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Trump and Sex Talk: The Left Rediscovers its Inner PrudePosted on October 10th, 2016 8 comments
D. C. McAllister just posted an article entitled "America, You Have No Right to Judge Donald Trump" over at PJ Media. Setting aside the question of "rights" for the moment, I have to admit that she makes some good points. Here's one of the better ones:
Those who are complaining about Trump today have no basis for their moral outrage. That's because their secular amoral worldview rejects any basis for that moral judgment. Any argument they make against the "immorality" of Trump is stolen, or at least borrowed for expediency, from a religious worldview they have soundly rejected.
Exactly! It's amazing that the religious apologists the Left despises can see immediately that they "have no basis for their moral outrage," and yet the "enlightened" people on the Left never seem to get it. You can say what you want about the "religious worldview," but a God that threatens to burn you in hell for billions and trillions of years unless you do what he says seems to me a pretty convincing "basis" for "acting morally." The "enlightened" have never come up with anything of the sort. One typically finds them working themselves into high dudgeon of virtuous indignation without realizing that the "basis" for all their furious anathemas is nothing but thin air.
The reason for their latest outburst of pious outrage is threadbare enough. They claim that Trump is "immoral" because he engaged in "locker room talk" about women in what he supposed was a private conversation. Are you kidding me?! These people have just used their usual bullying tactics to impose a novel version of sexual morality on the rest of us that sets the old one recommended by a "religious worldview" on its head. Now, all of a sudden, we are to believe that they've all rediscovered their inner prude. Heaven forefend that anyone should dare to think of women as "objects!"
Puh-lease! I'd say the chances that 99 out of 100 of the newly pious MSM journalists who have been flogging this story have never engaged in similar talk or worse are vanishingly small. The other one is probably a eunuch. As for the "objectification of women," I'm sorry to be a bearer of bad tidings, but that's what men do. They are sexually attracted to the "object" of a woman's body because it is their nature to be so attracted. That is how they evolved. It is highly unlikely that any of the current pious critics of "objectification" would be around today to register their complaints if that particular result of natural selection had never happened.
And what of Trump? Well, if nothing else, he's been a very good educator. He's shown us what the elites in the Republican Party really stand for. I personally will never look at the McCains, Romneys, and Ryans of the world in quite the same way. At the very least, I'm grateful to him for that.
Ingroups and Outgroups and IdeologuesPosted on February 27th, 2016 5 comments
The Blank Slate is not over. True, behavioral scientists, intellectuals, and ideologues of all stripes now grudgingly admit something that has always been obvious to those Donald Trump refers to as the "poorly educated," not to mention reasonably perceptive children; namely, that there is such a thing as human nature. However, many of them only admit it to the point where it interferes with their imaginary utopias of universal brotherhood and human flourishing, and no further. Allow me to consult the source material to illustrate what I'm talking about. In Man and Aggression, published in 1968, Blank Slate high priest Ashley Montagu wrote,
…man is man because he has no instincts, because everything he is and has become he has learned, acquired, from his culture, from the man-made part of the environment, from other human beings… The fact is, that with the exception of the instinctoid reactions in infants to sudden withdrawals of support and to sudden loud noises, the human being is entirely instinctless… Human nature is what man learns to become a human being.
A bit later, in 1984, fellow Blank Slater Richard Lewontin generously expanded the repertoire of "innate" human behavior to include urinating and defecating in his Not in Our Genes. One still finds such old school denialists in the darker nooks of academia today, but now one can at least speak of human nature without being denounced as a fascist, and the existence of such benign aspects thereof as altruism is generally admitted. However, no such tolerance is extended to aspects of our behavior that contradict ideological shibboleths. Here, for example, is a recent quote from a review of Jerry Coyne's Faith Versus Fact (a good read, by the way, and one I highly recommend) by critic George Sciallaba:
For all the vigor with which Coyne pursues his bill of indictment against organized religion, he leaves out one important charge. As he says, the conflict between religion and science is "only one battle in a wider war—a war between rationality and superstition." There are other kinds of superstition. Coyne mentions astrology, paranormal phenomena, homeopathy, and spiritual healing, but religion "is the most widespread and harmful form." I'm not so sure. Political forms of superstition, like patriotism, tribalism, and the belief that human nature is unalterably prone to selfishness and violence, seem to me even more destructive.
Aficionados will immediate recognize the provenance of this claim. It is a reworked version of the old "genetic determinism" canard, already hackneyed in the heyday of Ashley Montagu. It serves as a one size fits all accusation applied to anyone who suggests that any aspect of the human behavioral repertoire might be "bad" as opposed to "good." Patriotism and tribalism are, of course, "bad." There's only one problem. If "genetic determinists" exist at all, they must be as rare as unicorns. I've never encountered a genuine specimen, and I've search long and hard. In other words, the argument is a straw man. There certainly are, however, people, myself included, who believe that our species is predisposed to behave in ways that can easily lead to such "bad" behaviors as tribalism, selfishness and violence. However, to the best of my knowledge, none of them believe that we are "unalterably prone" to such behavior. What they do believe is that the most destructive forms of human behavior may best be avoided by understanding what causes them rather than denying that those causes exist.
Which finally brings us to the point of this post. Human beings are predisposed to categorize others of their species into ingroups and outgroups. They associate "good" qualities with the ingroup, and "evil" qualities with the outgroup. This fact was familiar to behavioral scientists at the beginning of the 20th century, before the Blank Slate curtain fell, and was elaborated into a formal theory by Sir Arthur Keith in the 1940's. I can think of no truth about the behavior of our species that is so obvious, so important to understand, and at the same time so bitterly denied and resisted by "highly educated" ideologues. Tribalism is not a "superstition," as Mr. Sciallaba would have us believe, but a form of ingroup/outgroup behavior and, as such, a perfectly predictable and natural trait of our species. It has played a major role as the sparkplug for all the bloody and destructive wars that have plagued us since the dawn of recorded time and before. It is also the "root cause" of virtually every ideological controversy ever heard of. It does not make us "unalterably prone" to engage in warfare, or any other aggressive behavior. I have little doubt that we can "alter" and control its most destructive manifestations. Before we can do that, however, we must understand it, and before we can understand it we must accept the fact that it exists. We are far from doing so.
Nowhere is this fact better illustrated today than in the struggle over international borders. Take, for example, the case of Germany. Her "conservative" government, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, long followed a policy of treating the countries borders as if they didn't exist. More than a million culturally alien Moslem "refugees" were allowed to pour across them in a single year. This policy of the "conservative" German government was cheered on by the "leftist" German news media, demonstrating that the pleasant mirage of universal human brotherhood is hardly a monopoly of either extreme of the political spectrum. The masses in Germany reacted more or less the same way they have reacted in every other western European country, demonstrating what some have referred to as an "immune" response. They resisted the influx of immigrants, and insisted that the government reestablish control over the nation's borders. For this, one finds them condemned every day in both the "right wing" and "left wing" German media as "haters."
A remarkable fact about all this, at least as far as Germany is concerned, is that the very same German media, whether of the "right" or the "left," quite recently engaged in a campaign of anti-American hatemongering that would put anything they accuse the local "tribalists" of completely in the shade. The magazine Der Spiegel, now prominent in condemning as "haters" anyone who dares to suggest that uncontrolled immigration might not be an unalloyed blessing, was in the very forefront of this campaign of hate against the United States. One could almost literally feel the spittle flying from the computer screen if one looked at their webpage during the climax of this latest orgy of anti-Americanism. It was often difficult to find any news about Germany among the furious denunciations of the United States for one imagined evil or another. It was hardly "all about Bush," as sometimes claimed. These rants came complete with quasi-racist stereotyping of all Americans as prudish, gun nuts, religious fanatics, etc. If ever there were a textbook example of what Robert Ardrey once called the "Amity-Enmity Complex," that was it. After indulging in this orgy of hatemongering, Der Spiegel and the rest are now sufficiently hypocritical to point the finger at others as "haters."
There is another remarkable twist to this story as far as Germany is concerned. There were a few brave little bloggers and others in Germany who resisted the epidemic of hate. Amid a storm of abuse, they insisted on the truth, exposed the grossly exaggerated and one-sided nature of the media's anti-American rants, and exposed the attempts in the media to identify Americans as an outgroup. Today one finds the very same people who resisted this media hate campaign among those Der Spiegel and the rest point the finger at as "haters." In general, they include anyone who insists on the existence of national borders and the sovereign right of the citizens in every country to decide who will be allowed to enter, and who not.
