Yet There Is Method In It

Read an article in todays news concerning a court case that is about to take place in the UK. A girl of 16 who has pledged her viriginity till marriage had been taken into isolation for teaching at school as the ring contravened strict jewellery and uniform rules. At the same school it would be tolerated for a Muslim to wear a headscarf and for a Sikh to wear their ceremonial bracelet.

I have mixed feelings on this case, doubtless AC-1 may propose that a complete secularisation of school rules would prevent the alleged disparity that is occuring here, and the alleged anti-christian legislation. I am not so sure I would agree with that, but it does have its valid points. I am concerned that the case is an unfair test case, the action is being pursued by the girls parents, who happen to be involved in the UK organisation of the chastity movement. But the girl has declared that she is freely consenting to participating in legal action, so despite personal concerns one must take her word on that.

The headmaster has stated (correctly) that the chastity ring, just like a neclace crucifix is a non-obligatory accessory in Christianity. By not wearing it, no sin or breech of rules is occuring, unlike in Islam or Hinduism where certain accessories are prescribed. This is however slightly besides the point, for the Silver Ring Thing has a specific resonance for those teenagers who take the pledge of chastity. By wearing it there is a visible symbol of that pledge to the wearer and to others. Some criticism emerges in that those who break their pledge and remove their rings are perhaps vulnerable to peer criticism, but this argument is only relevent in those situations where it is peer popular (i.e. America). In the UK the Silver Ring Thing is a minority counter cultural group. Therefore I am inclined to say to the headmaster, use your common sense and let them get on with it.

The Silver Ring Thing, and True Love Waits are US protestant Christian chastity movements, specifically aimed at teenagers, but specifically founded as a counter-cultural method of decreasing teenage pregnancy and STD’s. The pledge that is taken is that the bearer will abstain from sexual intercourse until they are married. In the US federal funding was removed a couple of years ago over fears that it was being used to spread the Christian message.

There has of course obviously been some criticism from all manners of directions some of which are secular interference, others are mocking the counter-cultural nature of the movement, and some is valid criticism.

As I said I have mixed views, the notion that abstinence can reduce teen prenancies and STD rates of infection is a valid one. No sex, no babies, no STD’s. It really is that simple. But some opponents point out that such an emphasis on abstinence leaves the pledger un-educated when it comes to sexual health, meaning that if they were to break their pledge they would most likely engage in higher risk activity such as unprotected sex. This is a possible criticism, but one that is probably only valid in the US, sex-education in the UK is near obligatory and it is hard to accept the argument as being valid here. The majority of teenage pregnancies in this country occur due to high-risk activity, irrespective of their religious adherence, in fact most of them probably are religiously unaffiliated anyway.

There are some valid observations made about this programme, for example marriages occur at a younger age, and pregnancy within the early years of marriage are high.

There was one part of the article (and the research) into this phenomenon that does bother me. At the end of the article it was stated that some scientists are critical of the effects of the chastity movement. So I decided to investigate the research myself and see what was being said.

Scientists declared that pledges of abstinece barely cut teen pregnancies and STD infection rates. I thought, thats interesting how so? Well the normal propaganda was reeled out that the pledgers are uneducated and if and when they fail they are just as likely and in some cases possibly more likely to contract an STD or to fall pregnant.

Of course as I read the material more it became obvious that most of it was bunkum and second rate christian-bashing bunkum at that. The figures indicated the possibility that those who broke their pledge were more likely to engage in high risk sexual activity (unprotected, oral sex, anal sex) than those who took no such pledge. Thus rendering them at greater risk.

Of course the scientists had to acknowledge that those who took the pledge were more likely to get married early and had fewer sexual partners (even if they broke the pre-marital sex pledge). And (though they wouldnt openly admit it) there was a begrudging admission that yes indeed no sex equals no babies and no infection transmission.

So whats the problem… well according to Prof Bearman it is: “From a public health point of view, an abstinence movement that encourages no vaginal sex may inadvertently encourage other forms of alternative sex that are at higher risk of STDs.”

So lets look at the figures.

7% of non-pledgers contracted STD’s, compared to 6.4% of the inconsistent pledgers (who broke the pledge on numerous occasions and engaged in high-risk activities), compared to 4.6% of consistent pledgers (who only lapsed very rarely).

