October 11, 2013

Good example of muddled thinking...

Poverty of the Soul: Time to Address the Real Issue - ABC News:

...I suggested in a column nearly a year ago, right before election day, that whomever was elected president needed to establish a Domestic Peace Accord and initiate a Camp David summit (as we have done in the past related to the Middle East) of leaders from all walks of life to bridge the divides that exist in this country, and create a new vision for our country.

If we talked to each other more, let go of the old mantras and institutions, we could create a more peaceful and compassionate society. President Obama is a good man, but he along with Republican and Democratic leaders seem trapped in an old language and a desire to make decrepit and broken institutions respond inefficiently to new problems....

This could be described as: "We've lost our way so we should all get together and talk and decide what to do." But in fact we've "lost our way" in the sense that we no longer agree on what the "way" is. There is zero possibility any of us could "create a new vision for our country." A "vision" is something you "see." You see the thing you are trying to get to. It's a picture of a goal.

But you can't just invent such a thing. Or rather, you can invent them easily, but other people can invent their own, and there is no objective way to choose. It's precisely the same problem we see when liberals (and libertarians) claim they can "create" a system of morality. So can I, so can any man. Such a thing might be useful if everyone agreed upon it, but that never happens. There is no objective criteria to decide on such a thing.

The quote is liberalism in a nutshell. The deep idea of everything that gets labeled "Liberal" is that we humans can just guide ourselves. "Let go of the old mantras and institutions." So which ones? How does one decide? One can guess that the author means conservative ones, but even if he was advocating getting rid of liberal "mantras," the problem would be the same. There is no objective standard to go by.

This is a quote I saved from some discussions in my parish:

"...a one-day visioning retreat, led by an outside facilitator (crucial!), that included 50 members of the parish community from a wide-swath of ministries, leadership roles, Mass congregations, and generations. Our parish would probably need 100. Then, we spent the day briefly identifying our respective talent areas (leadership domains), thought-clouding our words and phrases for what sets our parish apart, further though-clouding what our future goals were (such as our current goals of Welcoming, Broadening AFF, Encouraging contemplative prayer, Sharing Our Stories) and then doing some initial word-smithing to articulate the mission statement and and vision statement.

Then, a pastor-picked committee met one week later to finish the word-smithing in adherence to the fruit and spirit of the larger group. Then, the results were shared in the bulletin, on prominent posters/banners, in ALL the homilies for two Sundays, and eventually in brief post-communion announcements for three more weeks. 5 weeks total. DONE. A new momentum in the parish had been set...
This is guaranteed to produce a new vision just like the old vision. You are selecting your "visioneers" from among people who are already deeply involved in the old system. So of course their vision will be "more of same, but done better."

A real new vision" can only come from a visionary. And it can't be decided-upon by a committee. It's a "vision!" Something you "see," and suddenly "get." Usually a new vision can only happen if the old vision fails catastrophically. Only then are minds open to new possibilities.

WORD NOTE: The Camp David Summit, by the way, did not get Israel and Egypt together to "decide what to do." Both sides had already decided what they wanted, and the summit just finished the job. They call them "summits" because they are the top of a mountain of diplomacy.

Posted by John Weidner at October 11, 2013 7:23 AM
Comments
There is no objective criteria to decide on such a thing.

You don't believe in objective reality anymore? The Gods of the Copybook Headings serve well enough as such criteria.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at October 11, 2013 9:25 AM

Ah, no. Objective reality exists. Objective reality does not care, is the point our host is making. You can't make the leap from "objective reality" to "Right or Wrong". There's always an objective reason to do something. Always an objective reason not to do something. Weighing those reasons is where Morality comes in, and Objective Reality has nothing to say about that, all of "objective reality" weighing the same (unless, of course, you are claiming some OR is more objective then others.)......

Posted by: Robert M Mitchell Jr. at October 11, 2013 10:48 AM

Robert;

Here is the poem, read it and get back to me.

Every culture, every set of morals, is constantly judged by objective reality, because they are successful, or they are not, and no human agency or "objective reason" will change that.

For instance, objective reality cares if you eat or not. If you don't, objective reality will kill you. Objective reality means actions have consequences (actions are not arbitrary), and from that morality can arise.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at October 11, 2013 4:44 PM

"There is no objective criteria to decide on such a thing."

I was not writing clearly. I think I will change this to, "they possess no objective criteria..." That's implicit in trying to invent a system, or a morality, or a "vision."

