analytic movement, and of his mathematics professor and mentor, Alfred North Whitehead, with whom he would write Principia Mathematica, a multi-volume monument to abstract reasoning.

Cloistered in the academic world, dedicated to scholarly pursuits, Russell found time in 1894 to marry an American Quaker, Alys Smith. This would be the first of his four marriages. He then wrote a book on German democracy in 1896, soon followed by another on geometry. Russell’s political activism emerged in supporting the women’s suffrage movement, and he even stood for Parliament, though he lost. He became mentor to the other titan of 20th century philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who took Russell’s early interest in linguistic analysis to the next level.

World War I seemed a tragic folly to Russell, and he joined the anti-war movement. He was thrown in jail in 1916 for his polemics against the war. He was dismissed by his beloved Trinity, though he was eventually invited to return. While in jail for six months, he began and completed the Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, which remains a fine primer on the subject.

Russell wrote scores of books and hundreds of essays. His most important work on philosophy and logic was completed before 1930. He began to distance himself from the several schools of thought that germinated from his own work, especially the ideas of the later Wittgenstein, whom Russell thought too mystical. Having as a young man rejected belief in god as unsupportable, Russell became increasingly critical of the influence of religion, which he thought largely destructive. By 1940, his unorthodox and liberal views led to his being barred from teaching an advanced course in mathematical logic at City College of New York.

While he believed most wars are unnecessary, Russell was no pacifist. He strongly favored defeating the Axis powers in World War II. After the Allied victory, he briefly advocated war against the Soviet Union to preclude the dominance of communism, which he loathed. He was essentially a democratic, guild socialist, as were many British intellectuals. He soon abandoned his hawkishness, and he became a principal in the nuclear disarmament movement and an advocate of world government. Russell became something of a secular saint to the “new left” in the 1960s, though he eventually let it be known that some youthful radicals misused his name for causes he did not support. He was an ardent and outspoken critic of America’s military involvement in Vietnam. Russell died of pneumonia in 1970.

It is evident from Russell’s autobiographical material and correspondence that he had many bouts with depression, and that they diminished in frequency and intensity only after reaching his fifties. Perhaps it is not altogether surprising that he would write about happiness, given his own personal struggles for contentment. The subject was also in keeping with his general outlook on ethical matters, informed partly by the writings of his godfather, John Stuart Mill, a leading representative of the utilitarian school. There are several species of utilitarianism, but the most common holds that the main goal of ethics is to spread the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number.

Russell was unaware of what we now know about depression, brain chemistry, and pharmacology, so some of his thinking is old-fashioned. An avid student of science and admirer of the scientific method, he would have been quick to adopt the prevailing scientific knowledge. Some of his views on the sexes and other matters are antiquated, though it should be remembered that Russell was at the leading edge of progressive thought in his day. Allowing for such things, his Conquest of Happiness is replete with observations and prescriptions grounded in common sense, and many of his ideas hold up well. Moreover, his mastery of English prose and his rapier wit make it easy and fun to read.

Russell did not write this book for people unable to remedy their circumstances, whether due to the exigencies of poverty, oppression, mental illness and other diseases, or even tragic, personal circumstances. He was not so foolish as to believe anyone could overcome any adversity. He wrote it for people not beset with the most serious obstacles, those who were most likely to read it in the first place. Furthermore, while he thought the absence of unhappiness was a necessary condition for happiness, he did not see it as a sufficient condition; rather, happiness was something one had to acquire, indeed, conquer, as the title suggests.

The first part of the book deals with the principal sources of unhappiness. Russell begins by describing “Byronic unhappiness,” or the tendency of intellectuals and world-weary people to equate wisdom with despair rooted in cynicism. The dyspeptic perspective of certain existentialist philosophers might be representative of such an outlook. He then writes about the dangers of excessive competitiveness, focusing primarily on commercial affairs, for which, as do many academics, Russell betrays a subtle disdain. However, he readily admits to excessive competitiveness in artistic and scholarly pursuits, as well as in other human behaviors.

Next he takes on boredom, which he believes is a particularly human problem, and largely a product of monotony, though he says modern humans have much less about which to be bored than our ancestors. At the same time, he eschews “excitement” over the fleeting pleasures that leave one feeling empty, using the kind of satisfaction derived from gambling as an example.

Russell then goes on to discuss the problem of fatigue, often induced by having too much to do, the bane of people who work too hard or have too many interests; envy, an especially pernicious source of unhappiness caused by coveting what we don’t have or can’t possibly have, and, often enough, don’t really need; “persecution mania,” the idea that one is the constant object of the plots and malefactions of others; and the oppressive fear of public opinion, which stultifies the personal freedom necessary for creative growth.

Of particular interest among Russell’s sources of unhappiness is our “sense of sin.” As I said at the outset, Russell thought religion was a major cause of human misery in the world, not least of all due to the feelings of guilt it engenders. The propensity to focus on one’s lack of virtue is merely a form of self-absorption, one which can be so overwhelming as to make us not only unhappy, but irrational and even irresponsible. Russell would be horror-struck by the religious apologists populating the airwaves, those who believe godless liberalism and an insufficient sense of human wretchedness are the chief causes of psychological disorders and society’s downfall.

Many of the ideas about what constituted sinfulness were absurd to Russell, especially in matters dealing with our sexuality. He certainly understood one can violate a rational code of conduct; however, constantly dwelling on our failures is counterproductive. According to Russell, one should “regard his own undesirable acts, as he regards those of others, as acts produced by certain circumstances, and to be avoided by a fuller realization that they are undesirable, or, where this is possible, by avoidance of the circumstances that caused them.”[2]

Russell devoted fewer pages to the matter of acquiring happiness, probably because the formula for it seemed more obvious to him. He realized perfect happiness is not simply what philosophers from Plato to Mill imagined it to be, namely, the rarified pleasures of contemplating philosophy. It is clear from his discussions about the joy derived from more mundane things that he did not entirely buy Mill’s famous dictum, “Better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” While not denying the pleasures of the intellect, he did not give them undue weight. However, he did believe scientists might enjoy some advantages over others, for the scientist is able to “utilize his abilities to the full, and he achieves results which appear important not only to himself but to the general public, even when it cannot in the smallest degree understand them. In this he is more fortunate than the artist.”[3]

According to Russell, the common denominator among all happy people is “zest,” by which he roughly meant a kind of joyous interest in the multifarious aspects of our lives, not with excessive zeal, but with moderation in an Aristotelian sense. People with such a balanced, but engaged temperament, are likely to be happier than their counterparts, for example, one who would starve himself at one end of the spectrum versus a gourmand at the other end.

Russell then described the importance of both giving and receiving affection; having meaningful and productive work to do, but not to excess; having one or more avocational interests to challenge the mind, perhaps even benefiting others in the process, while preventing monotony and boredom; and placing satisfying effort into the things that one can meaningfully improve, while, at the same time, understanding when one ought to be resigned to insurmountable realities. While external factors can impede happiness, and, in some cases, make it unattainable, Russell also believed when circumstances allow, it is important not to wait passively for it, as it does not “drop into the mouth, like a ripe fruit, by the mere operation of fortunate circumstances.”[4]

On a final note, Russell also wrote about the importance of having close family relationships. His own family ties were strained for most of his life, except when his three children were quite young, and later during his marriage to Edith Finch, his last, which by all accounts was a happy one. His daughter, Katherine Tait, wrote in My Father Bertrand Russell, “He was the most fascinating man I have ever known, the only man I ever loved, the greatest man I shall ever meet, the wittiest, the gayest, the most charming. It was a privilege to know him, and I thank God he was my father.”[5] This would have made Russell very happy, despite the object of her gratitude.