What Bearmans research didnt show was that teen-pregnancies had fallen. So some criticism fell his way that he was amplifying the negative results over the positive.  What is interesting is that he considers the statistical difference to be minute, but this is over tens of thousands of surveyed participants so the gap is larger. If the figures had shown the opposite, namely that infection rates were higher amongst abstainers I would listen more attentively.

There are two problems with the research here, and two examples of the heresy of presenting statistics as though they actually mean anything. Firstly the researcher kindly differentiates between consistent and inconsistent pledgers. The latter are those who regularly break their pledge and engage in sexual activity. What isn’t shown is the frequency of those lapses. The greater the number of lapses the greater the occurence of rates of infection. Surely then he should re-categorise these incosistent pledgers as simply former pledgers, who broke their pledge and engaged in behaviour that wasnt all that different from non-pledgers. Secondly he is absolutely correct that any chastity programme that focuses on abstinence from vaginal sex is ignoring the dangers that are incurred through other high-risk sexual acts. But, most if not all of these chastity movements are quite clear that abstinence means abstaining from all sexual acts. If they do not then they are falling into the semantic trap characterised by President Clintons defence in the Monica Lewinski scandal, diffeentiating between sex and a sexual act.

OK rant over. It will be interesting to see how this proceeds. If the case highlights the inconsistency in religious tolerance edicts then fine. Lets hope it doesn’t become a vehicle for fundamentalism. Chastity and abstinence are fine, but they must be personal consenting choices.

I encountered this medieval joke, reported to have actually happened, when the French King Charles the Bald entertained the famous philosopher and theologian John Scotus Erigena.

The King asks: Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum? (What separates a sot (drunkard) from a Scot?) Eriugena replied, Mensa tantum (Only a table).

An interesting twist on the freedom of speech debate that we have from time to time.

The Australian Green Party have succeeded in passing a motion calling for Cardinal Pell to be interrogated by parliamentary committee on a charge of contempt of parliament.

Cardinal Pell had announced that Catholic MP’s who voted in favour of therapeutic cloning and stem-cell research would suffer religious consequences (quite possibly including excommunication). Incidentally a majority of the MP’s ignored his call and voted in favour.

But now before the debate goes to the upper house, where it is expected to be challenged, Cardinal Pell has been called to account. The charge of contempt of parliament in Australia is considered a serious offence and can carry a prison sentence of up to 25 years if proved.

Civil Liberties groups are supporting the Cardinal’s right to express a religious opinion on a matter of medical ethics, calling the charge of contempt “Absurd”.

On a relevent aside the colour of a Cardinals cassock and biretta are red/scarlet, and symbolizes that in accordance with their rank in the Church they should be willing to shed their blood for their faith.  Although it would be idiotic to imprison the Cardinal on this charge, it would (as devils advocate) be an excellent testimony to the strength of the Cardinals faith and opinion on this matter to be made (as it were) a martyr. I dare say he isn’t losing any sleep at the prospect of imprisonment.

I wanted here to provide a brief addendum to my earlier pro-objectivist ethical viewpoints, through an outline of G.E.Moore’s ideas in the Principia Ethica.

Clearly there is a seeming difficulty in justifying my Wittgensteinian logical positivism and my appeals to objectivity. On the one hand with Wittgenstein I am arguing that metaphysical statements are nonsensical, on the otherhand I am claiming that just as there are analytic truths in logic and language so too there are objective values. Wittgensteins response would be to look at language games or perhaps even refer to the mystical, but I have in our discussions attempted to be a little more clearer about it.

The motif of inconvenience and incoherence in subjectivising Objectivity

Through the concepts of inconvenience and incoherence I have attempted to explain how subjectivism and relativistic morality came about. That they are interpretations, possibly even misinterpretations based upon an original objective value, wherein for reasons of convenience and coherence a new terminology has been substituted for the older one.

So for example pro-abortionists have justified their arguments by removing from the debate concepts concerning the ‘life’ of the fetus, and the ‘value’ of that ‘life’. As the idea that the fetus may be ‘alive’ and ‘fully human’ is inconvenient to those who would argue for abortion. Furthermore they may also argue that notions such as the ‘sanctity of life’, or the ‘soul’ and so on are incoherent, thus pro-abortionists talk of life as if it were a ladder with different levels of achievement, as though a fetus is somewhat less-alive than a new born baby.

But convenience and coherence are not always negative ethical motifs. If it could be demonstrated that in the history of human actions that a common action took place that was eventually discarded, I could then begin to use the motifs of convenience and coherence in a positive fashion. For example our evolving enlightenment concerning the different races and genders, have taken place because previously held values have become inconvenient and incoherent.

