Justice: Blind, Deaf, and Especially Dumb
So CratesI write this post as an angry man. I have become enraged by the direction our society has been heading. I scoff at the lack of respect shown to authority. That lack of respect, I believe, stems from a lack of respect of oneself and is then projected onto the object of one’s frustration. What has happened to our once proud society? I see America not as a proud, successful country, but rather a spoiled, self-indulgent people crippled with a delusional sense of entitlement. The average American citizen has made a decision: instead of put time and effort into pulling up one’s veritable bootstraps, he/she and they have decided to put forth the old college-try in an attempt to avoid any and all personal responsibility.
What is personal responsibility? I think the phrase can be taken two different ways. The more common interpretation is that it is the responsibility of an individual person. That is to say, the duties or information that person can be held accountable for. Another, perhaps neglected, way to read that phrase is: the individual’s responsibility to his or her self. I’m talking here about pride and shame. By accepting one’s own personal responsibility (rather than have it thrust upon you) one can attain a certain degree of self-respect. However, if someone tries to constantly slip their way out of that responsibility (and worse yet, if they are successful) that person will not develop a sense of self-respect and pride in one’s own legacy. Instead, he or she could become embroiled in the ridiculous modern ‘justice’ system in an attempt to place the blame on anyone other than oneself.
It is my observation that a person seems to no longer have the same self respect, personal responsibility, and self-motivation that previous generations once exuded. We are currently in what has been coined the Age of Accountability in reference to the many slippery court battles that have dominated our media in recent decades. I find this label ironic. It is a biblical allusion to the specific age that a child can be held guilty for his/her sins. The reference is suggesting that we as a society are now advanced enough to reap the repercussions of our transgressions. Thus, resulting in a surplus of court activity. I, however, find this ‘Age of Accountability’ to be precisely the opposite. We now live in an age where employees attempt to dodge responsibility and employers lack the conviction to take action. The result: a society based upon both arbitrary and menial rules yielding disproportionate consequences to separate the ‘team players’ from the unsavory rebels. It is, in fact, a quest to remain unaccountable that motivates many people today.
When someone is accused of a shortcoming, IE: a waiter is reprimanded for not memorizing a wine list, the immediate reaction in today’s Age of Accountability is to respond with, “Well I didn’t know I had to memorize it! Nobody ever told me that!” This passing of the buck is decidedly a very sound argument of innocence. And how can we expect someone to just inherently know how to perform their task without proper training? The manager, now, does not want to be held accountable for firing someone without just cause as there are steep legal ramifications to that. So now, who must be punished? The ignorant employee (forgetting the fact that he showed zero motivation for self improvement) cannot be held accountable, the manager is surely not going to reprimand himself for improper training classes. The solution? The manager now creates a rule stating that ALL employees must memorize the wine list. So now, the next time he catches the poor waiter, he can reprimand with authority.
Imagine now that scenario repeating itself at an exponential rate. Now the manager has a veritable arsenal of frivolous infractions he can use as weight to fire any given employee. The waiter’s overall skills are irrelevant. His ability to conform to very specific requirements (IE: lateness, menu knowledge, table maintenance, proper color socks, etc) is what the manager now uses to determine whether the person is good at their job or not. This scenario, I’m sure, has played out in your workplace as well and is not limited only to servers and restaurant employees. I think we as a society get entirely too caught up in the easily measurable and assuredly quantifiable as “proof” of success or failure.
The large-scale ramifications? Our legal system, sometimes erroneously referred to as our “justice” system.
First of all, the system is based off of an infraction = punishment equation. Simple. Precise. Fair? Fear of punishment is the most unsuccessful form of honest change a person can have. I site the movie “A Clockwork Orange” as a fictional, yet shockingly brilliant example of this. The main character is instilled with a sickening, gagging reflex every time he curses or has a “naughty” thought. He still has the thoughts, and holds resentment against the gagging treatment for preventing him from acting on his impulses. His change of behavior is purely based upon fear of punishment and there is no “honest” change in the man’s demeanor. Fear of literal punishment or the taking away of liberties does not breed the sort of change we’d like to see in a convict. What about the sense of pride? What ever happened to a person’s self motivated drive to be a better person? Are these concepts lost to the current generation? Where they ever there, or am I just romanticizing days of yore? Obviously, the goal of punishments are to act as deterrents, but at what cost?