To avoid the difficulty you have to start by trying to discover truth. Not invent it.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 11, 2013 5:47 PM

I am well versed in the poem sir, and it proves, I think, my point. "When we disarmed, they sold us, and delivered us bound to our foe". Objectively a good thing. The fighting is over, and now someone else is going to feed you, and take care of you, and keep you safe.......

Posted by: Robert M Mitchell Jr. at October 11, 2013 8:52 PM

AOG, you are just kicking the can down the road. Again.

"they are successful, or they are not." But your line of thought cannot define "success."

Reality may kill you or reward you, but that doesn't lead to morality. The thing that kills you may be the right thing to do.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 11, 2013 8:53 PM

Heck, Mr. Weidner, "Objectively", we aren't even sure what Death is. We started with a great deal of confusion about a objective definition of Life, and the scientific line of Death has gotten quite, quite fuzzy in recent years. Philosophically, why is a small selection of atoms dancing in a different way "Objectively" wrong?

Posted by: Robert M Mitchell Jr. at October 11, 2013 11:20 PM

Mr Mitchell,

The beginning of wisdom is to know that there are things you cannot learn from inside any system. (I'm not saying death is such a thing; it may just be a fuzzier problem than we realized.)

Basically you can't know first principles of any kind. This includes pretty much anything labeled "objective." When we say "objective truth" we are really making an act of faith. We are saying something looks and feels true, so we will pronounce it true.

People never believe me when I say this, but our natural sciences are based on faith. (Ask a philosopher.) We take it on faith that the evidence of our senses reveals something real, but ultimately we can't be sure. We could be caught in delusions or dreams! Obviously this is not a question that science can study, so deep-down science is "unscientific." The person who claims that their thinking is more "true" because it is based on science rather than religious dogma is really saying something very silly.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 12, 2013 7:45 AM

Actually, if atheists were as smart as they like to advertise themselves to be, they would be eagerly studying Christianity, since it is the most interesting and long-standing body of thought that claims to have some information from outside our system.

One of these bits of info is that we claim to have the answer to that question of whether the natural sciences are seeing what is true. The Church teaches that the creator of our system has told us yes. The universe is orderly, and perceptible to us. You can ignore those flaky Protestant heretics who claim otherwise--the judgement of the Church has been unambiguous on this point for 3,500 years. Which is why the scientific method was created by Christians, and not Chinese or Greeks.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 12, 2013 8:01 AM

Oh, yes. It's, I think, responsible for the "faded copy" effect we see so much of. First generation atheists, coming from Christianity, KNOW, "objectively" that Infanticide and Vivisection are wrong. They didn't need God to tell them that! Next generation, what's wrong with a little birth control? Why are we in people's private bedrooms? Leading, alas, to two million+ murdered yearly, with only the crassest of us saying it's wrong (and to get mocked as "Religious Wackos" because of it. Amazing, given the huge written record left by their modern founders, how short memories are!) and the endless personal Vivisection that goes by the name, Plastic Surgery, and "Body Modification". Each generation serene in their faith that only prigs could possible object to what "Everyone knows!".......

Posted by: Robert M Mitchell Jr. at October 12, 2013 9:49 AM

"if atheists were as smart [...]"

Have I not ranted on precisely that point? That's why I am here :-).

Morality is a system, it applies to a society. What morality is there alone? Morever all creatures die, but a society has a (potentially) unbounded life and is therefore the proper level of judgement.

I don't understand how you can believe in an objective reality, where actions have consequences, and that no morality can be built from that. To me, the latter is another way of saying actions do not have consequences. That causal chain - action, consequence, re-action, generates morality. The only real difference is you include a supernatural component, but the underlying mechanics are the same.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at October 12, 2013 7:49 PM

"where actions have consequences, and... morality can be built from that."

It won't work because you have to have an agreed-upon morality to decide what the consequences mean.

Suppose your society developed a tendency towards hedonism and away from family life. And the consequence is that the birthrate declines and population falls. Can that consequence contribute towards a morality?

No. You or I might say this is a negative consequence. But for Greens, gays and feminists it is perhaps positive! So how can your society decide? Hmm? How can consequences do you any good?

You don't really see the problem, because you have inherited a morality from Christendom. You imagine that the meanings of consequences are obvious, when really they are only obvious to those who share your Judeo-Christian culture. You would probably think that conquest, rape and rapine are bad things. But to a Viking these are good things.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 13, 2013 4:30 PM

John,

You write:

"Suppose your society developed a tendency towards hedonism and away from family life. And the consequence is that the birthrate declines and population falls. Can that consequence contribute towards a morality?"