The point here is that the outgroup have ye always with you. Those most prone to strike self-righteous poses and hurl down anathemas on others as "haters" are often the most virulent haters themselves. To further demonstrate that fact, one need only look at the websites, magazines, books, and other media produced by the most ardent proponents of "universal human brotherhood." If you find a website with comment threads, by all means look at them as well. I guarantee you won't have to look very far to find the outgroup. It will always be there, decorated with all the usual pejoratives and denunciations we commonly associate with the "immoral," and the "other." The "tribe" of "others" can come in many forms. In the case of the proponents of "human flourishing," the "other" is usually defined in ideological terms. For leftists, one sometimes finds the "Rethugs," or "Repugs" in the role of outgroup. For rightists, they are "Commies" and "socialists." It's never difficult to exhume the hated outgroup of even the most profuse proponents of future borderless utopias as long as one knows where to dig. We are all "tribalists." Those who think tribalism is just a "superstition" can easily demonstrate the opposite by simply looking in the mirror.
Today we find another interesting artifact of this aspect of human nature in the phenomenon of Donald Trump. The elites of both parties don't know whether to spit or swallow as they watch him sweep to victory after victory in spite of "gaffes," "lies," and all kinds of related "buffoonery," that would have brought his political career to a screeching halt in the past. The explanation is obvious to the "poorly educated." Trump has openly called for an end to uncontrolled illegal immigration. The "poorly educated" were long cowed into silence, fearing the usual hackneyed accusations of racism, but now a man who can't be cowed has finally stepped forward and openly proclaimed what they've been thinking all along; that uncontrolled immigration is an evil that will lead to no good in the long run. This fact is as obvious to the "poorly educated" in Europe as it is to the "poorly educated" in the United States.
Ingroups and outgroups are a fundamental manifestation of human morality. There is an objective reason for the existence of that morality. It exists because it has promoted the survival and reproduction of the genes responsible for it in times not necessarily identical to the present. It does not exist for the "purpose" of promoting universal brotherhood, or the "purpose" of promoting "human flourishing," or the "purpose" of eliminating international boundaries. It has no "purpose" at all. It simply is. I am a moral being myself. I happen to prefer a version of morality that accomplishes ends that I deem in harmony with the reasons that morality exists to begin with. Those ends include my own survival and the survival of others like me. Uncontrolled immigration of culturally alien populations into the United States or any other country is most unlikely to promote either the "flourishing" or the survival of the populations already there. As has been demonstrated countless times in the past, it normally accomplishes precisely the opposite, typically in the form of bitter civil strife, and often in the form of civil war. I happen to consider civil strife and civil war "evil," from what is admittedly my own, purely subjective point of view. I realize that my resistance to these "evils" really amounts to nothing more than a whim. However, it happens to be a whim that is obviously shared by many of my fellow citizens. I hope this "ingroup" of people who agree with me can make its influence felt, for the very reason that I don't believe that human beings must forever remain "unalterably prone" to constantly repeating the same mistake of substituting a mirage for reality when it comes to understanding their own behavior. That is what the Blank Slaters have done, and continue to do. I hope they will eventually see the light, for their own "good" as well as mine. We are not "unalterably prone" to anything. However, before one can alter, one must first understand.
On Losing Our "Moral Compass" in SyriaPosted on February 13th, 2016 2 comments
It's important to understand morality. For example, once we finally grasp the fact that it exists solely as an artifact of evolution, it may finally occur to us that attempting to solve international conflicts in a world full of nuclear weapons by consulting moral emotions is probably a bad idea. Syria is a case in point. Consider, for example, an article by Nic Robertson entitled, From Sarajevo to Syria: Where is the world's moral compass?, that recently turned up on the website of CNN. The author suggests that we "solve" the Syrian civil war by consulting our "moral compass." In his opinion that is what we did in the Balkans to end the massacres in Bosnia and Kosovo. Apparently we are to believe that the situation in Syria is so similar that all we have to do is check the needle of the "moral compass" to solve that problem as well. I'm not so sure about that.
In the first place, the outcomes of following a "moral compass" haven't always been as benign as they were in Bosnia and Kosovo. Czar Nicholas was following his "moral compass" when he rushed to the aid of Serbia in 1914, precipitating World War I. Hitler was following his "moral compass" when he attacked Poland in 1939, bringing on World War II. Apparently it's very important to follow the right "moral compass," but the author never gets around to specifying which one of the many available we are to choose. We must assume he is referring to his own, personal "moral compass." He leaves us in doubt regarding its exact nature, but no doubt it has much in common with the "moral compass" of the other journalists who work for CNN. Unlike earlier versions, we must hope that this one is proof against precipitating another world war.
If we examine this particular "moral compass" closely, we find that it possesses some interesting idiosyncrasies. It points to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with using military force to depose a government recognized as legitimate by the United Nations. According to earlier, now apparently obsolete versions of the "moral compass," this sort of thing was referred to as naked aggression, and was considered "morally bad." Apparently all that has changed. Coming to the aid of a government so threatened, as Russia is now doing in Syria, used to be considered "good." Under the new dispensation, it has become "bad." It used to be assumed that governments recognized by the international community as legitimate had the right to control their own airspaces. Now the compass needle points to the conclusion that control over airspaces is a matter that should be decided by the journalists at CNN. We must, perforce, assume that they have concocted a "moral compass" superior to anything ever heard of by Plato and Socrates, or any of the other philosophers who plied the trade after them.
I suggest that, before blindly following this particular needle, we consider rationally what the potential outcomes might be. Robertson never lays his cards on the table and tells us exactly what he has in mind. However, we can get a pretty good idea by consulting the article. In his words,
Horror and outrage made the world stand up to Bosnia's bullies after that imagination and fear had ballooned to almost insurmountable proportion.
Today it is Russia's President Vladimir Putin whose military stands alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's army. Together they've become a force no nation alone dares challenge. Their power is seemingly set in stone.
It would seem, then, based on the analogies of Bosnia and Kosovo, where we did "good," that Robertson is suggesting we replace the internationally recognized government of Syria by force and confront Russia, whose actions within Syria's borders are in response to a request for aid by that government. In the process it would be necessary for us to defeat and humiliate Russia. It was out of fear of humiliation that Russia came to Serbia's aid in 1914. Are we really positive that Russia will not risk nuclear war to avoid a similar humiliation today? It might be better to avoid pushing our luck to find out.
What of the bright idea of replacing the current Syrian government? It seems to me that similar "solutions" really didn't work out too well in either Iraq or Libya. Some would have us believe that "moderates" are available in abundance to spring forth and fill the power vacuum. So far, I have seen no convincing evidence of the existence of these "moderates." Supposing they exist, I suspect the chances that they would be able to control a country brimming over with religious fanatics of all stripes without a massive U.S. military presence are vanishingly small. In other words, I doubt the existence of a benign alternative to Bashar al-Assad. Under the circumstances, is it really out of the question that the best way to minimize civilian casualties is not by creating a power vacuum, or by allowing the current stalemate to drag on, but by ending the civil war in exactly the way Russia is now attempting to do it; by defeating the rebels? Is it really worth risking a nuclear war just so we can try the rather dubious alternatives?
Other pundits (see, for example, here, here, and here) inform us that Turkey "cannot stand idly by" while Syria and her Russian ally regain control over Aleppo, a city within her own borders. Great shades of the Crimean War! What on earth could lead anyone to believe that Turkey is our "ally" in any way, shape or form other than within the chains of NATO? Turkey is a de facto Islamist state. She actively supports the Palestinians against another of our purported allies, Israel. Remember the Palestinians? Those were the people who danced in the streets when they saw the twin towers falling. She reluctantly granted access to Turkish bases for U.S. airstrikes against ISIS only so she would have a free hand attacking the Kurds, one of the most consistently pro-U.S. factions in the Middle East. She was foolhardy enough to shoot down a Russian plane in Syrian territory, killing its pilot, for the "crime" of violating her airspace for a grand total of 17 seconds. She cynically exploits the flow of refugees to Europe as a form of "politics by other means." Could there possibly be any more convincing reasons for us to stop playing with fire and get out of NATO? NATO is a ready-made fast track to World War III on behalf of "allies" like Turkey.
But I digress. The point is that the practice of consulting something as imaginary as a "moral compass" to formulate foreign policy is unlikely to end well. It assumes that, after all these centuries, we have finally found the "correct" moral compass, and the equally chimerical notion that "moral truths" exist, floating about as disembodied spirits, quite independent of the subjective imaginations of the employees of CNN. Forget about the "moral compass." Let us identify exactly what it is we want to accomplish, and the emotional motivation for those desires. Then, assuming we can achieve some kind of agreement on the matter, let us apply the limited intelligence we possess to realize those desires.
Morality exists because the behavioral predispositions responsible for it evolved, and they evolved because they happened to promote the survival of genes in times radically different than the present. It exists for that reason alone. It follows that, if there really were such things as "moral truths," then nothing could possibly be more immoral than failing to survive. We would do well to keep that consideration in mind in determining the nature of our future relationship with Russia.