The second issue that arises from our broken judiciary system goes back to the original point of personal responsibility. Because we hold people accountable for only the very basic, measurable and tactile of requirements, we have developed a minimalist society. In this minimalist society, each member is going to try to do the absolute minimum amount of work possible without getting into some sort of trouble (“stay under the radar” if you will). When trouble does arise, it is now the job of the lawyer (or suitable representative) to find fault in the justice system and somehow negate the charges. Another example is in order: a man is witnessed by a police officer robbing a woman of her purse. The cop chases down the perp and tackles him into submission. In the ensuing trial it becomes known that the cop did not read the criminal the miranda rights... Case dismissed! The mishandling of the arrest has NOTHING to do with the defendant’s guilt, nor does it have anything to do with proving that guilt. However, the charges are dropped because the police officer did not succumb to the very specific, exact, ultimately arbitrary list of requirements of making an arrest. Worse yet, the now negligent officer has created a negative track record for himself and may be open to legal ramifications himself if the purse-snatcher is so motivated.
Justice?
Let’s take a look at another great example of American Law: In Pennsylvania, to this day, it is illegal to have over 16 women in a house living together as that constitutes a brothel.
Really?
We cannot rely on our courts to pull us out of this downward spiral. The courts are powerless because they rely entirely upon “evidence of fault.” So they will be endlessly using these frivolous, exact rules to gain a case (regardless of how relevant the rules are). Not to mention the politics that inevitably get involved. The solution lies not in our justice system, in fact a revamping of our entire system may be in order... any ideas?
Reader Comments (18)
Well said. Your frustration is both palpable and, in my opinion, justified.
The subject of responsibility is an interesting one, and has occupied my mind for more hours than I would like to admit. Concerning the topic of responsibility, I would like to bring up the philosophical concepts of "free will" and "determinism." Everyone is familiar with so-called "free-will." Determinism, perhaps, needs some explanation: Determinism is the belief that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally (i.e. cause and effect) determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. According to this view, "free will" is an illusion, and consciousness is merely an "emergent phenomenon" that results from the increasing complexity of matter. The existence of consciousness does not entail any sort of free will. Rather, conscious beings are forced to experience sensations and lives over which they have no control, as everything is reducible to cause and effect.
In other words, either we have some measure of free will, or EVERYTHING, including human consciousness and all our so-called "choices," is attributable to the mechanistic and scientifically demonstrable laws of cause and effect (determinism).
I am undecided on the free will vs. determinism question. I am interested in knowing where the rest of you stand on this. I assume that most of you believe in "free will," as that is the majority position. However, if determinism is correct, then this leads to many interesting and seemingly absurd or nihilistic consequences...
PEACE!
To address So Crates ideas is to think that something has altered in modern society. The larger a society gets, less personal responsibility is required. The problem can be seen in almost every area of human society. Lets start with the familiy unit. The smaller the family, the more essential the roles of the individual unit. They actually will and must perform to make the family unit work. This provides ample opportunity for each individual to showcase their importance, thus attributing to pride of a positive outcome and shame with a negative one.
I firmly believe that a smaller a school, the better the chances for children to take an active and essential role in their education. I also believe that small schools require parents to become more involved and the community to take an active role. In a small, local economy, it is almost impossible not to experience guilt of selling out your neighbors and going to big chains for a few dollars. Again, responsibility is in direct correlation to the size of the society.
Now on to larger matters. Capitalism require large entities of interchangeable parts to produce the cheapest cost products. The larger an organization, the lower the cost of the product and thus higher the profit. The effect of this, is of course, many very small levels of responsibility. You can even see in corporate scandels of Enron, Fanny Mae, AIG and so on, that it was almost impossible for any one person to be blamed, or as you put it, take responsibility for the horror this caused on the markets and so many personal lives. Capitalism allows people to invest from far away and take the profits without any personal or moral responsibility towards the society because of its incredible size and distance and decreased importance of the individual on the system.