So there is in the history of normative ethics a twofold movement around objectivism. A negative reinterpretation where a Objective value is discarded or modified into a subjective and relative one. And vice versa, where a seemingly objective value (i.e. the primacy of the male) is rejected thanks to a more holistic understanding of ourselves.

Avoiding Logical Positivism

In investigating the meanings of the words involved in ethical statements I have become involved in a form of analytical philosophy. Also in providing a broad picture of the development of moral statements I have been engaging in descriptive ethics. I have therefore been sailing pretty close to Logical Positivism, a school of Philosophy that was influenced (not entirely to his satisfaction) by Wittgenstein among many others.

Logical Positivism suggests that language is descriptive and that its meaning is only justifiable with reference to evidence of those things it purports to describe. Ethical statements of course cannot be examined in this way, just like metaphysical statements about God. Logical Positivists describe these as meaningless statements. Although Wittgenstein as we have already seen did not, he defined them as non-sense, as belonging to a different language or sphere of knowledge. Unlike the Logical Positivists he was not content with discarding them to the dustbin as non-existent.

So if ethical statements (Wittgenstein aside) are meaningless, and are unable to give a picture of values and obligations as these are not objects that can be described, what could ethical statements do?

There are two answers generally posited. Ethical statements are either emotivist or prescriptive. An emotivist ethical statement was just a statement about how one felt about something. Something was good or bad, because you liked or disliked it. A prescriptive ethical statement on the contrary was like a recommendation of what one ought to do. Therefore when something is described as being wrong in ethics, what was really being said was ‘don’t do that’.

Both of these are attempts to escape the ought/is problem. Neither of them attempt to tell you what the case is, but express what we would like. Thus it was believed that the approach of natural theology had been avoided. A natural theology pointing to a series of facts in the world would attempt to make a statement about what is; i.e. it is wrong to commit X because it is contrary to the natural order that God has created.

But the problem with emotive and prescriptive ethical statements is that they both depend upon the addition of the term or concept because. I would like- because, or Don’t do that- because.

Once you get to because you return to descriptions and attempted references to facts. Take for example Utilitarian ethics, both – I would like, and – don’t do that, gain there force from the addition of because it will cause greater/less happiness/pleasure/pain.

Intuitionism: another way out

G E Moore in Principia Ethica argues that goodness cannot be defined, because it is quite unlike any other quality. Goodness is something you know by intuition not by deductive reasoning. When someone attempts to engage in such reasoning then one is commiting the Naturalistic Fallacy.

That “pleased” does not mean “having the sensation of red”, or anything else whatever, does not prevent us from understanding what it does mean. It is enough for us to know that “pleased” does mean “having the sensation of pleasure”, and though pleasure is absolutely indefinable, though pleasure is pleasure and nothing else whatever, yet we feel no difficulty in saying that we are pleased. The reason is, of course, that when I say “I am pleased”, I do not mean that “I” am the same thing as “having pleasure”. And similarly no difficulty need be found in my saying that “pleasure is good” and yet not meaning that “pleasure” is the same thing as “good”, that pleasure means good, and that good means pleasure. If I were to imagine that when I said “I am pleased”, I meant that I was exactly the same thing as “pleased”, I should not indeed call that a naturalistic fallacy, although it would be the same fallacy as I have called naturalistic with reference to Ethics. PE #12

Moore’s analogy of colour is quite a good one to explain the naturalistic fallacy. You cannot describe what yellow is, you just need to point at it and say ‘that’s what I mean by yellow’. In the same way we cannot express the meaning of goodness by trying to define it, or to reduce it to its constituent parts, you simply point to it, for goodness is exactly what it is. This is known as the theory of intuitionism and it is an approach that does not deny the reality of goodness (or of God) any more than it denies the reality of ‘yellow’, but it says that these things can only be known by intuition. It probably goes without saying that Wittgenstein was heavily influenced by Moore, and knowing this we can get a better idea of what is meant by the mystical. And how I can attempt to propose Objective moral truths without having necessary recourse to a divine lawmaker (although similarly without denying the possibility of the divine, which is a different matter entirely).

Foundationism is a fictional futuristic religion that was invented by jms. It was boosted by the discovery of intelligent alien life and their religious systems.