[1] Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1968) 180 pgs.
[2] Ibid., pp. 71-72
[3] Ibid., p. 103
[4] Ibid., p.167
[5] Katherine Tait, My Father Bertrand Russell (N.Y.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975) p. 202

Senator Craig and Dating in Restroom Stalls

2004-05-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

by Michael E. Berumen 8-31-07

Senator Larry Craig was convicted of disorderly conduct for lewd behavior in an airport lavatory. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor to get the thing behind him and, he hoped, to conceal the matter from the public. Well, that was surely stupid of him. The media is now abuzz with the matter. Most of the chatter is about entirely the wrong thing and, to my mind, consists of alternating demonstrations of schadenfreude and silliness. Let’s get several of these items out of the way.

Is he gay? He apparently likes to have sex with men; so what, and call it what you will. One gathers that there is a record of thick smoke over many years, so, while not proof positive, there’s probably a fire, somewhere.

Is he a hypocrite? Yes, he most likely is, and this is very much in line with a growing roster of social conservatives keen to impose restrictions on the rest of us. Some appear to do this to conceal their own sexual predilections; perhaps even in an attempt to convince themselves that they are not wicked sinners. In any case, we all could stand to be a little less sanctimonious and a little more introspective on the matter of hypocrisy and sinfulness.

Should he resign? He certainly would not be the first person with a chink or two in his armor to remain in government; but he surely will not weather this storm easily with his erstwhile political friends abandoning him at the speed of light, including that wholesome political cipher, Governor Mitt Romney. I don’t think Senator Craig should be forced to resign just because he has some sexual issues or because he’s a hypocrite. Speaking of hypocrisy, perhaps his social-conservative colleagues should show him a bit more of that much-touted and little-used "Christian charity." Compassionate conservatism, my ass. One thing is certain: he isn’t going to be reelected in Idaho, and, on the whole, that’s a good thing, but not because of this episode, but because many of his ideas are wrongheaded.

So, setting these media magnets aside, let’s focus on what is really important, here: why in the world are policemen trolling in restrooms for homosexuals who want to have sex with other adult men? Why aren’t our policemen out looking for murderers, rapists, terrorists, vandals, child molesters, and thieves instead of horny travelers in airports? While we’re at it, why is it illegal to ask another adult for sex, even with rather bizarre hand and foot signals? The fact is that a great many people, indeed, I expect, most adults who ask other adults for a date, do so with the hope of eventually having sex with them. I am absolutely certain that this is true when it comes to most men. What exactly is it that makes cutting to the chase so morally reprehensible, notwithstanding the unconventional, unromantic, and somewhat comical method, not to mention the rather distasteful environment? Must asking another for sex be preceded by flowers, a meal, and a movie, and in what kind of location does one have to pose the question in order for it not to be considered disorderly?

It’s not as though the senator was carrying a sign soliciting fellatio in the baggage area or exposing himself to children on the concourse. He was asking another adult man for a sexual encounter in a relatively private way, using what heretofore was an obscure sign language that a non-initiate might have thought odd, but would not have understood and probably would have ignored. Had he been in the lounge and boorish enough to whisper in another’s ear that he would like to have sex, the object of his lust simply could have told him to go to hell or to meet him at some other place, but surely no one would have arrested him unless he was relentless after being asked to stop. He did not have sex in public view (I think even I would have qualms about that one) and he did not do anyone any harm by asking for it in what amounts to a foreign language.

Senator Craig’s sexual preference, his cruising manners, and his all too-human duplicity are not the problems. The problem is the law itself, and our continued reliance on strictures rooted in primitive religious precepts about sexuality. Moreover, aside from the silliness of arresting men or women for asking other adults for sex, it is simply bizarre for taxpayers' dollars to be wasted on law enforcement having to deal with such inconsequential matters when there are so many more important things for them to do. If, for some reason, the owners (including taxpayers) of a restroom or of some other venue want to ban people from asking others for sex or dates, then they should post visible signs prohibiting such conduct and then they or their agents can remove violators from the property. Don’t arrest them for unconventional manners and then subject them to public humiliation over puritanical and anachronistic notions of decency.

The Fickle Finger of History and George W. Bush

2004-05-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen

Is the history of mankind moved by the great tidal forces of culture and society, and the multifarious factors that amass to produce them, or, alternatively, is it primarily the result of individual actors and their unique shaping of events, which some have called “The Great Man" theory of history? The latter perspective was famously promoted by Thomas Carlyle, who said, “The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” Others, for example, Tolstoy and Karl Marx, see history as the product of sweeping forces lying outside of any one individual’s control, his actions being merely the necessary yield of social influences. Historians and philosophers have long debated such things. It seems to me, however, that both views are essentially correct, and that it is difficult to ascribe historical outcomes exclusively to the effects of outstanding personalities or solely to broad, underlying social forces. The influence of society on individuals and the influence of remarkable individuals on society are inextricably bound, and, it seems to me, they both suggest explanations for historical events that are complementary rather than in opposition to one another.

However, even these general explanations are insufficient to understand all of the forces that underlie historical reality; for example, it would be sheer folly to discount the effects of random, fortuitous occurrences, or even exogenous forces such as the weather. The latter, quite alone, has caused human privation on a grand scale and altered the outcome of battles and even the course of civilizations. Setting such deeper considerations aside, it is especially remarkable to observe how seemingly isolated, minor events, when taken by themselves, can alter the trajectory of history, events that sometimes seem inevitable to us only in retrospect, but that would have been overlooked or thought insignificant at the time of their occurrence. What often seems to us to have been an obvious outcome occurs only because of an improbable, fortuitous event.

Abraham Lincoln is considered to be the greatest American president by most historians and Americans. I would not argue with that point of view. During much of his presidency, however, he was seen as an abject failure. Indeed, many in the chattering classes of the time thought him to be something of a country bumpkin, a buffoon. Things had not gone well for the Union in the first two years of the Civil War, and Lincoln had made unpopular decisions on a host of other matters. Had the Civil War not been won by the Union, which was not an altogether implausible outcome given some of the political realities of the time, I rather think that history would have judged Lincoln as an ineffective, unsuccessful president, perhaps even among the worst we have had. If circumstances were only slightly different on the war front, a great many people would have been willing to let the obstreperous South go its own way, either fully independent or virtually so, thereby enabling it to keep its “peculiar institution,” as Southerners liked to call slavery.

Consider what might have occurred, for instance, had Ulysses Grant not rejoined the military at the onset of the Civil War. After an earlier, lackluster career in the Army, and having failed at both farming and business, the scruffy Grant seemed by all measures to be an unexceptional man, indeed, even something of a disappointment. He certainly was not someone whom anyone could have singled out for greatness at the time. Had he not successfully recruited and trained a company of Illinois volunteers, thereby gaining the immediate notice of his superiors, he might not have been quickly promoted to a combat command role, and the Union most likely would have lost several principal, course-changing battles. Then, President Lincoln, hitherto a failed wartime Commander-in-Chief, most likely would have lost a second term to the Democratic candidate, the puffed-up, supercilious, and inexplicably popular George McClellan, whom Lincoln had previously fired as head of the Army of the Potomac. Given McClellan’s conciliatory stances, along with a growing anti-war sentiment among Union citizens, it seems very likely that he would have come to an accommodation with the Confederacy. As a result, slavery would have continued on for some decades, and the reconstituted United States, with or without the South, would have evolved into a nation very different than it is today. Had this occurred, the world itself would undoubtedly be quite unlike it is now, perhaps, for example, possessing a much more Germanic or Russian quality, given certain events outside of the United States in the 20th Century.