You make strong points in your essay and the larger things get, though definitely more options and lower cost and freedom are its benefits, the less an individual plays an essential role. This has caused many of the ills of our society because we do not require the standard of responsibility for ourselves, let alone someone else.
Thanks for the ideas. Shaman, I hope to come back and address yor response in the day. I have to do some thinking first.
James is completely right when he talks about the depersonalization of society and the concomitant abdication of responsibility. It's interesting to note that the psychological and anthropological data bears this out. Studies consistently show that the largest optimum social group is comprised of 150 people. Clans, tribes, or societies consisting of more than 150 members are forced to invent all kinds of absurd laws/customs in an attempt to govern. Although groups of less than 150 people certainly have customs, basic social cohesion through interpersonal relationships is sufficient to maintain group harmony. This reminds me of a Tao Te Ching quote (verse 18):
When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body's intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
patriotism is born.
The esoteric meaning of the above passage might not be readily apparent, but if you read it carefully, I believe you will come to see that it directly relates to what we are discussing. In the eyes of Lao Tzu, the mythic author of the Tao Te Ching, things like "piety", and "patriotism" are not true virtues. They are arbitrary constructs designed in an degenerate attempt to preserve social cohesion once the Tao is lost.
Let's return again to the 150 person rule of anthropology/psychology. Biologists, psychologists, and anthropologists have compiled physiological data on various species, their encephalization quotient (ratio of brain weight compared to mammals of comparable size), and the size of their social groups. Human's encephalization quotient is 4.6. That's HUGE, because it means that 16% of our basal metabolism is accounted for by our brains! In other words, if a person ate a dozen eggs, the energy from two of those eggs would devoted solely to keeping the brain operating. The brains of other mammals account for only 3% of their basal metabolism.
Why do humans need such huge brains? Scientists have provided many explanations, but the one with the most support (at least currently) seems to be "The Social Brain Hypothesis." We have huge brains so that we can successfully navigate a very complex social world by outmaneuvering rivals and attending to a highly complex series of relations. Still, despite our huge brains, we can still only maintain effective social ties with about 150 people (or 147.8 to be exact).
Once people started maintaining groups larger than 150 people, they needed to invent all kinds of artificial methods of control. It's interesting that Lao Tzu (the alleged author of the Tao Te Ching) perceived the basics of this 2500 yrs ago...
PS. I Wish I could include a graph of encephalization quotient or neocortex ratio. I'm looking at one right now, from my text book. It graphs various mammals' neocortex ratios, demonstrating how the ratio is directly proportional to the size of the social group that the animal maintains!!!
That was the most awesome reply of all time. Shaman you are becoming a god!
"We have huge brains so that we can successfully navigate a very complex social world by outmaneuvering rivals and attending to a highly complex series of relations."
If I ever write a whole book, this is going to be the inscription of the first chapter.
Thank you, both, for your insights. I agree with what you’ve both concluded is the source of our dwindling personal responsibility. Honestly, I am blown back by how seemingly simple the explanation is. Shaman, you provide very convincing data to back up Mr. Dugan’s theory and I stand now as a man faced with the question the Shaman had first introduced: are we capable of breaking this genetic programming?
Shaman wrote “‘free will’ is an illusion, and consciousness is merely an ‘emergent phenomenon’ that results from the increasing complexity of matter.” This is a brilliant, albeit a bit chilling, way of viewing what others would consider our greatest gift. If free will is an illusion, than does that make us powerless to change our societal woes? If we are merely products of evolution and adaptation, if we are subject to the size of our community dictating our own value within that community, than isn’t free will the only way to break that trend? I think an “outside” force would be necessary to disrupt the current flow, and without free will, how could such a force exist?
I speak now as the devil’s advocate (or perhaps God’s advocate in this case) for I am undecided on the topic of free will. The easiest question I have to dispute the refusal of free will is ... why? Why are we conscious? If there is no free will, if it is simply an illusion, why are we aware of existence? Why can we question reality, our community, and our society? If consciousness is merely an emergent phenomenon, than has it appeared elsewhere without our realization? Why is it limited to only humans? What causes this awareness? Is it the belief that something complex enough eventually takes on a life of its own? Is that what societies are? Would an outsider looking down at earth consider each city a life form and the people within simply the cogs?