I think what AOG is trying to get at is the idea that certain things ("a tendency towards hedonism and away from family life") have consequences ("the birthrate declines and population falls"). Because "the birthrate declines and the population falls", the "tendency toward hedonism and away from family life" doesn't persist, and fades away. In other words, the system corrects itself through a very-easy-to-understand feedback loop.

God is actually a very clever fellow, y'know? He gets (over the long term, anyway) the results He wants (sobriety and family life) without having to show His hand.

Posted by: Hale Adams at October 13, 2013 9:00 PM

John,

You write:

"Suppose your society developed a tendency towards hedonism and away from family life. And the consequence is that the birthrate declines and population falls. Can that consequence contribute towards a morality?"

I think what AOG is trying to get at is the idea that certain things ("a tendency towards hedonism and away from family life") have consequences ("the birthrate declines and population falls"). Because "the birthrate declines and the population falls", the "tendency toward hedonism and away from family life" doesn't persist, and fades away. In other words, the system corrects itself through a very-easy-to-understand feedback loop.

God is actually a very clever fellow, y'know? He gets (over the long term, anyway) the results He wants (sobriety and family life) without having to show His hand.

Posted by: Hale Adams at October 13, 2013 9:03 PM

John,
What do you think of Levin's Liberty Amendments?

Posted by: Bisaal at October 13, 2013 9:07 PM

If the consequences were to follow immediately and unambiguously from the human acts, then it would reduce the significance of the human acts.

Righteousness is doing right, irrespective of the consequence. Were the good consequences to flow ineluctably from the acts, the concept 'righteousness" itself would lose meaning. There would be no place for love even. It would be an unfree, toy world.

Posted by: Bisaal at October 13, 2013 9:28 PM

"the system corrects itself through a very-easy-to-understand feedback loop."

Hardly this kind of feedback. It usually takes a religious revival. And the word "feedback" does not even begun to describe that,

Posted by: Bisaal at October 13, 2013 9:34 PM

I would also add that righteousness is not just doing the right thing but doing it for the right reason. Thus, it requires a world view in which acts are right and wrong with reason.

Posted by: Bisaal at October 13, 2013 10:53 PM

Hale has it right. The Greens may well view extinction as a positive, but that makes them irrelevant in the long run precisely because they go extinct. That is, their morality is wrong and so objective reality does away with them and their morality. It's not a question of "So how can your society decide?". Object reality takes care of it, that's the whole point, that it is not subject to any human's decision

The better counter-argument is that it is an insufficiently rigorous standard, and that may well be true. But it's hardly no standard at all.

Hale;

Quite so. I find it odd that the Objectivists and Christians don't get along better. After all, from a Christian point of view, Objectivists are trying to deduce God's morality from His creation. Unless Christians believe God created the Universe in such a way as to punish being righteous.

Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at October 14, 2013 12:47 PM

"The Greens may well view extinction as a positive, but that makes them irrelevant in the long run precisely because they go extinct."

Missing my point. If Greens were separated from everybody else, then one might learn things that would help construct a morality form their experiences. But Greens and a thousand other philosophies are what go to make up a society. You are saying a society can "create a morality" from the effects of reality Impinging on it.

Since a society is made up of many viewpoints, there is no way for a society to agree on what events mean. so it can't draw moral conclusions.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 15, 2013 8:21 PM

"Quite so. I find it odd that the Objectivists and Christians don't get along better. After all, from a Christian point of view, Objectivists are trying to deduce God's morality from His creation. "

While refusing to learn from all the hints and clues and tools God has given us! Right.

But your point is basically correct. Christians believe that the moral laws are graven into the fabric of the universe. God did not make up a set of rules to inhibit us. Rather, the moral laws are sort of like your mother telling you not to stick the knife in the electrical outlet. She's not being a killjoy, she's just informing you of how things are.

The Hebrew word we translate as "commandment," debarim, might better be translated as "statement." The commandments are really statements of how things work.

And they are accessible to Objectivist heathens as well as believers. They are binding on everyone, like the laws of physics.

God does not want us to be good, God wants us to love Him. But if you love Him, you will tend to be good, just in the same way if you love your mother you will express it by listening to her wisdom and not poking the knife into the outlet.

Posted by: John Weidner at October 15, 2013 8:41 PM
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