Was Hitler Evil?Posted on February 5th, 2016 No comments
Commenter Christian asked whether I would make an exception for the Führer in the post Is Trump Evil? I would not. Questions of good or evil are not subject to truth claims, period!
Let me say some things up front about the implications of this claim. The fact that Hitler was not evil does not imply that he was good. It does not imply moral relativism. It does not imply the impossibility of moral standards that are perceived and treated as absolute. It does not imply that all of us "should" be able to do whatever we feel like. Nor does it imply that the many soldiers, including my father, who put themselves in harm's way to smash Hitler's armies were acting in vain, or that the sacrifice of those who fell fighting him was irrational or absurd. What the claim does imply is that the source of moral claims is not to be sought floating about in the form of some kind of an independent thing, but in the subjective emotions of individuals.
Let's consider whether the claim that Hitler was evil is rational or not. That claim is very different from the claim that Hitler is thought to be evil. In other words, it implies nothing about subjective emotions, but implies that Hitler was evil independent of them, or of anything that goes on in the minds of individuals. How could that be? If so, some agency independent of the mind must exist as a basis for the claim. Otherwise it is based on nothing. I don't believe in a God or gods. However, it has been suggested that, if one exists, objective good and evil can be determined by His opinion on the matter. This claim was debunked more than two millennia ago in Plato's Euthyphro. What else might be floating around in the aether that could serve as a basis for truth claims about morality? Something made of matter as we know it? I find it very hard to make such a connection, although I am always open to suggestions. Something made of energy? As Einstein pointed out, the two are convertible, so that doesn't get us anywhere.
If it doesn't consist of either matter or energy, where, then, are we to look for the source of this elusive grounding of moral claims? In the spirit world? By all means, if you think it's reasonable to believe in things for which there is no credible evidence. What other "thing" or "entity" could there possibly be that could fill the need? Again, I'm open to suggestions, but I'm not aware of anything of the sort, and I'm not prepared to accept the argument that there is an objective basis for morality, but that the basis is nothing.
Consider moral emotions. They are certainly capable of explaining why some things or individuals are thought to be evil. However, analogs of these emotions are to be found in other animals. It seems reasonable to suppose that their existence in both human beings and other species can be explained by natural selection. In other words, the existence of the genes responsible for spawning the relevant behavioral predispositions apparently increased the probability that those genes would survive and reproduce, or at least that they did at the time that the genes first appeared. Mathematical models seem to confirm this conclusion, and great heaps of books and papers have been published based on it. However, if there is an objective basis for moral claims, presumably it must be independent these randomly selected emotional predispositions. The "real" good and "real" evil must either have no connection to them, or there must be some reason why randomly evolved genes not only improve the odds of survival, but at the same time mysteriously conform to objective moral standards. This conclusion seems neither rational nor plausible to me. What does seem a great deal more rational and plausible is what Edvard Westermarck wrote on the subject more than a century ago:
As clearness and distinctness of the conception of an object easily produces the belief in its truth, so the intensity of a moral emotion makes him who feels it disposed to objectivize the moral estimate to which it gives rise, in other words, to assign to it universal validity. The enthusiast is more likely than anybody else to regard his judgments as true, and so is the moral enthusiast with reference to his moral judgments. The intensity of his emotions makes him the victim of an illusion.
The presumed objectivity of moral judgments thus being a chimera there can be no moral truth in the sense in which this term is generally understood. The ultimate reason for this is that the moral concepts are based upon emotions and that the contents of an emotion fall entirely outside the category of truth.
Consider the case of individual Nazis. Goebbels is a good example, as, unlike Hitler, he left extensive diaries. Read them, and you will discover an individual not unlike those who are occasionally described as "social justice warriors" in our own time. He was an activist who sacrificed his time and occasionally his health in the fight to right what seemed to him a terrible injustice; the "enslaving" of the German people by the Treaty of Versailles. He was hardly a man who woke up every morning scratching his head wondering what evil deed he could do that day. Rather, he was firmly convinced he was fighting for the good, in the form of the liberation of the German people from the clutches of those who he imagined sought to enslave and crush them. He was a convinced socialist, well to the left of Hitler in that regard. He honored and loved his family, and believed firmly in the Christian God, frequently invoking His aid in the diaries. He often railed at the "gypsy life" he lived before the Nazis came to power, constantly traveling here and there for speeches and demonstrations, and bewailed his rundown condition because of constant overwork. He fantasized about running off to Switzerland with one of his many lady loves. His strong sense of duty, however, held him to his work in pursuit of what he firmly believed was the "good."
Clearly, then, Goebbels was incapable of distinguishing between "good and evil" as they are commonly defined today, at least, in the U.S. and much of Europe. The same may be said of Hitler, who was a very similar type, dedicated to what he imagined was a noble and highly ethical cause, as can be seen in the pages of his Mein Kampf. If he actually was "evil," then, we must conclude, based at least on the standards prevailing in U.S. courts of law, that he was less "evil" than those who know the difference between right and wrong. If we were to insist on the existence of objective morality, we could go on multiplying these "extenuating circumstances" indefinitely, having a fine time in the process debating the precise level of Hitler's criminal liability for his deeds in terms of "real" good and "real" evil. I submit that it would be more reasonable, not to mention less mentally taxing, to simply admit the obvious; that the categories "real" good and "real" evil are chimeras.
Which brings us back to my earlier comments about moral relativity. I do not believe that it is possible for one individual to be more objectively good or more objectively evil than another. In spite of that, I make moral judgments about other drivers on the road all the time. We make moral judgments because it is our nature to make moral judgments. For the most part, at least, it is not our nature to be "moral relativists," and all the scribblings of all the philosophers on the planet won't alter human nature, as the Communists, among others, discovered at great cost, both to themselves and the rest of us. The fact that Hitler and the rest of the Nazis weren't objectively evil does not somehow render the fight against Nazism irrational or impermissible. As Hume pointed out long ago, we are motivated to do things by emotion, not reason, and reason must ever be the slave of emotion.
Most of us have an emotional attachment to staying alive, and to ensuring the survival of those we love. If Nazis or anyone else wanted to kill or enslave us or them, there is no objective reason why we should resist. However, in my case and, I think, in most others, it would be my nature to resist, and just as there is no objective reason why I should, there is also no objective reason why I should not. It might occur to me in the process that my reaction to the emotional desire to resist was in harmony with the reasons that the desire existed in the first place, namely, because it increased the odds of genetic survival. In my case, this would increase my will to resist, especially in the world of today where so many actions in response to moral emotions seem better calculated to result in genetic suicide. In the process of resisting, I would hardly dispense with such powerful weapons as moral emotions merely because I am aware of the non-existence of objective good and evil. On the contrary, I would exploit every opportunity to portray my enemy as evil, and there would be nothing either contradictory or objectively "wrong" about doing so.
As for absolute morality, no such thing is possible in an objective sense, but it is certainly possible in a subjective sense. There is no objective reason whatsoever why we should not come up with a version of morality consistent with our nature, seek to live by it, and punish those who don't. Eventually, we would tend to imagine compliance with those moral rules to be "really good" and failure to comply with them to be "really evil," because that is our nature. I personally would prefer living under such a system, assuming we were vigilant in preventing morality from overstepping its bounds.
As for the Nazis, it will greatly facilitate the historical task of understanding what manner of people they were and why they did what they did if we go into it unencumbered with fantasies about objective good and evil. Communism was actually a very similar phenomenon. Its most substantial difference from Nazism was probably the mere substitution of "bourgeoisie" for Jews as the outgroup of choice. The fool's errand of trying to pigeonhole the Nazis on some imaginary moral scale did not help us to avoid Communism, nor is it likely to help us avoid similar historical blunders in the future. It would be better to actually understand the emotional nature of individuals like Hitler and Goebbels, which is probably a great deal more similar to the emotional nature of the rest of us than we care to admit, and how it motivated them to do what they did. Or at least it would be better for those of us who would prefer to avoid another dose of Communism or Nazism.
Is Trump Evil?Posted on January 31st, 2016 2 comments
The question itself is absurd. It implies the existence of things – objective good and evil – that are purely imaginary. Good and evil seem to be real, but they are actually only words we assign to subjective emotional responses. Darwin was aware of the fact, as demonstrated in his writings. Westermarck stated it as a scientific theory in his Ethical Relativity. Arthur Keith and others before him noted critical aspect of human morality that is commonly ignored to this day; its dual nature. Robert Ardrey referred to it as the "Amity-Enmity Complex," noting that we categorize others into ingroups, with which we associate "good" qualities, and outgroups, with which we associate "evil." Denial of the dual nature of morality has been one of the more damaging legacies of the Blank Slate. Among other things, it has obscured the reasons for the existence of such variants of outgroup identification as racism, religious bigotry, and anti-Semitism. In the process, it has obscured from the consciousness of those who are loudest in condemning these "evils" that they, too, have outgroups, which they commonly hate more bitterly and irrationally than those they accuse of such sins.