I look forward to your responses, but for now I must rest... my brain is about to explode.
Fascinating points by all. However, I lean more towards So Crates viewpoints that the reduction in personal responsibility is corollary to the expansion of a mispracticed, avarice-based, capitalistic system, which no longer encourages industriousness but rather complacency. This complacency is merely an extension of a quasi-socialist ideal of equal education for all, cell phones for all, ipods for all, cable for all, etc. The expectation and procuring of meaningless superficial, kitsch goods has created in people a severely depleted work ethic that in turn has reduced any sense of responsibility. If an anomaly exists in a community in which a member is unable to acquire his goods, due to his/her environment's impediments: education, work, etc., then a deviation from the accepted laws occurs, teenagers shooting each other for sneakers, people's homes being robbed for TVs and Stereos to be sold to other social deviants willing to go outside the appropriate code of conduct of acquiring things through hard work and diligence.
While I do not have any statistics to support my stance, I disagree with the perception that size has created so many of our social ills. Larger, extended families were the norm of many European immigrant and many African American families for many decades, and the philosophical standard of responsibility was able to be instilled into the majority of their offspring. Schools of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s were overpopulated, sometimes with classes of 40-50 students, yet they still produced a higher percentage of proficient readers than today's schools. And while some may argue that we have more students in college than ever before, I would be willing to bet that the percentage of accepted applicants is much lower than in the past and also I would argue that the standards of today's higher learning are a sad shell of the former demands of the once proud university system. Obviously our cultures have changed dramatically in the past 40+ years, but to isolate the desolation of personal responsibility to an issue of size I feel misses the point and runs the risk of excusing the problem.
I refuse to accept that free will and responsibility are illusions, for if true, our dialogue here is moot and my time is better spent sleeping, eating, and drinking my life away. So Crates is right that the courts will not save us from this malestrom of indifference, so it is on the shoulders of erudite men to accept the responsibility of reforming others erred ways, not through force or punishment, but through logic and intellectual discourse as we have displayed here.
Thanks for a hardy lunch!
Shaman, I wrote a piece last year on the subject of Fate vs. Free Will that you might be interested in. Take a read if you have a chance; I'd appreciate your thoughts. http://www.thelunchbreakblog.com/free-lunch/2009/4/15/fate-or-free-will.html
I do not think the absence of free will is anything to fret about. I guess I should say first that there is no free will as an individual perceives it. The individual is a collective of all the greatest and worst things that have come before him. He is the end line of evolution, that has required as much ingenuity in the physical adaptations as mental. Somewhere along the line, physical strength was not enough. We had to develop a new tool to deal with extended social challenges (as Shaman has said) and the ever increasing competition for resources. The tool we had from nature, the brain.
Why should we worry about free will? Give me one example of free will you have made today and I will create a mathematical formula of reasons why this was just a logical conclusion of the million variables that led to this conclusion. The chaos theory allows us to be individuals, celebrate diversity, create; it just does not allow for us to say we did it on our own. Free will is the opposite of a dependent society needed for social mobility. When we have a healthy respect towards the past, or just a vague idea, than humanity moves on and with it, all that has come before.
Final thoughts: We can not think in vacuums. Things are larger than we perceive. Universes are just the beginning. The ant has the will to move under my shoe, but he wouldn't if he knew I was coming down to crush him, intentionally or not. Things have meaning without free will because each individual plays an essential role in the development of mankind. We are the products of our society, and thousands of the societies that have come before, and the millions that will come after, whether they be homo sapiens or not.
I hope we revisit this topic, because this is how I believe we know what actions are necessary at times. I believe our lack of free will allows us to predict the future. But that is for another blog and day. Great lunch.
I completely disagree. Our rejection of free will, and therefore responsibility of actions, past, present, and future, is merely a way for us to dull our senses, reject our guilt, and pacify ourselves to the terrible and beautiful fact that we are in control. Just as you can produce a mathematical equation to explain the cause and effect of my daily monotony, I can counter with flow charts, diagrams, and empirical tests that lend credence to my present condition existing as a result of conscious, deliberate, uninhibited choices.