American presidents have mostly been unexceptional, mediocre men. It is the price one pays for a democratically-elected, representative government, for the people who are represented, on the whole, are also quite average and unremarkable. It stands to reason that we would be disposed to select one of our own. This is not to suggest there is a better way, for there surely is not. It is just as well, too, for as others have observed, great men also have great appetites that sometimes are satisfied at the expense of those they would rule. The world cannot easily withstand the glories and devastations of another Alexander, Genghis Khan, or Napoleon.

In several notable cases, however, a man with the right combination of talents has risen to the presidency precisely when those talents are needed most. Posterity judges him as great or near-great, even when he might have failed miserably at other, comparatively minor things. Humans are especially susceptible to hagiography, and those who write about history are certainly no exception. While we seem to take pleasure in discovering our leaders’ foibles and clay feet, we also long to find greatness in them. So, when significant events have been favorably handled, failure recedes into insignificance, and character flaws are seen as mere eccentricities. However, those traits that are thought to have contributed to his triumphs are magnified and become the now obvious markers of his preternatural nobility, prescience, and strength. Had he failed on the major issue or issues that faced him, however, these would never have been identified as such, and he would have been consigned to the dustbin of mediocrity or worse.

Now, I do not wish to compare George W. Bush with Abraham Lincoln, either as men or as presidents. They are strikingly dissimilar. Their differences are so obvious that to point them out is gratuitous, even churlish. My present purpose is mainly to suggest that significant events and the way future generations will view them hang by a mere thread, and that it is not inevitable that history will be unkind to George W. Bush. Imagine, for a moment, that over the course of 10 to 50 years, Iraq becomes a prosperous, democratic nation, a country with a diverse population protected by laws ensuring individual liberties. Further, imagine that the seeds of liberty and democracy take root in the Middle East, along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that this inspires a sea change in the Islamic world, and an Islamic Enlightenment of sorts takes place. Then, much as Lincoln’s war also had many, many instances of mismanagement and failure, and just as his public mission of holding the Union together gradually morphed into ending slavery and transforming the South, Bush’s several pronounced failures in managing the war and his own changing mission in Iraq will take a backseat in importance to how future generations judge the outcome and, ultimately, his presidency.

Even had things gone well from the outset of his administration, it is unimaginable that George W. Bush could ever be included with the likes of Presidents Washington, Lincoln, or FDR, rightly considered to be our greatest presidents; however, if things turn out favorably in Iraq and the Middle East, it is not completely farfetched to suppose that he could be judged to be just as good as, say, Presidents Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, or Truman, whom many historians believe to be in the near-great category, notwithstanding some notable failures and flaws. What today’s critics of Bush see as a combination of stubbornness and Wilsonian naiveté might one day be seen as unwavering courage, perseverance, and idealism. On the other hand, if Iraq is torn asunder by ongoing civil war and genocide; if it becomes the home base for spreading Islamic terror; or if it becomes a vassal state to an increasingly powerful, nuclear Iran, then I suspect George W. Bush, with no other accomplishments, will be accused of having made the greatest mistake in the country's foreign affairs and will be assigned to the unenviable class of failed and below average presidents, a category that include such unmitigated disasters as Presidents Pierce, Buchanan, and Hoover. Such is the utter fickleness of history.

The political left’s hatred for George W. Bush is so blinding that it causes them to set aside any desire for our country to succeed in Iraq or the Middle East, preferring the emotional vindication that history judge Bush a failure. Peace for the U.S. is not worth any price. And our nation’s duties towards other nations do not divide along political or ideological lines. It is simply feckless to leave in shambles a country that our nation invaded because a segment of our citizenry, albeit a major one, does not agree with the war's original purpose or how it has been managed. The left’s behavior in relation to Iraq is simply unconscionable. I do not admire George W. Bush. He is a decidedly mediocre man, and I continue to believe that the men he opposed in 2000 and 2004, and for whom I voted, would have been superior both as presidents and as wartime leaders. On the other hand, he is the president we have, and the outcome in Iraq is vital to American, indeed, world interests. I do not mind a more generous portrayal of the President by later generations if our nation is successful. Things seem to be going more our way in Iraq. Now is not the time to abandon the effort. We must do everything we can to build on this success, and, on a broader front, to reverse the insidious and growing trends towards theocracy and totalitarianism in the Islamic world. We are not going to do this without a significant military and diplomatic presence in Iraq for years to come. No matter how President Bush is ultimately judged, posterity will be even less kind to a nation that ignominiously left that unfortunate portion of the world with a bigger mess than had existed before it intervened.

My Republican Friends Have No Credibility When it Comes to Political Judgment

2004-05-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen 09/19/08

So, let’s get this straight. You Republicans twice elected the man slated to go down as among the worst presidents in our nation’s history, and even now you imagine that your political acuity and credibility are such that others ought to listen to your views? That’s really funny. No, sorry, the empirical evidence is that you have little to offer beyond a record of incredibly poor judgment. Faced with 4 years of overwhelming evidence of malfeasance and mismanagement, you even voted for him again. It demonstrates that facts mean nothing when they conflict with your partisan views. I’ll formulate my own opinions based on a study of history (written by real historians) and the facts, insofar as they can be discerned in the immediacy of current events, rather than from the inanities of the unlettered, glib pundits of cable television, the Internet, and talk radio. With that said, I still would enjoy having a beer with you and listening to what you might have to say about other things, for example, music, art, the market, movies, the weather and such, about which I expect you have much more to offer and there is less at stake.

I was for McCain in 2000 when you Republicans ought to have been and most were not. I well recall the scorn heaped upon him by my Republican friends back in 2000, when McCain was at his very best. Their latter-day turnabout is clearly just merely a matter of rooting for their team, unadulterated partisanship, and it is not centered in any principled reasoning. I remain an admirer of McCain, today, and I think he would have been immeasurably better than the current mediocrity that occupies the Oval Office. But now McCain is too old and, in a Faustian bargain, he has been compromised by the religious zealots and corporate welfare interests that run the Republican Party. Moreover, his impulsiveness and penchant for using his gut as opposed to analysis worries me. Good traits in a fighter pilot, maybe, but not so good in a Commander-in-Chief. To be sure, we could do much worse than McCain. He’s a man of great personal character and the kind of guy I would want next to me in my foxhole. But I do not necessarily want Audie Murphy or Sgt. York as President. Character and courage are not tantamount to wisdom. Indeed, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that whatever wisdom McCain once had has been significantly tarnished. The truth is, McCain's day has come and gone.

McCain makes much of the success (though limited and fragile) of the troop surge that he supported. His analysis of our inadequate troop strength was correct, and like many others over the last 5 years, including this writer, he understood the occupation was being grossly mismanaged. However, while he had some tactical things right, he was wrong on the essential strategic issue, namely, going to war with Iraq and occupying the country in the first place. And that's a very big blunder, indeed, one that has cost many lives and many billions of dollars. Meanwhile, with our resources misallocated, mismanaged, and stretched to their limits, our true enemies remain at large in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As for Ms. Palin, well, among other reasons, I couldn’t possibly vote for someone who shoots defenseless beasts from a helicopter for the sheer fun of it all. Add to this her recent and remarkable support of an organization whose principal platform is Alaska's secession from the United States and her stated belief that dinosaurs and men roamed the earth together 6,000 years ago. One wonders if she's actually ever read a science book. Whatever other virtues she might have, I find these things overwhelmingly disturbing. There is really nothing else I need or want to know about her, and nothing more that I need to say about her. However, it does say something about McCain's judgment and a newfound willingness to pander to the base of the party.