The current attempts in the UK to establish a travel ban on Donald Trump are a good illustration of the absurdities that are commonly the result of failure to recognize the simple truths stated above. As I write this, 570,000 Brits have signed a petition calling for such a ban. In response, the British parliament has begun debating the issue. All this is justified on moral grounds. Ask one of the petition signers why, exactly, Trump is evil, and typical responses would include the claim that he is a racist, a religious bigot, spreads "hate-speech," etc. If one were to continue the line of questioning, asking why racism is bad, they might respond that it leads to inequality. Ask them why equality is good, and they might start losing patience with the questioner because, in fact, they don't know. None of these saintly petition signers has the faintest clue why Trump is "really evil." It's no wonder. Legions of philosophers have been trying to catch the gaudy butterflies of "good" and "evil" for the last few millennia. They have failed for a very good reason. The butterflies don't exist.
Let us attempt to bring the debate back into the real world. Trump wants to expel illegal immigrants from the U.S., and end immigration of Muslims. These are not irrational goals. As history demonstrates, they are both legally and physically possible. In both cases, they would recognize the existence of human nature in general, and our tendency to perceive others in terms of ingroups and outgroups in particular. They will result in the exclusion from the country of people who have historically perceived the lion's share of the existing population of the United States as an outgroup. In the case of Moslems, their holy book, the Quran, includes many passages forbidding friendship with Christians and condemning those with commonly held Christian beliefs to burn in hell for eternity. In the case of Hispanics, they come from cultures that have historically perceived North Americans as exploiters and imperialist aggressors. Both of these groups, in turn, are typically perceived by Americans as belonging to outgroups. Allowing them to remain in or enter the country has already resulted in civil strife. If history is any guide, there is a non-trivial possibility that the eventual result will be civil war. These are outcomes that most current US citizens would prefer to avoid. They are being told, however, that to avoid being "racist," or "bigoted," or, in fine, "immoral," they must accept these outcomes. In other words, to be "good," they must practice an absurd form of altruism, in which they must make tangible sacrifices, even though the chances that they will ever receive anything back in return are nil. Otherwise, they will be "evil." This unusual form of moral behavior is not encountered elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
Moral emotions certainly do not exist to promote "good" and defeat "evil." They exist solely because, at points in time that were utterly unlike the present, they happened to increase the odds that the genes responsible for spawning them would survive and reproduce. Importing civil strife and, potentially, civil war, are not good strategies for promoting genetic survival. The subjective desire to direct moral emotions in order to accomplish goals that are in harmony with the reasons those emotions exist to begin with is neither "good" nor "evil." However, as long as one recognizes the necessarily subjective nature of those goals, there is no basis for the claim that pursuing them is irrational. In short, expelling illegal immigrants and banning Muslim immigration are not "evil," because there is no such thing as "evil," beyond its subjective and dependent existence in the consciousness of individuals. They are, however, rational, in the sense that they are legal and achievable, and are also in harmony with the goal of genetic, not to mention cultural survival. Most US citizens seem to recognize this fact at some conscious or subconscious level. This explains their support for Trump, and what one might call their immune response to a deluge of culturally alien immigrants, whether legal or illegal. As so often happens, many of those who don't "get it" are intellectuals, who have a disconcerting tendency to bamboozle themselves with ideological concoctions from which they imagine they can distill the "good," often at the expense of others not afflicted with a similar talent for self-delusion.
The petition signers, on the other hand, would be somewhat embarrassed if asked to justify their condemnation of Trump on grounds other than such imaginary categories as "good" and "evil." Perhaps they might argue that he is acting against the "brotherhood of man," and that the "brotherhood of man" is a rational goal because it would reduce or eliminate inter-species warfare and other forms of violence, goals which are also in harmony with genetic survival. To this, one need merely respond, "Look in the mirror." There, if they look closely, they will see the reflection of their own hatreds, and of their own outgroups. They are no more immune to human nature than the racists and bigots they so piously condemn. After their own fashion, like virtually every other human being on the planet, they are "racists and bigots" themselves. The only difference between them and those they condemn is in the choice of outgroup. Their own hatreds expose the "brotherhood of man" as a fantasy.
In short, all these Brits who imagine themselves dwelling on pinnacles of righteousness don't oppose Trump's policies on rational grounds. They oppose him because they hate him, and they hate him because he is included in their outgroup, and must, therefore, be "immoral." In that they are similar to American Trump-haters. Typical Brits, on the other hand, have many other hatreds in common. Many of them have a long and abiding hatred of Americans. Going back to the years just after we gained our independence, one may consult the pages of the British Quarterly Review, probably their most influential journal during the first half of the 19th century. There you will find nothing but scorn for Americans and their "silly paper Constitution." As anyone who has read a little history is aware, little changed between then and the most recent orgasm of anti-American hatred in Europe, in which the Brits were eager participants. It's ironic that these hatemongers are now sufficiently droll to accuse others of "hate-speech." Ideologues may be defined as those who identify their in- and outgroups according to ideological criteria. In common with ideologues everywhere, British ideologues hatred of the "other," so defined, is as virulent as the hatreds of any racist ever heard of. In other words, to judge by their "racism," they are at least as "evil" as the outgroups they condemn. The only difference is that their hatred is aroused by "races" that differ from them in political alignment rather than skin color. It is this variant of "racism" that they are now directing at Trump.
If Trump does become President, it would not be surprising to see him retaliate against the British hatemongers, if not in response to moral emotions, perhaps as a mere matter of self-defense. To begin, for example, he might expel the British scientists who are now so ubiquitous at our national weapons laboratories, with free access to both our classified nuclear weapons information and to expensive experimental facilities, to the construction and maintenance of which they have contributed little if anything. Beyond that, we might deliver some broad hints as to the violation of the Monroe Doctrine posed by their occupation of the Malvinas Islands, accompanied by some judicious arming of Argentina.
None of what I have written above implies nihilism, or moral relativism, nor does it exclude the possibility of an absolute morality. I merely recognize the fact that good and evil are not objective things, and draw the obvious conclusions. Facts are not good or evil. They are simply facts.
The Great European Morality InversionPosted on October 2nd, 2015 5 comments
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know my take on morality. It is the manifestation of a subset of our suite of innate behavioral traits. The traits in question exist because they evolved. Absent those traits, morality as we know it would not exist. It follows that attempts to apply moral emotions in order to solve complex problems that arise in an environment that is radically different from the one in which the innate, "root causes" of morality evolved are irrational. That, however, is precisely how the Europeans are attempting to deal with an unprecedented flood of culturally and genetically alien refugees. The result is predictable – a classic morality inversion.
The situation is unfolding just as Jonathan Haidt described it in his paper, The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail. As he put it,
…moral reasoning does not cause moral judgment; rather, moral reasoning is usually a post hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached.
In other words, the "emotional dog" makes the judgment. Only after the judgment has been made does the "rational tail" begin "wagging the dog," concocting good sounding "reasons" for the judgment. One can get a better idea of what's really going on by tracking down the source of the moral emotions involved.
Let's consider, then, what's going on inside the "pro-refugee" brain. As in every other brain, the moral machinery distinguishes between ingroup and outgroup(s). In this case these categories are perceived primarily in ideological terms. The typical pro-refugee individual is often a liberal, as that rather slippery term is generally understood in the context of 21st century western democracies. Such specimens will occasionally claim that they have expanded their ingroup to include "all mankind," so that it is no longer possible for them to be "haters." Nothing could be further from the truth. The outgroup have ye always with you. It comes with the human behavioral package.
If anything, the modern liberal hates more violently than any other subgroup. He commonly hates the people within his own culture who disagree with the shibboleths of his ideology. Those particular "others," almost always constitute at least a part of his outgroup. Outside of his own culture, ideology matters much less as a criterion of outgroup identification, as demonstrated, for example, by the odd affinity between many Western liberals and radical Islamists.
Beyond that, however, he is hardly immune from the more traditional forms of tribalism. For example, European liberals typically hate the United States. The intensity of that hatred tends to rise and fall over time, but can sometimes reach almost incredible levels. The most recent eruption occurred around the year 2000. Interestingly enough, one of the most spectacular examples occurred in Germany, the very country that now takes the cake for moralistic grandstanding in the matter of refugees. Der Spiegel, its number one news magazine, was certainly in the avant-garde of the orgasm of hatred. It was often difficult to find any news about Germany on the homepage of its website, so filled was it with furious, spittle-flinging rants about the imagined evils of "die Amerikaner." However, virtually every other major German "news" outlet, whether it was nominally "liberal" or "conservative," eventually jointed the howling pack. The most vicious examples of anti-American hate were typically found in just those publications that are now quick to denounce German citizens who express concern about the overwhelming waves of refugees now pouring into the country as "haters."