As for your ant analogy, the difference is I have the will to choose certain dangerous behaviors, knowing their destructive outcome, and I still choose them anyway. If the basic gene that unites us all is the survival gene, than why do so many so willingly endanger themselves knowing the consequences? Because they have the will, right, and the mind to destroy or improve themselves unlike any other creature on the planet. And that is a power too great and too dangerous to deny!
Thanx James. I'm flattered, since this blog is filled will good writers. The last post was fun to write once I realized that Taoism seemed to parallel ideas from physical anthropology.
So Crates raises a very good question: "Why are we conscious?" I was hoping someone would bring this up. Before addressing this, I must introduce several concepts: 1) material monism 2) dualism 3) monist idealism. Material monism is the philosophy upon which all our classical science is based. It holds that there is only one substance (thus the label "monist"), and that this substance is matter/energy. The most familiar scientific equation expounding upon this view is the classic E=MC2 (how do you do a squared?). While matter and energy appear to be separate, they are simply different forms of one underlying substance, as evinced by Einstein's famous equation.
Dualism is perhaps the philosophy most people are familiar with. Descartes expounded upon dualism. I personally believe the dualist position to be absurd and indefensible. It holds that there are two substances (usually "mind" and "matter"), and that these two somehow interact in some mysterious way. If there are two entirely different substances, what is the method of their interaction? Descartes believed the pineal gland was the key. Research into the brain has not bourn this out (Although Rick Strassman MD's work into the role of the Pineal in DMT production is interesting). As my favorite philosopher, George Berkeley said, concerning dualism, "unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, how is it possible it should imprint any idea in the mind?" In other words, if body and mind/spirit are truly separate, how the f**k do they interact???
This brings us to the third and final position: monist idealism. This view, who's most eloquent spokesman was the British Empiricist George Berkeley, holds that all that exists is mind or mental substance. Either the physical world is non-existent or unknowable, as we have no way to verify its alleged existence, as all we have to go by is our sense data. We can be relatively certain of the existence of our sensations, but to posit that the sensations are produced by objects in a physical world requires a huge leap of logic. In the words of Berkeley, "The absolute existence of unthinking things are words without a meaning."
Sound confusing? Lemme give you an example: I see (or think I see) a rock. I see its color. I feel its texture. While it is difficult to doubt that I experience the sensations which I call "sight" and "touch", can I really be certain that these sensations are produced by an actual physical object? I can't. They MIGHT be produced by a physical object, or I might be having a hallucination. There is no way to know for certain. All I can be certain of is the existence of my mind. That was kind of a watered-down explanation of the monist idealist position, but I think it conveys the basic gist of the Idealist position...
OK, now let's return to So Crates question: "Why are we conscious?" Good question. It is possible, according to the monist Idealist position, that consciousness itself is the only existent substance or property in the universe. In fact, consciousness must, of necessity be the only existent substance if we are to salvage any notion of free will. If consciousness is primary, then consciousness can potentially DETERMINE the outcome of so-called "physical" events. Sound absurd? It's not. If you look into the "measurement problem" or "waveform collapse" in quantum physics, you'll find that physicists are now relatively certain that certain particles (and perhaps ALL particles) merely exist as potentialities until a conscious being observes them!
perhaps I'll elaborate later. Gotta go. Sorry if any of the concepts were poorly explained.
"God is a concept by which we measure our pain" - John Lennon
I get the gist of your argument and the ideas, both interesting, but it is a little difficult to put them in the argument of free will. If I am right, there is no free will, only will based on monist idealism. We will make things into our reality by using the only tool capable of distinguishing, our senses.
So based on this, everything is will and determined on the experience of the individual explorer. Everything dies upon the death of the individual only to be rediscovered by the next sensual being.
Some questions?
Does the person with the strongest senses live fuller?
What about Plato's ideals: love, justice, music etc.--
What about the shared experience? Are ten sense better than five?
You don't need to answer them. Just stuff for me to think about. Thanks for the ideas.