If Obama doesn't win, I will not be shattered, for notwithstanding his several deficiencies, McCain remains a good man. Given who he chose as his successor, one would only hope he lives out his term, or terms should he be re-elected. With that said, I remain reasonably certain that of the two, Obama has both the intellectual and emotional capacity, the temperament, to make sounder, wiser judgments, ones based on analysis and principled reasoning, and that he has the greater wherewithal to lead the nation where it needs to go in the 21st Century. And, in any event, the political opinions of those who put President Bush into office in the first place, and who then kept him there for 8 years, have very little weight and moment to me. Please, spare me from having to hear them and share them amongst yourselves.

Marriage and Homosexuals

2004-05-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

By Michael E. Berumen
10-27-08

There is a plebiscite initiative in California that would amend the state constitution to define marriage as something that can only occur between a man and a woman, and would, thereby, prohibit same-sex couples from marrying. This initiative receives most of its support from religious interests. The principal argument in favor of it is that if such a law were not enacted, the current law, which permits same-sex marriages, would normalize homosexuality by codifying its acceptability. Supporters contend that this, among other things, would lead to teaching elementary school students that same-sex relationships are normal. Moreover, advocates state that since the current law results from the State Supreme Court’s having overturned a prior voter initiative, it is contrary to the will of the electorate. Opponents, in contrast, state that it is unfair discrimination and that everyone ought to be treated equally under the law; that specific statutory measures, or so-called civil union protections, will not suffice; and that, as a practical matter, such subjects really would not be taught in our elementary schools.

From the outset, as a general operating principle, I think that we ought to view with considerable suspicion any effort that attempts to limit the freedom of others, even when we disagree with them. Aside from defining the principal powers and institutions of government, one of the major purposes of both our state and federal constitutions is to protect our individual liberties, including the liberties of minorities, even when such safeguards are unpopular with the majority. Restricting the rights of individuals is clearly contrary to the evolutionary trajectory of our country’s constitutional development, and it is certainly antithetical to the spirit inherent in the Bill of Rights, amendments that limit the role of government and the tyranny of the majority, not the freedom of individuals. Our state and federal constitutions should protect rights and should not be used to enshrine into law their denial.

As to the specific case at hand, this is largely a question of religious perspectives centering on ancient taboos against homosexuality. Religious proscriptions or predilections, in my view, are not the proper subjects for consideration by the state. The state has a responsibility to protect the rights of individuals, most especially the so-called "negative rights" allowing us to act unhindered by others, insofar as we do not interfere with their just liberties, and even if said act is contrary to the tenants of a religious doctrine or the sentiments of a majority. It is not sufficient that one (or one’s deity) is merely offended by the free acts of others. If the proponents think that the state ought to proscribe all of those things that various religions hold to be odious, they will have to enact a very long list of legal prohibitions, indeed, including quite some that are contrary to the views held dear by many.

If the proponents of this initiative do not want to marry people of the same sex, they should not. If the proponents do not want to attend or sponsor the weddings of same sex couples, they should not. If the proponents want homosexual individuals or couples to be banned from their churches and their private clubs, then they should do so. If the proponents think that heterosexuals will all of a sudden convert to homosexuality, they are simply not well informed and do not understand human sexuality. If the proponents think that children are going to be made into homosexuals or corrupted simply because they learn that Jane married Sue, they are mistaken and naive. When the proponents are unable to teach their children, even at an early age, that society includes others with whom we sometimes strongly disagree, but that their individual liberties are nevertheless protected, they add sustenance to intolerance and bigotry.

Homosexuals seek to have lasting personal relationships protected by the same legal rights as heterosexuals. The social institution of marriage clearly has both legal and cultural ramifications. The state ought to be concerned with the former kind of effects, not the latter. The state should have nothing to say about religious views or traditions on marriage or other matters, insofar as the liberties of others are not curtailed by their activities. Marriage imparts fundamental legal rights that homosexuals would be denied, either practically or legally, if they were not allowed to marry. A contract between individuals as contemplated by civil unions would be an insufficient replacement and cumbersome. Moreover, if individuals wish to commit themselves to a relationship of marriage, and all that it entails legally, notwithstanding the opinion of others, they should be allowed to do so. The state has a duty to protect these rights, even when contrary to the views of religious people or prevailing cultural trends.

It might well be true that homosexuals would like their predilections and relationships to be considered normal or acceptable by society. That desire hardly makes them unique or even particularly unusual. Many diverse cultural segments, and, quite notably, religious groups, look for similar acceptance by society at large. Indeed, religious people, especially Christians, often go a step further, believing they should convert others to their beliefs. I personally find it offensive and intrusive when someone attempts to proselytize me. All the same, I have not asked for a law to prohibit this, though, because I can suffer the inconvenience of telling them to leave me alone. I know of no homosexual or homosexual group who has ever attempted to persuade me or anyone I know to become a homosexual. Homosexuals want to marry other homosexuals. Leave them alone and allow them to do so.

One of the arguments I have heard to counter opposition to this initiative is that before we know it, polygamists, for example, will be asking for equality under the law. It represents a slippery slope to all manner of deviance. Well, personally I’m fine with that, too, as long as we also sort out that they are not given any special advantages in terms of state-sponsored benefits and, of particular importance, that it is not used as a ruse for the sexual slavery of women, much in the same sense that spousal abuse amongst couples is not given countenance under the law, notwithstanding several Biblical injuctions to the contrary. The state ought to be in the business of defining the kinds of relationships consenting, rational adults are permitted to have. The state’s particular concern is to ensure that individual rights are protected and that individuals are treated equally under the law. This, as I have said, is especially true with the all-important “negative right” of being left alone to exercise one’s individual preferences, as is the case in when two people choose to marry one another, even though others might disapprove.

The fact is that many (not all) religious people long to convince others of their point of view or of what they imagine to be their god’s dictates; indeed, they sometimes evince a strong desire to govern the behavior and lives of others, lest their own sensibilities be offended by beliefs or actions they dislike, even when they are not affected by them. They will not admit it, but what the latter truly crave is a uniformity of belief and conduct in society, the kind of result that could only occur in a theocracy. They do not prize religious freedom, per se, though that is the line they often use in defense of their views; instead, what they really prize is the freedom to practice their own religion and, what is more, they simultaneously want to chip away at and eventually eliminate any conflicting perspectives or the disagreeable behaviors of others. However, it is not the state’s proper function to support such evangelistic tendencies. On the contrary, it must strive to protect the rest of us from the unwanted and unjust intrusions by those who would seek to deny us our precious liberties.

Bertrand Russell: A Man in Full in Brief

2004-05-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Bertrand Russell: A Man in Full in Brief
By Michael E. Berumen
(An address before the Humanist Fellowship of San Diego, 5-17-09)

I should like to begin by making a bold assertion, one with which some might argue, but one I believe I can substantiate with a great deal of evidence. The assertion is this: not only is Bertrand Russell the most important English-speaking philosopher since David Hume, but he is the most important philosopher in the western tradition since Immanuel Kant. In other words, I submit that Russell is the greatest philosopher of the last 200 years. I measure this greatness in several ways: the content, scope, and originality of his ideas, along with the revolutionary impact and influence of his work, an influence that is nearly systemic, and sure to continue for the centuries to come. There is hardly an aspect of contemporary philosophy that has not been affected in a significant way by Russell.

Russell was more than a great philosopher, though; he also was a very remarkable man, a man of many parts. Kant was a great philosopher; some would even argue Wittgenstein was, too, although I am not among them. But no one could argue that either of them was particularly remarkable, memorable for the lives they led or for their impact on others, quite apart from their work in philosophy. Not only did Russell do some noteworthy things outside of philosophy, he led an extraordinarily interesting life. And it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that he is one of the finest writers, ever, of English prose, not to mention one of the most prolific, having written on the order of several thousand words each day for most of his long life, leaving us with a vivid record of his thought and personality.