On the other hand, refugees, or at least those of the type now pouring into Europe, seldom turn up in any of these common outgroups of the modern liberal. They land squarely in his ingroup. Humans are generally inclined to help ingroup members who, like the refugees, appear to be in trouble. This is doubly true of the liberal, who piques himself on what he imagines to be his moral superiority. Furthermore, as the refugees can be portrayed as victims of colonialism and imperialism, one might say they are a "most favored subset" of the ingroup. Throw in a few pictures of drowned children, impoverished women begging for help, etc., and all the moral ingredients are there to render the liberal an impassioned defender of the masses of humanity drawing a bead on his country. Nothing gives him more self-righteous joy than imagining himself a "savior." This explains the fact that liberals are eternally in the process of "saving" one group of unfortunates or another without ever getting around to accomplishing anything actually recognizable as salvation. All the pleasure is in the charade. We find the same phenomenon whether its a matter of "saving" the environment, "saving" the planet from global warming, or "saving" the poor. For the liberal, the pose is everything, and the reality nothing.
Which brings us back to the theme of this post. All the sublime moral emotions now at play in the "salvation" of the refugees have an uncanny resemblance to many other instances of moral behavior as practiced by the modern liberal. They have a tendency to favor an outcome which is the opposite of what the same moral emotions accomplished at an earlier time, and that led to their preservation by natural selection to begin with. In a word, as noted above, we are witnessing yet another classic morality inversion.
Why an inversion? At the most fundamental level, because it will lead to the diminution or elimination of the genes whose survival a similar response once favored. At the moment, the pro-refugee side is calling the shots. It controls the governments of all the major European states. All of them more or less fit the pattern described above, whether they are nominally "liberal" or "conservative." Indeed, foremost among them is Germany's "conservative' regime, which has positively invited a flood of alien refugees across its borders. Based on historical precedent, the outcome of all this altruism isn't difficult to foresee. In terms of "culture" it will be a future of ethnic and religious strife, possibly leading to civil war. Genetically, it amounts to an attempt at ethnic suicide. I am well aware that these outcomes are disputed by those promoting the refugee inundation. However, I consider it pointless to argue about it. I am content to let history judge.
While we bide our time waiting for the train wreck to unfold, it may be of interest to examine some of the techniques being used to maintain this remarkable instance of moralistic play-acting. I take most of my examples from the German media, which includes some of the most avid refugee cheerleaders. Predictably, outgroup vilification is part of the mix. As noted above, anyone who objects to the flood of refugees is almost universally denounced as a "hater" by just those people who wear their own virulent hatreds on their sleeves while pretending they don't exist. Of course, there are also the usual hackneyed violations of Godwin's Law. For example, Jacob Augstein, leftwing stalwart for Der Spiegel, denounces them as "Browns" (i.e., brownshirts, Nazis) in a recent column. On the "positive" side, the "conservative" Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung optimistically suggests that the refugees will promote economic growth. According to another article in Der Spiegel, the eastern Europeans, who are not quite so refugee-friendly as the Germans, are "blowing their chance." The ominous byline reads,
Europe is shrinking. The demographic downtrend is particularly dramatic in the eastern part of the continent, where the population is literally dying out. In spite of that, Hungary, Poland and company are resisting immigration. They will regret it.
In other words, before turning out the lights and committing suicide, the eastern Europeans should make sure an alien culture is in place to take over their territories when they're gone. Of course, this flies in the face of the impassioned rhetoric the liberals have been feeding us about the need to reduce the surface population if we are to have an environmentally sustainable planet.
I note in passing that the European elites that are driving this process now seem to have taken a step back from the brink. They are having second thoughts. They realize that they don't have their populations behind them, and that their defiance of popular opinion might eventually threaten their own power. As a result, the number of news articles about the refugees and their plight is only a shadow of what it was only a few weeks ago. Mild reservations about refugee wowserism are starting to appear even in such gung-ho forums as Der Spiegel where, as I write this, the lead article on their homepage is entitled "Now Things Are Getting Uncomfortable." Ya think!? The byline reads,
There is a chance in tone in the refugee crisis. SPD (German Social Democratic Party) chief Gabriel warms about limits to Germany's ability to absorb refugees. Minister of the Interior de Maziere deplores the misbehavior of many migrants. The pressure on Chancellor Merkel is increasing.
"Ought" the Europeans to alter their behavior? Is what they consider "good" really "evil?" Are they ignoring the real "goal" of natural selection? Certainly not, at least from an objective point of view. There is no objective criterion for determining what anyone "ought" to do, anymore than there is an objective way to distinguish the difference between things, such as good and evil, that have no objective existence. They are hardly failing to move towards the "goal" of natural selection, since that process does not have either a purpose or a goal. As you may have gathered, my own subjective whim is to oppose unlimited immigration. I have, however, not the slightest basis for declaring that anyone who doesn't agree with me is "evil." At best, I can try to explain my own whims.
I'm what you might call a moral compatibilist. I see myself sitting at the end of a chain of life spawned by genetic material that has evolved over a period of more than three billions years, surviving and reproducing over that incredible gulf of time via an almost infinite array of successive forms, culminating in the species to which I now belong. I consider the whole process, and the universe I live in, awesome and wonderful. Subjectively, it seems to me "good" to act in a way that is compatible with the natural processes that have given me life. It follows that, from my own, individual, subjective point of view, I "should" seek to preserve that life and pass it on into the indefinite future.
I have not the slightest basis for claiming that "my way" is better than the whimsical behavior of those I see around me exultantly pursuing their morality inversions. At best, I must limit myself to observing that "my way" seems more consistent.
Haidt and Lukianoff on "The Coddling of the American Mind"Posted on August 16th, 2015 1 comment
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff have just published an article in The Atlantic entitled The Coddling of the American Mind that illustrates yet another pathological artifact of the bitter determination of our species to preserve the fantasy of objective morality. They describe the current attempts of university students to enforce ideological orthodoxy by vilifying "microaggressions" against the true faith and insisting on "trigger warnings" to insure the pure in heart will not be traumatized by allusions to Crimethink.
Haidt has done some brilliant work on the nature of human morality, and his The Righteous Mind is a must read for anyone with a serious interest in understanding the subject. Lukianoff is the CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which supports free-speech rights on campus. According to his own account, his interest in the subject was catalyzed by his personal struggle with depression.
According to the article,
A movement is arising, undirected and driven largely by students, to scrub campuses clean of words, ideas, and subjects that might cause discomfort or give offense.
Examples of the phenomena they describe may be found here, here, and here. The authors note that,
The press has typically described these developments as a resurgence of political correctness. That's partly right, although there are important differences between what's happening now and what happened in the 80s and 90s. That movement sought to restrict speech… but it also challenged the literary, philosophical and historical canon, seeking to widen it by including more diverse perspectives. The current movement is largely about emotional well-being. More than the last, it presumes an extraordinary fragility of the collegiate psyche, and therefore elevates the goal of protecting students from psychological harm.
Which brings them to the theme of their article – that this "vindictive protectiveness," as they call it is not protecting students from psychological harm, but is actually causing it. The rest of the article mainly consists of the claim that modern students are really the victims of some of the dozen "common cognitive distortions" that are listed at the end of the article, and suggests that "cognitive behavioral therapy," which helped Lukianoff overcome his own struggle with severe depression, might be something they should try as well.
Maybe, but I suspect that the real motivation behind this latest "movement" has no more to do with "preventing psychological harm" than "preventing discomfort or giving offense" were the real motivations behind the PC movement, which, BTW, is at least as active now as it was in the 80s and 90s. Rather, these phenomena are best understood as modern versions of the ancient game of moralistic one-upmanship. In other words, they're just a mundane form of status seeking behavior. As usual, by taking them seriously one just plays into the hands of the status seekers.