“The idea behind the foundation is that get back to the root, all the earth religions has the doctrine core, each belief system find out what they have in common, they get a lot more in common than you think. Just when politics and money and nationalism get in the way that things get a little messed up.”
“The more you try to define God, the further away you get from really explaining him.”
Stephen Franklin

This is similar perhaps to Émile Durkheim and his “underlying interest to understand the existence of religion in the absence of belief in any religion’s actual tenets.” Wikipedia

Walkabout

Walkabout seems to be based more on pop culture rather than aboriginal spiritual beliefs but its fairly significant in Babylon 5.

“The theory is: if you are separated from yourself, you start walking and you keep walking until you meet yourself. Then you sit down and have a long talk.” “And then, if you are lucky, you look up and there’s just you, and you can go home.” Stephen Franklin

I am all out of analysis at the moment. Suggestions please?

The idea of Walkabout seems to have originated in western settlers biased observations of aboriginal life. If we are very charitable to the writers, perhaps Aboriginal beliefs included this by the year 2260? ok perhaps not.

The English equivalent of an expressive word which describes the nomadic habits of the large number of tribes inhabiting the drier parts of Australia. It was not a compulsive urge but dire necessity which forced them to spend the dry season wandering from one waterhole to another in search of game, vegetable, food, and water. Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aboriginal Life

jms is NOT the messiah

JMS developed the foundationist religion from his imagination but was reluctant to release information because he did not want to create another science fiction related cult (similar to George Lucas or L. Ron Hubbard. This was a very responsible attitude to have as people will almost believe anything – see the book Join Me for a detailed example. Join Me’s leader originally was secretive about his movements goals – because he had not the faintness idea what it should be! (Join Me has since been dedicated to altruism.)

> Careful you don’t get elroned.
>
> Rob

Which is one of the reasons I’ve debated this for so long (and the debate is still continuing).

jms

An Offhand Comment regarding Karma

Separate from Foundationism, the following comment was made:

“You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.” – Marcus Cole

This is a jibe at Karma and especially Western interpretation of Karma. “Kardecist and Western New Age reinterpretations of karma frequently cast it as a sort of luck associated with virtue: if one does good or spiritually valuable acts, one deserves and can expect good luck; conversely, if one does harmful things, one can expect bad luck or unfortunate happenings.” Wikipedia.

One difficulty in determining the fairness or unfairness of the universe is Confirmation bias. If we expect an unfair universe, we will generally find it so and visa versa. Another view is to opt of the chances the universe throws our way e.g. Buddism’s Noble Eightfold Path. Nietzsche would argue the opposite – bad things happening are necessary to understand the world: “slowly it leads us back from side roads and wrong roads; it prepares single qualities and fitnesses that will one day prove to be indispensable as means toward a whole” (Ecce Homo II:9).

Anti Citizen One

[Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said] “Giving a medal to someone who is among the most detested figures in the Islamic community is… a blatant example of the anti-Islamism of senior British officials.

“The measure that has taken place for paying tribute to this apostate and detested figure will definitely put British statesmen and officials at odds with Islamic societies, the emotions and sentiments of which have again been provoked.” BBC

Apparently we should not give praise to anyone they detest. Well they have their views and Churchill (and others) had theirs:

“Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.” — Winston Churchill

Oh yeah, The Satanic Verses is a work of fiction. Perhaps I need to get a diagram for the Iran Foreign Ministry, separating reality from dreams/fiction.

“MAYBE if Salman Rushdie’s next book could be about blowing up Israel, nuclear bombs and how very tall and dapper Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, a balance can be attained?” anorak website

Anti Citizen One

I actually disagree with some of what DW has to say, but similarly disagree with some of the interpretations given to what he says.

Major point of disagreement is about the existence of Objective morality. Of course it exists, but the problem occurs with either its incoherence because we reduce it to nonsense with metaphysical language, or simply because it is inconvenient. And as we are free-to-act moral agents we can simply choose not to register our approval or disapproval of objective moral concepts.

Relativism and Subjectivism are (as you know the old-chestnut goes) neccessarily objective anyway.  To say “There is no objective truth” is as Wittgenstein would point out “language on a holiday”.
You could say “There is no objective truth, apart from this one” but then you would be committing a fallacy.