Wow. This debate is crazy. I guess it's my turn to weigh in before it gets pushed off the main page. But before doing so, let me just say I enjoyed the passionate post that started it all. I think So Crates is right to criticize personal responsibility issues as I definitely have encountered this trend as well. However, it is hard to criticize too harshly since denying one's responsibility in exchange for complaints of ignorance is so tempting and easy that nearly everyone falls victim to it sometimes. But I think we must all do our part to avoid this temptation, and perhaps we can lead our society out of the irresponsible darkness by our example, even if it seems a small benefit to us.
Here's how I think the problem needs to be fixed. I believe the above discussions are right to focus on the small societal units as the key catalysts in addressing any problem, especially one as fundamental as personal responsibility. If children are not ingrained with the external motivation to show some responsibility from a young age, than we cannot be shocked if they fail to magically acquire it in adulthood. Furthermore, I think the child must be in an environment where people accepting responsibility is the norm. Parents go to work, provide for child, and child observes. Eventually, the child should see the connection between working hard everyday and stability. Similarly, the child should be placed in a school where it is the norm that other students are held accountable for completing their school work. When this norm is broken by a child, the offender should be punished and temporarily stigmatized. Sorry, if this sounds harsh, but how else will the child learn to do better? Of course, all opportunity should be given for second chances and the kid should be praised when successfully responsible. However, if eventually the child fails to accept personal responsibility, they should be removed from the environment so as not to set a poor example for the rest. This example can extend to any other group setting; work, sports teams, etc.
But as has been pointed out above, the expulsion is much harder to do once the size of a community increases. The solution to this is that most people should start off in small communities at a young age that increase in size in correlative to the individual's increase in personal responsibility. So that by the time adulthood is reached, they are sufficiently responsible for life in the wide world and rarely need to be motivated by the threat of banishment. This method seems like common sense to me and I'm sorry to bore you all with a long explanation.
We can all foster the above scenario in our personal lives or at least try it when we raise children of our own. But the question of how to stem the rising trend in the larger society remains. While the family unit is the most crucial, I disagree with So Crates that the courts cannot play a role. More on the courts later, but here I'd like to try to weave in the free will determinism debate.
The question has been raised, as it must be on every great blog, of free will vs. determinism. Both sides presented. While I naturally favor free will since no one has ever stopped me from doing something, I think the problem is largely unprovable in philosophical debates. Even the Berkeley example, while intriguing, seems to me to lend too much credit to the human mind. Isn't it a little arrogant to think our minds capable not only of creating a multitude of sensory input as well as over 6 billion other purportedly conscious beings? Maybe this is all that is dialectically provable, but gut instincts suggest we are playing on someone else's playground here, not one of our mind's creation. However, the debate is largely impossible to settle. I also agree with Grarris opinion that the power of thought, especially collective thought, has real power to influence physical outcomes. But it is well beyond my expertise to prove this notion (at least in this blog comment).
The important thing to me is how debates on it and the majority's position on them influence societal behavior. And as Grarris pointed out in his first introduction of the free will/determinism debate, the majority hold with the side of free will. I believe that this is no accident. Rather, the belief in free will has been fostered and ingrained in us by those in power of centuries because it advances the cause of societal control. The European royalty allied with the Catholic Church pounded free will and original sin into its formerly pagan parishioners because fear and guilt are some of the best motivators for good behavior around. And while I don't pretend that these psychological responses are always positive for our mental health, I do think that our leaders and written law should still seek to foster the idea of free will and personal responsibility rather than the belief that our actions carry no weight because we will inevitably be taken care of by an external force.
It seems that most of our most basic laws do in fact support personal responsibility. Our founding documents are centered around the concept of preserving individual liberties (which is pretty much synonymous with free will and personal responsibility for the purpose of this debate). We are guaranteed the right to do most anything we please so long as it does not interfere with another's right to do the same. But as So Crates points out, sometimes this balance of individual liberty and the common good is skewed. To take his waiter example, which character is in the most peril of having his individual rights trampled on? The waiter who forgot the wine list? No, it seems to me he is at fault. Even if he was not properly trained, his immediate solution of passing the blame is not an admirable quality in the customer service field. How about the manager? I think definitely. His duty to manage and hire quality employees has been infringed by an overly litigious legal system, therefore his right to pursue a livelihood is in jeopardy.