If you'd like to see what the phenomenon looked like in the 60's, and didn't happen to be around at the time, I recommend you have a look at the movie Getting Straight, starring Elliot Gould and Candice Bergen. It's all about the campus revolutions of the incredibly narcissistic and self-righteous Baby Boomers who were the "youth" of the time. Encouraged by their doting parents, they imagined themselves the bearers of all worldly wisdom, guaranteed to be the creators of a future utopia. Their doting (and despised) parents, of the generation that transcended the Great Depression, defeated the Nazis and fascists in World War II, and fended off Communism long enough for it to collapse of its own "internal contradictions" so their children had the opportunity to stage cathartic but entirely safe "revolutions," are uniformly portrayed as idiots, standing in the way of "progress." The "student revolutionaries" in the film are every bit as pious as their modern analogs, and have equally idiotic demands. The Brave New World will apparently only be possible if they are allowed to have coed dorms and gender and ethnic studies programs at every university, presumably to insure they will have no marketable skills, and so will be able to continue the "revolution" after they graduate. The amusing thing about the film, especially in retrospect, is that its creators weren't intentionally creating a comedy. They actually took themselves seriously.
For earlier versions of "vindictive protectiveness" most of us must turn to the history books. The great Sage of Baltimore, H. L. Mencken, devoted a great deal of his time and energy to fighting its manifestation as the "Uplift" of his own day. Many examples may be found in his six volumes of Prejudices, or his autobiographical Trilogy. The latest version, BTW, has string bookmarks, just like the old family Bibles. I'm sure the old infidel would have been amused.
Shakespeare loathed the "vindictive protectiveness" of his day, which came in its first really modern version; Puritanism. See, for example, his Twelfth Night, which scorns the "morally righteous" of his day as personified by that "devil of a Puritan," Malvolio. For cruder, less culturally evolved versions, one can go back to the Blues and Greens of the Byzantine circus, or the Christian squabbles over assorted flavors of heresy in the 3rd, 4th and 5th centuries.
In a word, there is nothing new under the sun. I'm sure Haidt realizes this. After all, he devotes much of The Righteous Mind to describing and analyzing the phenomenon. He plays along with the "cognitive behavioral therapy" stuff, because that's what blows his co-author's hair back, but still gets enough in between the lines to describe what is really going on. For example, from the article,
A claim that someone's words are "offensive" is not just an expression of one's own subjective feeling of offendedness. It is, rather, a public charge that the speaker has done something objectively wrong. It is a demand that the speaker apologize or be punished by some authority for committing an offense.
And that really is, and always has been, the crux of the problem. Nothing can be "objectively wrong." The origin of all these sublime and now microscopically distilled moral emotions will probably eventually be found in the ancient portions of our brains that we share with every other mammal, and probably the reptiles as well. This "root cause" of moral behavior exists because it evolved. It did not evolve because of its efficacy in fending off microaggressions, or to insure that Mesozoic mammals would be sure to issue trigger warnings. No, it evolved for the somewhat unrelated reason that it happened to increase the odds that certain "selfish genes," or perhaps "selfish groups," if you believe E. O. Wilson, would survive, and pass on the relevant DNA to latter day animals with big brains, namely, us. We get into trouble like this by over-thinking what our reptile brains are trying to tell us. The problem will never go away until our self-knowledge develops to the point that we finally grasp this essential truth. Until that great day dawns, we will have to grin and bear the annoyance of dealing with the pathologically and delicately self-righteous among us. Roll out the fainting couches!
Of Tim Hunt and Elementary MoralityPosted on June 21st, 2015 33 comments
If we are evolved animals, then it is plausible that we have evolved behavioral traits, and among those traits are a "moral sense." So much was immediately obvious to Darwin himself. To judge by the number of books that have been published about evolved morality in the last couple of decades, it makes sense to a lot of other people, too. The reason such a sense might have evolved is obvious, especially among highly social creatures such as ourselves. The tendency to act in some ways and not in others enhanced the probability that the genes responsible for those tendencies would survive and reproduce. It is not implausible that this moral sense should be strong, and that it should give rise to such powerful impressions that some things are "really good," and others are "really evil," as to produce a sense that "good" and "evil" exist independently as objective things. Such a moral sense is demonstrably very effective at modifying our behavior. It hardly follows that good and evil really are independent, objective things.
If an evolved moral sense really is the "root cause" for the existence of all the various and gaudy manifestations of human morality, is it plausible to believe that this moral sense has somehow tracked an "objective morality" that floats around out there independent of any subjective human consciousness? No. If it really is the root cause, is there some objective mechanism whereby the moral impressions of one human being can leap out of that individual's skull and gain the normative power to dictate to another human being what is "really good" and "really evil?" No. Can there be any objective justification for outrage? No. Can there be any objective basis for virtuous indignation? No. So much is obvious. Under the circumstances it's amazing, even given the limitations of human reason, that so many of the most intelligent among it just don't get it. One can only attribute it to the tremendous power of the moral emotions, the great pleasure we get from indulging them, and the dominant role they play in regulating all human interactions.
These facts were recently demonstrated by the interesting behavior of some of the more prominent intellectuals among us in reaction to some comments at a scientific conference. In case you haven't been following the story, the commenter in question was Tim Hunt,- a biochemist who won a Nobel Prize in 2001 with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for discoveries of protein molecules that control the division (duplication) of cells. At a luncheon during the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea, he averred that women are a problem in labs because "You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry."
Hunt's comment evoked furious moral emotions, not least among atheist intellectuals. According to PZ Myers, proprietor of Pharyngula, Hunt's comments revealed that he is "bad." Some of his posts on the subject may be found here, here, and here. For example, according to Myers,
Oh, no! There might be a "chilling effect" on the ability of coddled, privileged Nobel prize winners to say stupid, demeaning things about half the population of the planet! What will we do without the ability of Tim Hunt to freely accuse women of being emotional hysterics, or without James Watson's proud ability to call all black people mentally retarded?
I thought Hunt's plaintive whines were a big bowl of bollocks.
All I can say is…fuck off, dinosaur. We're better off without you in any position of authority.
We can glean additional data in the comments to these posts that demonstrate the human version of "othering." Members of outgroups, or "others," are not only "bad," but also typically impure and disgusting. For example,
Glad I wasn't the only–or even the first!–to mention that long-enough-to-macramé nose hair. I think I know what's been going on: The female scientists in his lab are always trying hard to not stare at the bales of hay peeking out of his nostrils and he's been mistaking their uncomfortable, demure behaviour as 'falling in love with him'.
However, in creatures with brains large enough to cogitate about what their emotions are trying to tell them, the same suite of moral predispositions can easily give rise to stark differences in moral judgments. Sure enough, others concluded that Myers and those who agreed with him were "bad." Prominent among them was Richard Dawkins, who wrote in an open letter to the London Times,
Along with many others, I didn't like Sir Tim Hunt's joke, but 'disproportionate' would be a huge underestimate of the baying witch-hunt that it unleashed among our academic thought police: nothing less than a feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness."
The moral emotions of other Nobel laureates informed them that Dawkins was right. For example, according to the Telegraph,
Sir Andre Geim, of the University of Manchester who shared the Nobel prize for physics in 2010 said that Sir Tim had been "crucified" by ideological fanatics , and castigated UCL for "ousting" him.
Avram Hershko, an Israeli scientist who won the 2004 Nobel prize in chemistry, said he thought Sir Tim was "very unfairly treated." He told the Times: "Maybe he wanted to be funny and was jet lagged, but then the criticism in the social media and in the press was very much out of proportion. So was his prompt dismissal — or resignation — from his post at UCL ."
All these reactions have one thing in common. They are completely irrational unless one assumes the existence of "good" and "bad" as objective things rather than subjective impressions. Or would you have me believe, dear reader, that statements like, "fuck off, dinosaur," and allusions to crucifixion by "ideological fanatics" engaged in a "baying witch-hunt," are mere cool, carefully reasoned suggestions about how best to advance the officially certified "good" of promoting greater female participation in the sciences? Nonsense! These people aren't playing a game of charades, either. Their behavior reveals that they genuinely believe, not only in the existence of "good" and "bad" as objective things, but in their own ability to tell the difference better than those who disagree with them. If they don't believe it, they certainly act like they do. And yet these are some of the most intelligent representatives of our species. One can but despair, and hope that aliens from another planet don't turn up anytime soon to witness such ludicrous spectacles.
Clearly, we can't simply dispense with morality. We're much too stupid to get along without it. Under the circumstances, it would be nice if we could all agree on what we will consider "good" and what "bad," within the limits imposed by the innate bedrock of morality in human nature. Unfortunately, human societies are now a great deal different than the ones that existed when the predispositions that are responsible for the existence of morality evolved, and they tend to change very rapidly. It stands to reason that it will occasionally be necessary to "adjust" the types of behavior we consider "good" and "bad" to keep up as best we can. I personally doubt that the current practice of climbing up on rickety soap boxes and shouting down anathemas on anyone who disagrees with us, and then making the "adjustment" according to who shouts the loudest, is really the most effective way to accomplish that end. Among other things, it results in too much collateral damage in the form of shattered careers and ideological polarization. I can't suggest a perfect alternative at the moment, but a little self-knowledge might help in the search for one. Shedding the illusion of objective morality would be a good start.