On the eve of his birthday, it seems appropriate, therefore, to say a few things about Russell the man, his philosophy, and his influence. I will begin by speaking of his life, then I will encapsulate, as best I can, some of his work and ideas, realizing this is difficult to do, for the scope of his work is not only immense, he changed his position on central issues several times, and we are just now discovering some things about his unpublished work through the incredible treasure trove of Russellania at his archives at McMaster University. Finally, I will conclude by remarking on his sustaining influence on philosophy as a whole.

Russell also commented on many things outside of philosophy; indeed, I would say he is chiefly known by non-philosophers and even by some professional philosophers for his non-philosophical work, both for his popular writings and his political activism. I shall have some things to say about these things, too. Do keep in mind, however, that I am constrained to only an overview, and not the kind of full treatment required in order to appreciate someone as complex and prodigious as Bertrand Russell.

Let me begin by getting some of the negatives out of the way in summary form, negatives which have recently obscured his many achievements, and, I think, primarily as a result of a recent two-volume biography by Ray Monk. In many ways, Monk’s work is excellent for its detail and careful research, and it has the merit of having been written by a philosopher, while most of Russell’s biographers were not. A notable exception is A.J. Ayer, who wrote an excellent primer on Russell’s life and thought. While not a philosopher, I believe Caroline Moorhead presents a more balanced and impartial view in her biography of Russell, with equal attention given to his flaws and his virtues. While Monk’s biography is illuminating on many matters concerning Russell’s life, I think his disdain for Russell’s human frailties drips through his work, and as a consequence, he exaggerates their overall gravity, thereby, I think, diminishing Russell’s other, positive attributes. So let me put those negatives out front: Russell was a serial philanderer for much of his life and not always sensitive to the negative consequences his actions had on others; he could be detached, indeed, sometimes even cold, in his personal relations; he was not always an astute observer of practical politics, and he was sometimes naïve in his judgments about such matters; and he was nothing if not self-absorbed. That sums up, I think, his major flaws, flaws which form the subtext of much of Monk’s work.

But then Russell had virtues, too. He could be very generous with both his money and his time in order to come to the aid of others. He was always willing to credit others for their work, and he would even go to some lengths to bring attention to the discoveries of others. Russell was morally courageous and quite unafraid to defend unpopular opinions and suffer the consequences. He was considerably ahead of most of his contemporaries in terms of social issues, declaiming then unconventional ideas that we now take for granted. Russell was one of the world’s most eloquent and persistent advocates for the principles of individual liberty and justice. And aside from his strengths of character, his intellectual prowess has had few equals in history.

Born in 1872 in Wales at the height of Britain’s power, Bertrand Russell had deep roots in the English aristocracy. Several family members were historically significant, including his grandfather, John Russell, who was prime minister in the mid-19th century. Russell’s parents died when he was very young. Reared by his paternal grandmother and educated by a series of private tutors, he was a bookish and lonely boy, and he wrote that only his love of mathematics kept him from suicide. Once he reached Trinity College at Cambridge, he found others with similar interests, whereupon his life took on new meaning. His interest in philosophy soon blossomed. At Cambridge he came under the influence of another student, G.E. Moore, with whom he would co-found the analytic movement, inspired in part as an antidote to the philosophy of Hegel, who had achieved considerable prominence not only on the Continent, but also in both Britain and America. It was also at Cambridge that he met and was influenced by his mathematics professor, Alfred North Whitehead, with whom he would later write Principia Mathematica, a multi-volume monument to abstract reasoning.

Cloistered in the academic world and dedicated to scholarly pursuits at Trinity, Russell found time in 1894 to marry an American Quaker, Alys Smith. This would be the first of his four marriages. Early on, it seemed happy enough, but he became miserable in marriage for the better part of a decade prior to their finally agreeing to divorce. Alys never fell out of love with Russell, and she pined for him for the rest of her long life.

Russell wrote a book on German democracy in 1896, soon followed by another on geometry, one with a decidedly Kantian orientation, and one he would soon abandon. Russell’s political activism emerged in supporting the women’s suffrage movement, and he even stood for Parliament, though he lost. He and Alys were both supporters of the “free love” movement early in marriage, though they were not practitioners of what they espoused. Russell’s extramarital flings began later, most notably with the socialite, Lady Ottoline Morrell, and with the actress, Lady Constance Malleson. He sometimes carried on affairs with several women at a time, while married, and others report that it was not uncommon for him to brag about his prowess with women. He was flirtatious with more than one wife of the men with whom he associated.

Russell’s first important philosophical work, some would even argue his greatest one, was the Principles of Mathematics, which was published in 1903. This firmly established Russell as a philosopher and pure mathematician of the first rank. That was followed in 1905 by his famous essay, On Denoting, where he detailed the Theory of Descriptions, which was touted as a “paradigm of philosophy.” And then, of course, he and Whitehead co-authored the colossal Principia Mathematica in three volumes, published from 1910-1913, and which many believe to be the most important and influential axiomatic analysis and survey of symbolic logic ever written. Had Russell written nothing more than these three things, he would have still ranked among the most important philosophers of the age. But he wrote much, much more.

Early on, Russell discovered and wrote about the importance of language in philosophy, and specifically, the link between facts as denoted by propositions and reality. Prior to WWI, Russell became mentor to the other Titan of 20th Century philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who took Russell’s early interest in linguistic analysis to the next level, and whose work, later, would eclipse Russell’s in terms of popularity with many professional philosophers. Indeed, it is unlikely that we would have ever heard of Wittgenstein, the philosopher, had Russell not sensed his unusual genius and taken a personal interest in him, and had he not helped the unknown philosopher with the publication of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus after the war. Russell wrote the introduction to the Tractatus, and this gave it instant credibility. As an aside, Wittgenstein often said of Russell and of others that they didn’t truly understand his philosophy; it apparently did not occur to him that this might have been a result of his own failure to make his ideas clear.

World War I seemed a tragic folly to Russell, and he joined the anti-war movement. He was thrown in jail in 1916 for his polemics against the war, and specifically because the government held that he had insulted Britain’s ally, the United States. Owing to his antiwar activities, he was also dismissed by his beloved Trinity, though he was eventually invited to return. While in jail for six months, he began and completed the Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, which remains a fine primer on the subject.

Russell wrote over seventy books, hundreds of essays, and thousands of letters. Most of his important work on philosophy and logic was completed before 1930, though he continued to write occasionally on philosophy until the late Forties. From 1950 onwards, he devoted himself largely to political and social matters, with occasional replies to critics of his technical philosophy. He began to distance himself from the several schools of thought that germinated from his own work, especially the ideas of the later Wittgenstein, whom Russell thought had become too mystical and was sidetracked by the importance of language, as opposed to what obtained outside of our ascriptions.

Early in his life, Russell yearned for eternal truths. At this time, he had a decidedly religious bent, as evident in his Hegelian idealism followed by Platonism. His search for such truths and his disappointment in not finding greater meaning to life are most clearly demonstrated in his brilliantly written essay, A Free Man’s Worship, which he later thought to consist of too overblown and florid prose. Having as a young man rejected belief in god as unsupportable, Russell also became increasingly critical of the influence of religion, which he thought largely destructive. His most popular work in this regard is probably Why I am Not A Christian, written in 1927. By 1940, his unorthodox and liberal views, views well encapsulated in this book and in Marriage and Morals, quite radical for their time, led to his being barred from teaching an advanced course in mathematical logic at City College of New York.