So, I think the answer is to get rid off the laws that encourage frivolous lawsuits instead of personal responsibility. We need to elect the lawmakers and judges who we know will once again support individual liberties and encourage people to hold themselves personally accountable before looking to lawyers and the government to excuse them from all their problems. The American ideal of freedom is not dead. Our society is large and complicated to control, but not so much more than it has been in the past. So enough with the excuses, the easy dismissal of the lack of personal responsibility as a problem beyond our control. I, for one, don't buy it. We start showing up for work everyday, pay our taxes and our bills on time, and take the blame when we deserve it. We must refuse to be an unthinking robot or a cog in a machine subject to a pre determined existence where nothing we do really matters. People matter, the human spirit matters! Creativity, artistic expression, free exchange of ideas! These things are not lost or up for sale! They are as inalienable as the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, endowed to us by our Creator! If you believe these words, than free will, personal responsibility, and political regeneration must follow.
Good Job Nick. You really helped solidify the relevance of the free will vs. determinism central argument So Crates suggested. What I thought was a tangent, really is the central issue in personal vs. societal rsponsibility.
Free will and Monoist Idealism are one of the same thing, though I disagree with the confidence you have on the individual to strike out a new path, I can not disagree on his importance. One last thing. An arm can not act on its on, nor a finger or foot. It is the whole body, including the brain, working in unison that creates the creativity. The body is society. The shape and make of the body is its history. The prior movements and success predicts its future. The whole body (society) is needed for us to succeed, but the parts, as you say are essential, but perhaps not totally important in themselves but the fuction they play for the negative or positive implications.
Dude this is great. We're getting into some interesting territory. I really would like to do a post devoted solely to the Free Will vs. Determinism question. There's sooo much more I'd like to post, but I have a 10-12 page paper and a 10 min psych presentation looming, so my procrastination time is limited...
Let me say that Nick's objection to the Idealist position has some merit when he talks about a single human mind being unable to create a world with 6 billion people. Berkeley perceived a similar problem but he posed it differently. He wondered how the alleged "physical" world had such consistency when viewed by various observers. Unfortunately, Berkeley's answer is a cop out.
Let it be known that whenever pre-Industrial philosophers encounter a problem they can't fix with reason alone, they pull "God" out of their asses and tell Him to fix the problem - either that or they declare their position to be "self evident" (as Descartes did, philosophical hack that he was). Berkeley is no exception. He resolves this problem by saying that we are all thoughts in the vast mind of God. Think of each human as a brain cell, and God as the brain.
Is Berkeley's answer a total cop out? The answer is a resounding YES!!! However, this does not diminish Berkeley's initial argument concerning the impossibility of verifying the existence of the physical world. When I re-read Berkeley, I am struck by the brilliance of his initial argument. He is able to prove the unknowability (or even non-existence) of the physical world, but he is unable to explain either the cross-observer consistency of the physical world, or even to explain the existence of autonomous entities.
I would much rather write a 10-12 page paper about my own personal attempts to resolve the problem with Berkeley's philosophy than about "The Relative Value of VIrginity, a Cross-Cultural Perspective", which is the topic I have to present for monday in my friggin psych class... ugh...
Let me leave you with one final thought about Berkeley, before I go off to read a bunch of pretentious "peer-reviewed" crap:
Berkeley was separated from the Indian subcontinent by vast distances. He wrote his philosophy several thousand years after the Indian sages composed the epic Vedas. In fact, there is no evidence to suggest that Berkeley was ever exposed to Indian philosophy. However, Berkeley's ideas correspond nearly 100% with the view expounded upon in the Vedas. Both Berkeley and the ancient Indians believed that the alleged physical world did not actually exist. To both Berkeley and the Vedic sages, human beings are merely fragments of consciousness in the mind of God - followers of Vedanta call this one vast being, of which we are all a part "Brahman".
Followers of the (Jewish) Kabbalah believe something similar. They call the initial primal, perfect, undivided entity "Adam Kadmon". In fact, Sufi muslims (such as "Hafiz" and perhaps Rumi) and Christian mystics (such as St. John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart), when describing "God," give descriptions that are remarkably similar to both to each other, and to the explanations of God provided by both Berkeley and the Vedas...