But before we descend into total disagreement I would propose that Objectivism, Subjectivism and Relativism are in fact overlapping moral codes. They all bear what Wittgenstein would call “Family Resemblance” they all attain to a certain end, they all arise out of a certain motivation, they all say something about the human condition, the list could go on.
I would propose that certain objective moral values are if you like archetypal values, taboos, which cannot be wholly destroyed as they underpin the fabric of our social existence. But they can be reinterpreted on the two above mentioned grounds; because they are incoherent to us or because they are inconvenient.
Lets take abortion as an example, anti-abortionists are usually termed ‘pro-lifers’ because they are arguing that the fetus is a living, human being with full moral rights (although fewer moral duties), they say it is wrong to kill an innocent life (a long standing social taboo borne out of parental interest and reciprocal altruism) and therefore oppose abortion as they consider it an act of murder.
Lets observe the flip side, the pro-abortionists, generally known as pro-choice, do not characterise themselves as child murderers, or even as murderers at all, because they do not attribute the same moral rights to the fetus, they do not consider fetal life to be the equal of human life, and as they point out if we attribute moral rights to them can we not also expect to exact from them moral duties?

So the original, archetypal taboo of taking the life of a fellow human, that parental interest (primarily) and then reciprocal altriusm (secondarily) would appear to me anyway to have an objective value. Those who would support abortion have either through the incoherence of metaphysical claims made on the behalf of the unborn child, or through the inconvenience of the taboo, have simply decided to transfer their allegiences to a different language game, removing concepts such as child-murder, infanticide and the objective human right to life from their analysis of the abortion debate. In critical terms you could say they were moving the goalposts to suit their game.

A pro-lifer and a pro-choicer would both (I should think) fundamentally agree that murder is an immoral act. The interpretation of the term ‘murder’ that they choose to use, is I would think identical or similar to a close degree. But when it comes to the abortion debate, they radically alter their terminological toolbox and conceptual presumptions.

You will have guessed from the above that I am not advocating the concept that objective moral truths must therefore have a supernatural basis. I’m not sure any existentialist (even a Christian one) could soundly hold that view. In fact the viewpoint we would often take is that the Divine is bound by the same objective rules we are. Just think here of the Noahs Ark story and the making of a convenant that effectively is the divines way of saying “I’m terribly sorry I won’t do that again”.

To briefly clarify another point of mine, I said that certain objective moral taboos underpinned social cohesion. I am not actually proposing that there is somewhere in the ether an actual non-physical truth that says (for example) murder is wrong. But I think there is a principle of causality that manifests itself in these archetypal moral objectives, that says “If I take as my maxim ‘Do unto others, as you would have done unto yourself’ then I must subject my actions to a principle of universalization, therefore if I kill I must expect and agree to be killed, if I do not kill I hold that this value should be held by all others”.

It is this principle that I think manifests itself in concepts such as reciprocal altruism.

Objectivism is sometimes called moral realism, I think it can actually be called ‘moral pragmatism’.

In brief answer to your questions:

1) evolution means morality is subjective, I refer to the above and put it in the context of your line “morality that does not reflect our current situation is flawed”. No it isnt, its either become incoherent (i.e. sexism when there is only one gender) or inconvenient (euthanasia debates in an age of advanced medical science, and economic related health targets). In which case it is adapted and our language about it adapts, but it is not wholly replaced. For example there will never be a sucessful moral argument for murder (like the square triangle it is nonsense).

2) Dead offspring cannot procreate, but the living parents can still (whilst fertile) procreate, to speculate that mothers ceased to eat their young because of an evolutionary imperative is pretty unsound. Because of an adaptation in their moral interpretation of archetypal objective values (i.e. the urge to procreate) then yes. In other words the pragmatic realisation of the parent that in order to continue the genetic string of their line, in order to continue the species it is inconvient to eat your offspring.

3) Jesus and ankles, the goodly theologian is presupposing that Jesus the man-God, was God-made-man. An insertion of a finite and physical being from without the finite and physical universe. I think what he is saying is God pre-exists ankles, Jesus is God, etc. Too close to intelligent design for my liking.

I got though the discussion of Douglas Wilson and Christopher Hitchens you had mentioned. I found it refreshing to actually read an open attack on Atheism from Douglas Wilson. Most of the time, I feel we Atheists (me and CH) are just laying siege to a fortress without any “counter attack”. This is also appropriate as we were just talking about Nietzsche and nihilism. I think I can characterize this part of his point as:

1) Without a supernatural basis (or “warrant”) for morality, there is no way to distinguish between good and evil.
2) An atheist can be good, but his morality has no basis. “Given atheism, objective morality follows … how?”

DW: “You keep saying, “I have come to my ethical position.” I keep asking, “Yes, quite. But why did you do so?”"