When Russell’s elder brother, Frank, died in 1931, he became the 3rd Earl Russell…Lord Russell. He said his title was mostly good for getting hotel rooms.

Russell was essentially a democratic, guild socialist, as were many among the British intelligentsia. Along with H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and other prominent intellectuals, he was involved in Fabian Society activities. He was fiercely anti-communist, though, having early on thought Marx to be wrongheaded on several technical fronts, and, after his visit to the young USSR, one that included a personal interview with Vladimir Lenin, he became anti-Soviet.

His second wife, Dora, with whom he had two children, John and Kate, was very involved with him in political activities and in the formation of a school for early education. Russell had taken quite an interest in education, and he thought many of the world’s problems were attributable to mistaken pedagogy, and that if the young were only exposed to a proper education, many of these problems could be solved. He quickly learned, however, that theory and practice can be very different matters, and the school became a both a burden and a failure.

Russell’s son, John, lived a sad and difficult life, one beset with emotional problems, while Kate, who adored her father, seemed to find happiness and is today alive into her mid-eighties. Indeed, I might add, she is an esteemed and honorary member of the Bertrand Russell Society. Dora and Russell were divorced and he married Patricia Spence. She was his children’s former governess, and she bore him his third and last child, Conrad Russell, who later became a prominent historian and political figure.

It is evident from Russell’s autobiographical material and correspondence that he had bouts with melancholia (not in a clinical sense), and that they diminished in frequency and intensity only after reaching his fifties. Perhaps, then, it is not altogether surprising that he would write about happiness in his popular work, The Conquest of Happiness, given his own personal struggles for contentment. The subject was also in keeping with his general outlook on ethical matters, informed partly by the writings of his godfather, John Stuart Mill, a leading representative of the utilitarian school. There are several species of utilitarianism, but the most common holds that the main goal of ethics is to spread the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number.

While he believed most wars are unnecessary, Russell was no pacifist. He strongly favored defeating the Axis powers in World War II. After the Allied victory, he briefly advocated war against the Soviet Union to preclude the dominance of communism, and as a prophylaxis against the further spread of nuclear weapons. He soon abandoned his hawkishness, and he became a principal in the nuclear disarmament movement and an advocate of world government.

Russell’s most popular work, A History of Western Philosophy, was published in 1945. It is an entertaining and well written book, and certainly worth reading, however, it is not the best history of its sort. In any event, for the first time, it enabled Russell to live a life that was financially secure. Shortly thereafter, in 1950, Russell was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature.

Russell and Patricia, or Peter, as she was called, divorced in 1952, and he married Edith Finch in the same year. This proved the happiest of his marriages, and it lasted until his death some eighteen years later. After an acrimonious divorce from Peter, he did not see his son, Conrad, until 1968, a reunion which apparently resulted in the estrangement of mother and son.

Russell became something of a secular saint to the “new left” in the 1960s. He was an ardent and outspoken critic of America’s military involvement in Vietnam, and he fell under the influence of Ralph Schoenman, an American activist who many believe took advantage of the elderly Russell by making pronouncements sometimes uncharacteristic of Russell. But though elderly and physically feeble by his nineties, those who knew him well said he never lost his faculties, and in the end, he denounced Schoenman and quit his association with him. Russell died of influenza in 1970.

Russell’s work in philosophy is broad in scope, sometimes very technical, with parts of it only now being fully understood and appreciated; and it is often difficult to categorize, since he frequently abandoned his positions for new ones. For our purposes, today, I shall generally classify his philosophy in five major phases, namely, Early Analysis and Realism, Logicism, Logical Atomism, Neutral Monism, and Scientific Realism. I shall ignore his Hegelian period, which he abandoned very early, but against which he rebelled and, along with Moore, started the analytical movement. Indeed, the whole of analysis as a philosophical genre, a style that permeates nearly all of the strands of philosophy in the west, today, is due largely to Russell’s influence. That is not to say that others weren’t involved, or, as in the case of Gottlob Frege, that some hadn’t developed similar ideas independently. But it is due to Russell, almost entirely, that the analytical style received widespread attention and soon came to dominate philosophy. I should also say that aspects of each phase of his evolving philosophy remained with him to the end, though he continually refined his outlook and abandoned things that he came to believe were false. Time permits us to discuss just one or two of his main ideas in each phase, and even then, not in technical detail.

In his Early Analysis and Realism phase, Russell came to believe that the world depicted by Hegel’s idealism and its then fashionable variants defied common sense. They contended that everything was mental and an idea in the mind of God or the Absolute; that to know one thing, fully, one had to know all it was related to, meaning essentially everything else, the so-called doctrine of internal relations; and all other kinds of unsupportable nonsense. Russell and Moore, in contrast, said no, there really are tables and chairs, what we see is real and it exists independently of our thoughts, and that when we stopped seeing it, it was still there, and that we need not know everything in order to know one thing. The proper method of philosophy was analysis, which is to say, breaking down our thoughts and language to the simplest level. As much as anything it is a way of doing philosophy, aside from what it may eventually assert. Clarity of expression and ideas, in particular, was important, as opposed to the obscurity that characterized much philosophy, and certainly that of Hegel and his followers.

In his Logicism phase, Russell sought to reduce mathematical truths to the truths of deductive logic, and the latter rested on a small number of premises and primitive ideas. The primary works of this period include Principles of Mathematics and Principia Mathematica, along with his famous article, On Denoting. In the Principles, Russell reduced the concept of number to classes; however, through a study of Cantor, he came across a serious antinomy having to do with the class of classes that are not members of themselves. The paradox arises when we ask whether this class is in itself, as by definition it should be, but it is only if it is not, which is clearly contradictory. When Frege learned of this contradiction from Russell, he said the edifice of his own work had been shattered, which caused him to abandon his own program of logicism. Russell solved the problem, along with other antinomies (such as the famous Liar’s Paradox), through his theory of types, a hierarchy of propositional functions, which we need not go into here. The Principia was a further effort to explicate and systematize logic and reduce it to its most fundamental propositions. Almost all of mathematical logic, today, has its roots in these two works.

Russell’s famous theory of descriptions is an outgrowth of the Principles and was the focus of his article in Mind in 1905. In brief, Russell found a way to dispose of the idea that certain kinds of names denote objects, and the notion that even absurd entities such as Pegasus or round-square copulas and the like have some sort of real status or being. Some even thought that when we denied the existence of such entities, we granted them a kind of existence. If we examine the statement The Present King of France is Bald, the law of the excluded middle (p v –p) should tell us that The Present King of France should appear on either a list of all the present non-bald kings or the present bald kings. But he’s nowhere to be found on either list. Russell dealt with such predicaments by structuring the proposition thusly,
1. There is an x such that x is the Present King of France (∃x (Fx));
2. for every x that is the Present King of France and every y that is the Present King of France, x equals y (i.e. there is at most one Present King of France) (∀x(Fx → ∀y(Fy → y=x)));
3. for every x that is the Present King of France, x is bald. (∀x (Fx → Bx)).

In so doing, by making x a variable seeking a predicate, as it were, we avoid asserting the existence of x, and we keep the entities populating our universe to a much more manageable level. Indeed, it suggests that any nominative expression that is not a proper name can be analyzed into simple predicates, thereby, enabling us to dispense with names altogether, a world of predicates, if you will.