Clash of the Moral Titans: Sam Harris vs. Noam ChomskyPosted on May 16th, 2015 2 comments
Sam Harris and Noam Chomsky have a lot in common. Both are familiar public intellectuals, both are atheists, and both are well to the left of center politically. Both are also true believers in the fantasy of objective morality. As I noticed on my latest visit to the Salon website, however, that hasn't deterred them from hurling anathemas at each other. Harris landed some weak jabs in a recent exchange of verbal fisticuffs, but according to Salon, Chomsky won by a knockout in the later rounds. A complete, blow by blow account may be found on Sam's website, along with his own post mortem.
Apparently it all began when Harris tried to, in his words, "engineer a public conversation with Chomsky about the ethics of war, terrorism, state surveillance, and related topics." As he wrote on his blog,
For decades, Noam Chomsky has been one of the most prominent critics of U.S. foreign policy, and the further left one travels along the political spectrum, the more one feels his influence. Although I agree with much of what Chomsky has said about the misuses of state power, I have long maintained that his political views, where the threat of global jihadism is concerned, produce dangerous delusions. In response, I have been much criticized by those who believe that I haven't given the great man his due.
To clear the air, he wrote a pleasant note to Chomsky suggesting that they engage in a public conversation to, "explore these disagreements, clarify any misunderstandings," and "attempt to find some common ground." Not one to be taken in by such pleasantries, old pro Chomsky immediately positioned himself on the moral high ground. His tart reply:
Perhaps I have some misconceptions about you. Most of what I've read of yours is material that has been sent to me about my alleged views, which is completely false. I don't see any point in a public debate about misreadings. If there are things you'd like to explore privately, fine. But with sources.
Harris should have known going in that hardcore "progressive" leftists never have friendly differences of opinion with anyone on matters more significant than the weather. Anyone who disagrees with them is automatically tossed into their outgroup, and acquires all the usual characteristics of the denizens thereof. They are, of course, always immoral, and commonly disgusting and mentally incompetent as well. That's often how Harris portrays those who disagree with him on questions of morality himself. Nevertheless, he walked right into Chomsky's punch, admitting the possibility that he may have misread him. He merely threw in the caveat that, if so, it could only have happened in a passage in his first book, The End of Faith, as that was the only time he'd ever mentioned Chomsky's work in writing. That was plenty for Chomsky. In effect, Harris had just handed him the opportunity to pick his own battlefield. He did so with alacrity. As it happens, in the passage in question, Harris had objected to Chomsky's condemnation of the Clinton Administration's decision to bomb the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in the context of remarks about the 9/11 attacks. As he put it:
Chomsky does not hesitate to draw moral equivalences here: "For the first time in modern history, Europe and its offshoots were subjected, on home soil, to the kind of atrocity that they routinely have carried out elsewhere."
Citing the passage in his own work Harris referred to, Chomsky immediately fired back, denying that it had ever been his intent to "draw moral equivalences":
Let's turn to what you did say—a disquisition on "moral equivalence." You fail to mention, though, that I did not suggest that they were "morally equivalent" and in fact indicated quite the opposite. I did not describe the Al-Shifa bombing as a "horrendous crime" committed with "wickedness and awesome cruelty." Rather, I pointed out that the toll might be comparable, which turns out on inquiry (which is not undertaken here, and which apologists for our crimes ignore), turns out to be, quite likely, a serious understatement.
Having thus seized the moral high ground, he proceeded to rain down pious punches on Harris, demonstrating that he was not merely wrong, but grossly immoral. His ensuing replies include such choice examples as,
You also ignored the fact that I had already responded to your claim about lack of intention—which, frankly, I find quite shocking on elementary moral grounds, as I suspect you would too if you were to respond to the question raised at the beginning of my quoted comment.
Harris is willfully blind to the crimes of the Clinton Administration:
And of course they knew that there would be major casualties. They are not imbeciles, but rather adopt a stance that is arguably even more immoral than purposeful killing, which at least recognizes the human status of the victims, not just killing ants while walking down the street, who cares?
He is morally depraved for abetting this crime:
Your own moral stance is revealed even further by your complete lack of concern about the apparently huge casualties and the refusal even to investigate them.
I've seen apologetics for atrocities before, but rarely at this level – not to speak of the refusal to withdraw false charges, a minor fault in comparison.
Chomsky closes on a magnanimous note:
I'll put aside your apologetics for the crimes for which you and I share responsibility, which, frankly, I find quite shocking, particularly on the part of someone who feels entitled to deliver moral lectures.
Harris is game enough, but staggers on rubbery legs for the rest of the fight. Even in the midst of these blows, he can't rid himself of the idée fixe that it's possible to have a polite exchange with someone like Chomsky on differences of opinion about morality. In the post mortem on his website, it's clear that he still doesn't know what hit him. It's virtually impossible to win arguments about objective morality with the likes of Chomsky unless you grasp the fundamental truth that there's no such thing as objective morality. In fact, the whole debate was about subjective perceptions that are, as Westermarck put it, entirely outside the realm of truth claims.
I can only suggest that next time, instead of getting "down in the weeds," as he puts it, in a debate with Chomsky about who is "really" the most morally pure, Harris consider the matter pragmatically. In fact, Chomsky is, and always has been, what Lenin referred to as "a useful idiot." The net effect of all his moralistic hair splitting has been to aid and abet ideologies for which most sane people would just as soon avoid serving as guinea pigs, and to demoralize those who would seek to stand in their way. The most egregious example is probably the moral support he provided for the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia at the very time it was perpetrating what was probably, at least on a per capita basis, the worst act of genocide in human history, resulting in the virtual decapitation of a whole country and the annihilation of a large percentage of its population. There are many accounts of his role in this affair on the Internet, and I invite interested readers to have a look at them. One of the more balanced accounts may be found here. Here, too, Chomsky would run rings around Harris if he attempted to debate his role on moralistic grounds. Here, too, he could claim that he had never deliberately drawn any "moral equivalence," that he had never intended to support the Khmer Rouge, and that those who suggest otherwise are immoral because of a, b, and c. However, it is a fact that Pol Pot and his cronies made very effective use of his remarks in their propaganda, among other things, predictably exploiting them to draw "moral equivalence" in blithe disregard of Chomsky's assertions about his "intent."
In fact, Chomsky has been a virtual poster boy for potential tyrannies of all stripes. One might say he has been an "equal opportunity" useful idiot. Once when I was visiting Germany I happened to glance at the offerings of a local newsstand, and saw the smiling face of none other than Noam Chomsky smiling down at me from the front page of the neo-Nazi "Deutsche National-Zeitung!" In the accompanying article, the fascists cited him as an ideal example of a true American hero. I note in passing that tyrants themselves usually have no illusions about the real nature of such paragons of morality. Once Stalin had successfully exploited them to gain absolute power, he shot or consigned to the Gulag every single one he could lay his hands on.
In a word, I suggest that Sam take some advice that my father once passed down to me regarding such affairs: "Never get in a pissing contest with a skunk." You don't need to convince anyone that you're more morally pure than Chomsky in order to realistically assess the net effect of all his "piety." You just need to realize that, from a purely subjective point of view, it is "good" to survive.
Of Morality and Pizza ParlorsPosted on April 4th, 2015 No comments
If you're worried that the demise of religion implies the demise of morality, I suggest you search the term "Memories Pizza." As it happens, Memories Pizza is (or was) a small business in the town of Walkerton, Indiana. By all accounts, its owners had never refused to serve gays, or uttered a harsh word about the gay community. Then, however, a reporter by the name of Alyssa Marino strolled in fishing for a story about Indiana's recently enacted "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." Apparently attracted by the signage in the restaurant that made it obvious that the owners were Christians, Marino asked the proprietor a question that had never come up in the decade the business had been in business, and was unlikely to come up in the future; Would the business cater a gay wedding. The reply: "If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no." Marino promptly wrote a story about her visit under the headline, "RFRA: First Michiana business to publicly deny same-sex service." This was a bit disingenuous, to say the least. As Robbie Soave at Hit and Run put it,
That headline implies two things that are false. The O'Connors had no intention of becoming the first Michiana business to do anything discriminatory with respect to gay people; they had merely answered a hypothetical question about what would happen if a gay couple asked them to cater a wedding. And the O'Connors had every intention of providing regular service to gay people—just not their weddings.
No matter, the story went viral, provoking a furious (and threatening) response from the gay ingroup. Hundreds of reviews suddenly appeared on Yelp, with comments such as,
I you like your pizza with a side of bigoted hatred and ignorance this is the spot for you. If you're not a piece of trash I would stay away.