There are several different ways to answer the question. We can examine how morality first arose perhaps what basis it originally had. We can also discuss what (atheistic) basis morality should have.

History of Morality (Abridged)

As I mentioned in a previous thread, behavior which we consider good and evil is also seen in the animal kingdom. Most Mammal species care for their young. Humans care for their young. You can argue that nether has “basis” but the fact is animals know good and evil. Basis is irrelevant.

DW: “Given atheism, objective morality follows … how?” DW is assuming objective morality exists. Why and how?

Social Morality: The De Facto Basis

Now we are not totally programmed in behavior by our genes (like a spider knows how to spin a web, birds migrating in the right direction). We also have society. The basis for human morality is agreement. Cannibals agree cannibalism is good. We (as in you and me) agree that cannibalism is wrong. That is the current basis for morality – nothing fancy.

Think about the basis for the law… agreement. It is the same general mechanism but it is agreed upon by a smaller group of the population (politicians).

If fact this is not far of Wittgenstein territory – we just agree what good and evil are in our particular “form of life”.

Transvaluation of All Values

Ok that title probably betrayed which philosopher my main points are coming from. Anyway…

If we reject social agreement as a basis for morality, there is one final authority who can create a system of good and evil – the individual. Or as some philosopher would put it: the superman. We of course sacrifice the luxury of agreeing with everyone else but that isn’t technically a requirement.

Quibbles with DW

“In our thought experiment, the one rule is that you must say something to [a vile atheist], and whatever you say, it must flow directly from your shared atheism—and it must challenge the morality of his choices.” James 4:11 “He that … judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law.” So can DW also not judge?

Q:”Your entire worldview has evolution as a key foundation stone, and evolution means nothing if not change.”… “And when we change, as we must, all our innate morality changes with us, right?” A: Yes. And therefore any basis for morality that does not reflect our current situation is flawed – for example holy scripture unless it is reinterpreted to fit the times. But after subjective interpretation, how is it in an way authoritative?

Q: “We have distant cousins where the mothers ate their young. Was that innate for them? Did they evolve out of it because it was evil for them to be doing that?” A: Yes. It’s impossible for offspring to again procreate if they are dead.

[Regarding proof of "Jesus Christ is good for the world because he came as the life of the world"] “…here is some evidence for you, in no particular order. The engineering that went into ankles.”… Bzzzzzz. Incorrect – but thanks for playing! (ok joking aside now:) Ankles were around before humans and Jesus, are explained by natural causes and have nothing to do with his point. His whole argument is non sequitur.

“So for you to refuse to accept Christ because it is absurd is like a man at one end of the pool refusing to move to the other end because he might get wet.” This is an excellent example of tu quoque logical fallacy.

Anti Citizen One

I had wanted to also post a Nietzschean review using the medium of the Simpsons, as presented in an essay from the book The Simspons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer but having just re-read it I think it would be detrimental to this particular dialogue, so I will save it for another day. The author of the essay Thus Spake Bart: On Nietzsche and the Virtues of being bad presents a very coherent overview of Nietzsches work and applies it to the character of Bart Simpson, asking us is Bart the bad boy Nietzsche is talking about?

Two particular themes emerge, and in order to avoid this becoming a review, these are all I shall mention of it.

The first theme is about appearance versus reality, it outlines how Nietzsche developed his thoughts from a Schopenhaueren dualism (appearance masks reality) to eventually disregard that ideal and embrace a chaotic singular ideal.

The world is a chaotic, meaningless flux of becoming, and to be real, to be a part of the world, to be a part of the flux, is to appear. The appearance doesn’t mask reality, the appearance is reality.

The author of the essay tells us that The Simpsons is perhaps the perfect embodiment or metaphor for what Nietzsche is saying about the fiction of the “doer” being projected behind the “deed”. I shall not go into this in any great detail as it is dangerous and anti-Wittgensteinian territory and thus not according to my tastes

Suffice then to describe it thus:-

in a show like The Simpsons there truly is no being behind the doing. What you see is what you get. Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge and Maggie are indeed no more than the sum of their actions. There is no substance, no ego, no being behind the phenomena, which then causes those actions.

This of course is unsatisfactory to a Wittgensteinian like myself, where the deed must precede the word, the noun precede the verb, the I precede the I do. I would point to Matt Groening as the sub-creator (to use Tolkiens metaphor). As the doer behind the deed. And would then explain the beings who occupy the Simpsons world as being subects to the Matt Groening sub-creating language game. Anyhow I digress.