This is in no small way related to Russell’s theory of Logical Atomism, in which he suggests that the world consists of simple constituents comprised of simple qualities and relations. Put another way, the world consists of facts, and these facts consist of objects or particulars that can be broken down into simple units. There are beliefs in relation to these facts, which are either true or false. Heavily influenced by Wittgenstein in this phase, Russell thought that one could achieve a kind of one-to-one correspondence between language and the facts of the world, and that through analysis we could get at the bare fundamentals, kind of the ultimate, simple facts, thus the appellation “atomism.” In Russell’s view at the time, the world we apprehend is essentially a logical construction. Later, he came to believe otherwise, but what remained was the methodology, whereby one arranges or defines more complex ideas or vocabularies (including those of logic and science) in terms of simpler ones. Indeed, this is perhaps the common thread amongst the several analytical schools even today.

We come now to Russell’s Neutral Monism phase. While short-lived, he continued to borrow heavily from it in his later thought. Russell was troubled by the problems of perception versus reality, and he sought to solve some of these difficulties. Previously he had been a dualist, believing the world consisted of mental and physical stuff, unlike the monists, such as idealists or materialists who thought the world one or the other. Neutral monism is not an original doctrine, for others, such as William James and Ernst Mach, held similar ideas before him, though Russell gave it his own twist through his scientific structuralism and a logical framework, and, it also might be said, he revived its popularity. Indeed, others are taking some of the views Russell formulated in this period very seriously even in the present day. Roughly speaking, with neutral monism, Russell held that the world consists of neither mind nor matter, but neutral sensibilia making up both minds and bodies. Thus, mind and body consists of common elements, but they are merely arranged in different ways, much like a phone book could be arranged either by name or by address, and yet consist of the same elements. Psychology and physics have their proper spheres, but in the final analysis, our sensations and desires are located in the brain; and whether we call them mental or physical, they consist of the same stuff and we need not bifurcate them ontologically.

I call Russell’s final phase, Scientific Realism. Here he says physical objects are inferred entities as opposed to the logical constructions that he once thought they were. Coming full circle to an almost Kantian outlook, we are unable to know their intrinsic natures, and, indeed, after years of considering the anomalous aspects of sensation and perception, he believed they probably have only a structural resemblance to our percepts, not the kind of direct correspondence that he and the earlier proponents of realism believed. He continued to maintain, however, that the difference between mental and physical states is not fundamental, but only a matter of how the stuff is arranged.

Previously, Russell had implicitly abandoned particulars, holding that only universals remained, an outgrowth of both his theory of descriptions and analysis. But even universals give way in his mature philosophy to qualities or events apprehended in a temporal-spatial framework he called “compresence.” In the end, though, Russell thought that science remains our best hope for understanding the world. He said, “It is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong, and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific. It is, therefore, rational to accept it hypothetically.“

Let me make some brief remarks about Russell’s views on ethics. Essentially, he agreed with David Hume, which is to say that there are matters of fact as distinguished from matters of value. There are no moral facts. Ethical propositions are essentially expressions of our feelings and desires, Russell believed. But this in no way was to diminish their importance. Indeed, he was very passionate about a number of social and ethical issues. He had longed for something more satisfying than the positivist-emotivist view, and he rejected the idea that ethical propositions were, in effect, meaningless. But he nevertheless did believe that ethics lies outside the proper sphere of philosophy, and when he commented on social or ethical matters, he was careful to point this out. I think this worked against him, really, for he had some important things to say about ethics, and by suggesting he was acting outside of his capacity as a philosopher, he furthered a view of himself, one propounded by Wittgenstein and others, that he was too glib and should not be taken seriously on ethical matters. In truth, a great deal of what he has said about ethics has considerable value from a philosophical standpoint, as has been recently argued very persuasively in an article by Charles Pigden, my fellow BRS member.

And now I turn to an area that might be of particular interest to this audience, Russell’s views on god and religion. Russell abandoned his belief in a supreme being early in his career when he concluded that all of the arguments for his existence were fallacious. He said if he were addressing a group of philosophers, he would say he was technically an agnostic (I would say, more accurately: a non-believer) and that he could not prove the non-existence of god, though he found no evidence to support it, either, and quite a bit to suggest it was hokum. For all practical purposes, however, he said he was an atheist. Moreover, Russell held that religion was almost wholly destructive and without merit, and that it was based largely on fear and superstition, and contrary to the scientific attitude he promoted. He believed religion was inimical to progress, liberty, human dignity, and unworthy of free men. He frequently railed against the policies of the Roman Catholic Church on divorce, which he believed caused unnecessary pain and suffering, and on sexuality, which he thought anachronistic and unnatural. Interestingly, Russell often included communism among the major religions, believing it shared many of the same characteristics as a religious doctrine, and that it merely substituted dialectical materialism for god. It is fair to say that Russell eschewed dogmatic creeds and ideologies altogether, along with the authoritarian regimes they often inspire.

Bertrand Russell’s work has had a profound and lasting effect on philosophy, more than any other philosopher of the 20th century. While there have been changes and improvements to what he originally did in logic, no philosopher since Aristotle has had as great an influence over the subject matter, and most of what we do today in logic is an outgrowth of his work. This has had a wide range of effects, and not least of all in computer science. Russell was not the first to understand the importance of language to philosophy, but his early work is undoubtedly what gave the philosophy of language its major impetus early in the century, and its several strands today owe much to him, even though he himself came to question the importance of what philosophers of language were doing. Various other schools of philosophy, including logical positivism and the various strains of realism owe much to Russell, of course. It is barely conceivable that thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Kurt Gödel, Rudolph Carnap, A.J. Ayer, Karl Popper, and Willard Quine, among many others, would have found the same prominence without Russell’s considerable influence. However, I suspect the thing that philosophy, generally, owes him is a rejection of obscurantism, a preference for clarity and rigor of expression, and its embrace of logic and science as its handmaidens. And all of us owe him a great deal for his clarion call for the supremacy of reason, and his eloquent and passionate defense of liberty, justice, and tolerance, even on occasions when these ideals were viewed unfavorably and under attack.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not put in a plug for the Bertrand Russell Society, a group devoted to the study of Russell’s work and his ideals. The Society has regular annual meetings, publishes a quarterly journal, has an e-mail group for Russell discussions, and members receive a complimentary copy of the periodic journal, Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. The BRS also has a close, unofficial relationship with the Bertrand Russell Research Centre and Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University, headed by Nicholas Griffin and Kenneth Blackwell, respectively, members of BRS and two of the world’s foremost Russell scholars. Let me know if you have any interest in becoming a member of the BRS, and I would be happy to provide you with information.

All rights reserved copyright May 17, 2009.

The Very Republican Tea Party

2004-05-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

The Very Republican Tea Party

By Michael E. Berumen

04-16-10

An extensive poll of “tea party” supporters by CBS News and the New York Times has put the lie to the notion that this represents some sort of populist uprising. It is a manifestation of unrest among reasonably well-educated, middle-aged and older, white, moderately-affluent, Republican males. Moreover, it has sympathies with only about 18% of the general adult population, and only 4% has either sent money or attended a tea party event. Despite the seemingly constant and fawning attention of conservative cable news and talk radio shows, this hardly constitutes a popular uprising amongst the downtrodden masses. And given the fact that the “movement” is primarily focused on defeating key or weakened Democrats, it most certainly cannot be described as nonpartisan.

While its leadership maintains that it is separate and distinct from the Republican Party, it is only in the same sense that certain tax-exempt 527 organizations, such as the Swift Boat and Moveon.org, groups, or the Chamber of Commerce and certain labor organizations, are also separate and distinct from the major parties, notwithstanding the fact they all clearly cater to Republican or Democratic platforms and candidates. The Republican Party is currently falling all over itself trying to curry favor with the tea party and, along with its media arms in talk radio and Fox News, it makes full use of its anti-Democratic, anti-Obama platform. The “distance” its leaders try to create is a sham, for the truth is, the group consists of the core constituency of the Republican Party, one that is knee-jerkingly against everything President Obama is for, and one that is increasingly disenchanted with the apostasy of its few remaining moderate voices or the occasional attempts to be bipartisan, this being guaranteed to incur the wrath of the base.