Does this prove anything? Heck no, but it amazes me that all these different people describe God's omnipresence in such similar terms... That would be another good topic for a post...
"Watch the dust grains moving in the light near the window. Their dance is our dance" - Rumi
PS. I forgot to address Pat Edmond's comment. You say: "I can counter with flow charts, diagrams, and empirical tests that lend credence to my present condition existing as a result of conscious, deliberate, uninhibited choices"
If you can counter with "flow charts, diagrams, and empirical tests," please do. I'm dead serious. I would genuinely like to see any and all data pertaining to the determinism vs. free will debate. My own opinion on this matter is by no means settled.
Also, you bring up the issue of altruism. Even altruism can easily be explained from a determinist perspective. For instance, evolutionary psychologists view altruism as an "in-group" survival mechanism. They present a rather convincing argument, demonstrating how groups with "altruistic" members have a much better chance of survival. In other words, it can be explained as a more complex variant of natural selection, in which group survival is elevated over individual survival.
As I've said before, my opinion on the matter is by no means settled, but I have never encountered a single phenomenon that can't be explained from a determinist worldview.
Shaman, my substantive data would have to be compiled by me through a thorough self-reflection that I unfortunately have neither the time nor the inclination to produce. My point was simply a counter to Dugan's idea that he can explain every action of mine and others through a evolutionary mathematical equation to prove that all thoughts and deeds are merely predetermined, fateful consequences. That being said, all perspectives are certainly interesting and well argued. As for me, I feel there is certainly a blend of these philosophies, which I'm sure for many people of unanimous conviction is just a weak cop out. Sorry to disappoint!
Thank you all for the hearty responses and intelligent discourse at this lunch table. I type now in welcome surprise as I attempt to digest the food-for-thought you have all set out to address my humble post.
I believe Mr. Edmonds is likely echoing many people’s thoughts (and definitely my own) when he writes that his own beliefs are a combination of many of the extremes presented by everyone. The polarity exuded in these digital pages is meant to provoke creative thought more than simply persuade. The ethereal debate over fate vs. free will is, as Mr. Carraway suggests, unending. We could tackle the issue endlessly: we could theorize and conceptualize, we could use charts, diagrams, lessons, and quotations to further our own convictions, but in the end... the individual’s opinion has already been made. The disagreement stems from the foundation of the argument, not the semantics.
I also appreciate Mr. Carraway’s eloquent reiteration of the original point, a lack of personal responsibility. Regardless of whether we believe in determinism or free-will, we must all conduct our lives under the (perhaps false) assumption that free-will exists. Mr. Dugan, I would be willing to wager all of my movie collection on the belief that you operate every day as though you were in control. A person must at least act as though they are the ones driving the car. If you truly believed that everything were pre-determined, if you truly subscribed to the belief that there is no individual, than I would take a (hopefully mild) leap of logic and say that you would then experience little to no joy in individual achievements of any kind. Your Phillies winning and losing would not phase the true determinist, nor would that person take any pride or guilt in their own achievements. College, grad school, marriage, children, a Dodge Viper, these are things to be proud of because they are results of hard work (or a trust fund). But a man or woman who places no value on decisions would (or at least should) be content to their fate no matter the outcome. Contentment does not necessarily equate to happiness. I am reminded of “1984” wherein Winston eventually accepts the fate of the world and lives contently but has lost his ambition and passion. My long-winded point being simply that even if determinism is the reality and free-will just the illusion, we all cater to the illusion and in order for society to function, the illusion provides more for us than the reality.
As far as actual change is concerned, Mr. Carraway again shrewdly interpreted my true meaning and articulated it in a more accessible way. I suggested that the courts would be of no help because of the current condition our buck-passing society has dissolved into. We the people created the laws, and unfortunately they now control us, instead of the other way around. If we spent half as much energy in rewriting the law as we spend in finding the loopholes, we’d be in different straights altogether. A revision is absolutely necessary and Nick is well on his way of getting my vote for Supreme Emperor of the States.