The second major theme was exploring whether Bart, who is the ultimate bad boy and who does what he wants is the embodiment of the Nietzschean ideal. To cut a long story short the answer is no he is not. He is in fact one of two things, either a member of the slave-morality insofar as how Lisa twice explained to him (in Sweet Seymour Skinner’s Baadasssss Song and in Bart’s Inner Child) that he defines himself through his rebellion against authority, thereby causing him a crisis of identity if that authority is removed, or if everyone behaved like Bart. Or if not a member of slave-morality Bart is an example of the pitfalls of the post-Nietzschean world, an anti-hero to the Ubermensch, a nihilist.

The most extreme form of nihilism would be the view that every belief, every considering-something-true, is necessarily false because there simply is no true world. The Will To Power; section 15, p14

What was that? Did I really just read that? Indeed Nietzsche appears to be rejecting the very nihilism that he is sometimes credited with championing. An opinion in fact implied in my question concerning what authority (on grounds of taste) does Nietzsche have to tell us that might is not right. Nietzsche warns us against the uncultivated tastes, and although he does not explicitly state that might is not right, he does seem to imply as much in his account of the origins of slave-morality in his On the Genealogy of Morals:-

It was “the good” themselves, that is to say, the noble, powerful high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good, that is, of the first rank, in contradistinction to al the low, low-minded, common and plebian.

It was as a consequence, we are told, of the nobilities strength and superiority in every aspect, in their ability to take what they wanted from whom and whenever they so wished, that repulsed the weaker, unhealthy, plebian, lower man into forming his own morality. The slave-morality. Reversing good and bad and injecting the term evil into the discussion. This slave-morality emphasised the so called virtues of humility, self-sacrifice, self-control as superceding the goodness of the nobility and the strong, the master-morality. Why did the strong follow? Because as the old Irish proverb goes “He who is not strong must be clever” and the weaker lowlier untermensch suceeded in convincing the proto-ubermensch the nobility that their ways were wrong and that the slave-morality was right.

So remind me, why was Nietzsche opposed to nihilism?

One interpretation has collapsed; but because it was considered the interpretation it now seems as if there were no meaning in existence, as if everything were in vain. The Will To Power s15 p14

In other words Nietzsche had challenged and destroyed the slave-morality as found in for example Christianity, but the vacuum he wishes to create is not an all-consuming nihilistic free for all. It is meant to be a liberating experience, you have become an artist with a blank canvas, and have been freed to create a world of your liking.

But hang on, isn’t that just an escape clause, isn’t he really proposing a vacuum that is inherently nihilistic?

Here comes the criticism

This re-evaluation of Nietzsche using Simpsonology caused me to rethink my original criticisms and to formulate newer ones.

Once again I am forced to return to question Nietzsches authority, but this time instead of committing an act of rhetorical nihilism and asking why is might wrong if it is according to my tastes, I shall focus on the aesthetic conditions he attaches. And more importantly the lack of clarity he is willing to offer in these aesthetic conditions.

It is clear that if we follow my ‘might is right’ diktum, then although acting in accordance with our tastes, we are not acting in accordance with the cultivated tastes. In other words we have been presented with a canvas with which to paint a beautiful picture and have chosen instead to chew the brush, drink the paint and tear the canvas. We have wasted the opportunity and become no better than the ancient nobility or aristocrats who acted on impulse because they were strong, instead of acquiring our superman status through the best use of our liberation from God and slave-morality.

So what are these ‘ravalued’ values? What are the ‘real’ means by which we become superior? Nietzsche describes the superior man as being ‘integrated’, ‘creative’, ‘life-affirming’ – all terms which if they are evaluative, as it seems they must be, would seem to propose some sort of ‘objective’ criterion. Integrated as compared to what? Creative and life-affirming as opposed to what?

Nietzsche the arch subjectivist… or the proposer of an alternative universal, absolutist moral system?

I am compelled to ask Nietzsche, “Where’s the beef?“

The Minbari have no individual god or gods. They believe the universe itself conscious and is searching for its meaning. The universe manifests itself as sentient life in an attempt to understand itself.

They also believe that the soul is non-localised phenomenon. Individuals as like a point of light projected on a wall. The source of the beam is the conscious universe. The soul is immortal and is reincarnated in the next generation of Minbari. This is less a matter of faith than in humans, as the Minbari can reliably distinguish particular souls and determined who a soul previously occupied. Minbari religion is extremely ritualistic to a point of making a human mind boggle.