This angry white male group is essentially the same kind of phenomenon that helped put Richard Nixon in the White House back when “law and order” was the buzz phrase of the day, code for a dislike of integration, the anti-war crowd, and social change, generally. The buzz today is too much government, socialism, and, whatever Obama is for it must be bad for America, even when much of what he promotes was also supported by the party’s patron saint, Ronald Reagan, and other Republican luminaries of the past. And, as was true in President Nixon’s day, and while certainly not representative of the majority of tea party members or angry white males, there was and remains a fringe element of potentially dangerous, anti-government nuts (not that they refuse public assistance for themselves) emerging from the political underbelly of America.

The tea party is a vocal minority, one generated by economic discontent and fear of President Obama, a discontent ginned up by the shriller elements of the reactionary chattering class, especially Fox News, and it is unlikely to be anything more than a fleeting political movement that manages to gets some Republicans elected and some Democrats tossed out of office in November. As the economy improves, however, its influence as a group outside of the conventional party machinery will surely begin to wane. It is unlikely to ever become a large political movement or organize into an independent party, especially since most of what it promotes is already being promoted by the Republican base. Indeed, in no small sense, it is the Republican base... just availing itself of another avenue of expression.
One wonders where all of these anti-government people were when the last President Bush took us into an unnecessary, prolonged war and occupation at considerable cost in in human and capital treasure; massively expanded the size and cost of government; when he trampled on any number of constitutional rights, so much so that even the conservative Supreme Court could not uphold his decisions; and when he crafted a very expensive (and poorly designed) "government run" drug program under Medicare. Where were all of the states rights people when the Supreme Court cynically appointed George W. Bush as president, in the first place, nullifying the decision of the Florida Supreme Court? Why were they not in the streets showing their outrage at such brazen abuses of power and spendthrift behavior? Clearly, because they were then, as they are now, partisans, pure and simple. In other words, they have no problem at all with Republican big government, overspending, and infringements on the Constitution. They are not opposed to big government at all, they are opposed to the other guy's government. And they deplore attempts to correct (with several notable successes, I might add) the large mess and legacy of malfeasance left behind by a Republican president and congress.

The principal spokespeople for the tea party bunch include former Governor Sarah Palin and Representative Michele Bachman, intellectual featherweights, who even openly pride themselves in this painfully obvious fact. They are able to create a great deal of heat with their anti-elitist, anti-intellectual rants and they do so without ever producing much light. Fortunately, their popularity is largely confined to the gun-toting, trailer park crowd , those who think of these women as being one of their own. They are not taken very seriously even among core constituencies in the Republican Party, where these post-feminist demagogues fail to garner much real interest as future presidential candidates, as the straw polling shows. They are aided and abetted in their pyrotechnics, of course, by the ethically challenged, but less home-spun and more cerebral former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, a historian cum ideologue who knows enough history to twist it to his purposes, and who is looking for a base for his own presidential aspirations (it will never happen); the bombastic and relentless partisan, Sean Hannity; the political theorist to the unlettered, Glenn Beck; and the former opiate addict and perennial rabble rouser to the Republican base, Rush Limbaugh.

The danger of the tea party movement is primarily on the fringes, as is the case with any political faction that arises from discontent during hard times. The far right has used this movement in an attempt to give voice to its complaints about such things as immigration, an African American president, guns, Muslims, diversity, homosexuals, and what-not, and in order to make its own agenda seem more mainstream by association with it. So they show up at tea party events with their crazy, incendiary signs and shout epithets to politicians. I am not especially worried about the effects of tea party members, as a whole; dissent is healthy and these are just Republicans in sheepskin. However, I do worry about the constant anti-government drumbeat (one wonders just what the object of their patriotism is), accusing Obama of being a radical socialist (he is not), or even questioning his legitimacy (saying he wasn’t born in the US: he was), and some of the other nonsense that could cause one of the fanatics on the fringe to do something mad, a la Timothy McVeigh or David Koresh. Responsible people in the party establishment and amongst the chattering class on TV and radio must be more mindful of the untoward effects their hyperbole in their zeal to win elections can have, lest they bear some responsibility for a tragedy.

                Of equal concern to me is the fact that some Democratic politicians have been entirely too wishy-washy as of late in an effort to be politically correct and sensitive to the tea party crowd, people who are unlikely to vote for a Democrat under any set of circumstances. Too much of their nonsense passes without comment, e.g., that the country is headed towards socialism, that health insurance reform is tantamount to government takeover of health care, etc., instead of denouncing such silliness in no uncertain terms, along with a failure to condemn some of the more outrageous things promoted by the birthers and the like. Democrats should be addressing this silliness with much more vigor and more routinely without fear of alienating them, for they are already alienated. The objective is to ensure that people who do not presently identify with the tea party group do not begin to believe what is being said simply because it is said often and loudly enough, which depends upon a clear and timely counterattack, one that is based on facts. I was pleased that former President Clinton has begun to do just that, and I would hope some well-known, respected politicians from the “old guard” (and to my mind, preferable) Republican ranks, e.g., former Senators Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Alan Simpson, and even President George H.W. Bush might do the same. This is precisely what the rational center needs to counter the efforts of the likes of Palin, Bachman, and Gingrich, along with the ubiquitous noise emanating from the infotainment world of cable TV and talk radio.
   With all this said, don't get me wrong: I think the core Democrats are only slightly less contemptible, and I am especially critical of President Obama for his failure to spend his political capital early-on in his administration for a more sensible health insurance reform program with a properly designed and funded government-payer option (such as Medicare). He still managed to get something better than what we had, to be sure, but it is insufficient and an opportunity was squandered through dithering for bipartisanship and placating special interests. While the Republicans have never been especially competent at managing the checkbook (contrary to convention), they have always excelled at marketing (hence, the convention), and they clearly out-marketed the Democrats with their sales points on death panels, government takeover of health care, etc. I hope the president does better on financial reform, and there is some early evidence suggesting that he will.
   I also do want to say that the tea party people are absolutely correct with one of their principal sentiments, and that is a general distrust of government and a fear of government overreaching. Where I differ is that this is true of governments run by both Democrats and Republicans. There are very good reasons to be suspicious of government, even when the original intention is to do good. For that reason, alone, dissent against it has value; even when it is not altogether coherent and when it is clearly partisan, as in this case, because it keeps politicians on their toes, and that is a very healthy thing. But I extend this suspicion to all institutions, including private business, large and small, where, in fact, an equal or greater amount of corruption exists. The thing that makes it less problematic than government power is that power in private hands is generally not monopolistic, whereas the government's is. We have more alternatives and choices in the marketplace.
   The pluralism inherent in private property and its adjunct, capitalism, helps guard our individual liberties through a diffusion of power over our lives, and that is of paramount importance. Competition amongst firms affects not only product quality and price, but also reputation and integrity. In other words, competition can keep the players honest, not always in the short run, as we know, but very often in the long run. It is the role of government (among others) to smooth the rough edges of the marketplace, and also to provide a safety net for those who fall through the cracks, which any one of us is apt to do at one time or another (it is worth noting that the poll shows tea party members like their government benefits!). Voters and dissenters, alike, including tea party people, are all we have to keep politicians and regulators accountable by forcing them to compete for the consent of the governed.