“If there were just one pure and unchanged unvirsal[sic] soul running through everything, there wouldn’t be any point in breaking itself into pieces and investing itself in different species/people…it would just keep running into identical versions of itself.” “…there’s really just the one Minbari religion, and the warrior caste tends to follow it, but not lead it.” JMS

Valen

Valen was a Minbari who reformed Minbari society around 1260AD and fought in the war against an ancient darkness. He is revered by the Minbari who call him “the greatest of us”. He founded their system of government (The Grey Council). Prophecy is a major factor in Minbari politics and religion; some prophesies were “written down by Valen himself”. Valen was mortal but lived for over a hundred years. Legend states he was “not born of Minbari”; this is probably a reference to the virgin birth in Christianity. Valen was also one third of a “trinity” known as “The One”. The One appears to be a line of legendary galactic leaders. I am unsure if I will cover The One since this is mostly political in nature. This trinity is obviously similar to the Christian Trinity.

“there are some legends about Valen returning someday, but so far they’ve been only legends, nothing more. jms” This was briefly suggested by Delenn in a vision she had – possibly of Valen:

Delenn: When I was a child, I once visited the city with my family and became separated from my parents…. I found myself in an old temple…I thought, “…They will come for me.” … Hours passed! The temple was cold and deserted. I fell asleep. When I woke up, there was someone standing over me. He looked down and smiled, and my fear went away. He stood there, bright against the darkness, and said that I was going to be all right. That if I believed, then my parents will come for me. He said, “I will not allow harm to come to my little ones here in my great house.” Just then, the door opened and my parents came running in.

Obviously, there have been many reported visions of most religion founders and many prophets. The legend of a religious leader returning in some future time might have some precedence as well.

Similar to the prophet G’Quon, Valen appears to have had support from an extraterrestrial source – the Vorlons. “Suffice to say that [the vorlon] Kosh knew Valen from way, way back…. jms”.

The moral code of the Minbari, as established by Valen includes:

• Minbari do not kill Minbari (their most sacred law)
• Minbari do not lie (except to save face for another)

This puts Valen in the role of Moses with his list of commandments. Although Valen’s laws are generally upheld, people find loopholes or just ignore them – much like real divine laws. For example Delenn ducks the “do not lie” rule by withholding information on an obsessive basis.

“All my life, I’ve had doubts about who I am, where I belonged. Now, I’m like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitations, no doubts. The path is clear.” Valen

True Seekers

Minbari have a high regard of “True Seekers” – those driven to seek for any spiritual goal what ever the cost. Delenn, when describing what I might call a “nut”, says “It doesn’t matter that his Grail may or may not exist, what matters is that he strives for the perfection of his soul and the salvation of his race and that he has never wavered or lost faith”.

I would try to compare this to faith in other religions but I would probably be replacing it with a straw man. I think this will have to be an exercise for the reader. Faith seems to require a lot of long words compared to my limited understanding. I just use the definition “belief in something for which there is no proof”. Simple? lol

Rebirth Ceremony

“The rebirth ceremony commemorates a great change that is coming or a great change that is here.” This involves “reflection, meditation on what has come before, what is now and what is to come.” “You must tell someone a secret you have ever told anyone else before and you must give away something that is great value to you.” The rebirth ceremony must be complete within a certain after the preparations have started. If there is conflict, both sides should be invited to the ceremony. The rebirth ceremony also doubles as a marriage ceremony.

Seriously paraphrasing several difference sources into one quote, some of which is from the rebirth ceremony and some probably from Valen (apologies to jms if I misrepresent things):

- Why do you come here?
- I come to serve.
- Who do you serve?
- I serve the truth.
- What is the truth?
- That we are one people, one voice.
- Will you follow me into fire, into storm, into darkness, into death?
- And the Nine [the governing council] said yes.
- Then do it in testimony to the One who will follow, who will bring death, couched in the promise of new life, and renewal, disguised as defeat. From birth, through death and renewal, you must put aside old things, old fears, old lives. This is your death. The death of flesh. The death of pain. The death of yesterday. Taste of it, and be not afraid, for I am with you, to the end of time.
- I am become Grey. I stand between the darkness and the light, between the candle and the star.
- What does the candle represent?
- Life.
- Whose life?
- All life, every life.

Anti Citizen One