This is an excellent place to bring back that old time, nostalgia feeling. For those who want to experience what life was like under Jim Crow, this is the place for you!
Terrible place, owners chose to be heterosexual. The biggest bigots are the most closeted. No gay man or woman is going to order pizza for a wedding. These people should be put out of business. O yeah, I'm going to kill your Jesus. Try and stop me.
and, finally, the apocalyptic,
DO NOT EAT HERE – The owners are hateful bigots who twist the meaning of Christianity to satisfy their own insecurities by indoctrinating their children with hate, further poisoning our world and future generations.
…and no doubt our "precious bodily fluids" as well. These were topped off by death threats and calls for arson attacks, such as this tweet by high school coach Jess Dooley:
Who's going to Walkerton, IN t0 burn down #memoriespizza w me?
Of course, all this was treated as a mere bagatelle by the mainstream media. After all, the owners were nothing but a couple of hinds in flyover country, and Christians to boot. If victims can't be portrayed as leftist martyrs, what's the point of protecting them? Regardless of which "side" you choose, the story certainly demonstrates an important truth, and for the umpteenth time: God or no God, morality isn't going anywhere.
Whether you agree with the gay activists or not, it is abundantly clear that their responses are instances of moral behavior. Furthermore, they demonstrate the dual nature of human morality, characterized by radically different types of moral responses to others depending on whether they are perceived to belong to one's ingroup or outgroup. They also clearly demonstrate the human tendency to interpret moral emotions as representations of objective things, commonly referred to as Good and Evil, which are imagined to exist independently of the subjective minds that give rise to them. In the minds of the gays, the attitude of the Memories Pizza folks towards gay marriage isn't just an expression of one of many coequal cultural alternatives. It can't be dismissed as a mere difference of opinion. It doesn't reflect the interpretation of one of many possible moralities, all equally valid relative to each other. No, clearly, in the minds of the gays, the owners have violated THE moral law. Otherwise their response, as reflected in tweets, e-mails and threats, would be inexplicable.
What rational basis is there for this furious reaction? As far as I can tell, none. Certainly, the gays cannot rely on holy scripture to legitimize their outrage. In spite of whimsical attempts at Biblical exegesis by the gay community, both the Bible and the Quran are quite explicit and blunt in their condemnations of gay behavior. The compassionate and merciful God of the Quran even threatens those who ignore the prohibition with quintillions of years in hell experiencing what ISIS recently inflicted on a Jordanian pilot for a few seconds, and that just for starters. I find no other sanction, whether in religion or philosophy, for the conclusion that opposition to gay marriage is not only wrong, but is actually absolutely evil. In other words, the behavior of the gay activists is completely irrational. It is also completely normal.
The evolved behavioral traits that are the "root cause" of moral behavior exist because they happened to increase the odds that those who were "wired" for such traits would be more likely to survive and reproduce. Mother Nature saw to it that moral emotions would be powerful, experienced as reflections of absolutes, and perceived as the independently existing "things," Good and Evil. She didn't bother with anything other than the big picture, the gross effect. As a result she treated such ostensibly comical manifestations of morality as the raining down of pious anathemas on devout Christians, who tend to be relatively successful at reproduction, by gays, who normally don't reproduce at all, with a grain of salt, confident (and rightly so) that the vast majority of humans would be too stupid to perceive their own absurdity.
In a word, fears that the demise of religion implies the demise of morality are overblown. It will continue to exist in its manifold "different but similar" manifestations, regardless of whether it enjoys the sanction of religious scripture or the scribbling of philosophers. Morality is hardly infinitely malleable, but it can be shaped to some extent. It would probably behoove us to do so, making it quite clear in the process to what sorts of behavior it does and does not apply. The list should be kept as short and simple as possible, consonant with keeping the interactions of individuals as harmonious and productive as possible.
Back in the day, the religious types whose tastes ran to foisting Prohibition on an unwilling nation used to promote the idea of "one morality." It probably wasn't such a bad idea in itself, although I personally would likely have taken exception to the particular flavor they had in mind. I would favor a "one morality" that was free of religious influence, and that would apply in situations that the long experience of our species has taught us will arouse moral emotions in any case. Beyond that, it would apply to as limited an additional subset of behaviors as possible. Finally, this "one morality" would make it crystal clear that subjecting any other forms of behavior to moral judgment is itself immoral.
There could be no ultimate sanction or source of legitimacy for such a "one morality" than there could be for any other kind, by virtue of the very nature of morality itself. However, if it were properly formulated, it would be experienced as an absolute, just like all the rest, regardless of all the fashionable blather about moral relativism. There would, of course, always be those who question why they "ought" to do one thing, and "ought not" to do another. As a society, we would do well to see to it that the answer is just what Mother Nature "intended": You "ought" to do what is "right," because you will find the consequences of doing what is "right" a great deal more agreeable than doing what is "wrong."


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Model mom Alessandra Ambrosio stepped out with son Noah, 3, on Thursday (February 18).
While holding onto his toy motorcycle, the preschooler was all smiles alongside his famous mama in Santa Monica, Calif.
On Wednesday, we spotted the mother-son duo running errands in Brentwood.
The Brazlilian beauty – who is also mom to 7-year-old daughter Anja with fiancé Jamie Mazur – recently posted a cute clip of her kids on social media.
"Super Power kids jumpitup #kidsonfire," she captioned the video.

subset: commoncrawl


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Peacock Pizazz
It seems this year that we keep having more month than money. It probably has something to do with the work we've had done in the basement. Or the couch we bought for it. Or the subsequent trips to Ikea. Who can say?
And maybe it's the warm weather and good feelings that sunshine brings, or maybe it's the progress we've finally made downstairs, but I suddenly feel all motivated to keep working on our home. I generally love the gray paint on our walls, but the winter has left me seriously craving some colour, and that kind of sucks because we don't have the money right now for any sort of rainbow therapy. Nope, the only way I'll be able to get some colourful pieces in my home is to make them myself.
Pinterest has given me tons and tons of ideas. Karen from That Mom Blog does one Pinterest-inspired project a week – maybe I'll join her with some projects of my own. Or I could just wait til she posts and copy her ideas outright. Either way. 😉
Right now what I'd really like is a big picture above our upstairs couch. I'm thinking that our living room could use a good dose of peacock, because:
- peacocks are awesome, and
- their colours tie together a lot of the colours I already have, and
- peacocks are totally trendy so I can find a lot of awesome stuff right now. And then not buy it.
At this point I'm not sure if I should attempt a painting myself (that would be so fun) or try some other crafty awesomeness. Or maybe I should go back to Bronte Creek and snap a better picture of this bad boy we met on Monday:
Seriously, I look at that bird and I think, wow – isn't it amazing? He matches my couch just perfectly. It's as if God created that bird specifically to solve my decorating dilemmas (don't think I'm not grateful.) Now I just have to find a way to capture some of that pizazz for my wall. Any ideas or inspiration for me?


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Fifth meeting of the Global Vaccine Safety initiative (GVSI), hosted by the African Union Commission, 26-27 October, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
The 5th GVSI meeting gathered the largest number ever of immunisation programme managers, national regulators and pharmacovigilance staff from more 30 countries from all WHO regions. Together with representatives from academic and technical institutions, pharmaceutical companies' umbrella organizations, UN agencies and funding partner's participants reviewed recent successful approaches to monitor and manage adverse events following immunization.
EURO Sub-regional integrated training workshop on adverse events following immunization (AEFI) surveillance, causality assessment and communications - Montenegro
A 5 day training workshop on AEFI surveillance, causality assessment and communications was conducted in Montenegro from 21 to 25 November 2016 for 15 countries from Eastern Europe, involving experts from immunization programmes, drug regulatory authorities and clinicians. The workshop aimed to strengthen capacity on AEFI detection, investigation, causality assessment, response and effective communication.
Vaccine Safety Net meeting
The Vaccine Safety Net is a network of websites aiming at facilitating public health authorities, health care professionals and the public to reliable information on vaccine safety on the Internet. After more than a decade of remote collaboration, VSN members will meet in WHO headquarters in Geneva, on the 28 and 29 November 2016 to review the past decade of their VSN membership, share their views and experiences, express their expectations for the future of the network and plan next steps.
5th edition of the Vaccine Safety Net Newsletter released!
616 million is the number of visits accounted for a period of six months for a subset of 22 network's members: by collecting and analysing web analytics at the level of the Network, by understanding the behaviour and needs of websites users, VSN members could work together on defining data driven information and communication strategies for vaccine safety, thus addressing vaccine hesitancy.
A software to guide AEFI causality assessment
In 2013, WHO revised the methodology for causality assessment of individual Adverse Events Following Immunization (AEFI). The new method proposed by WHO was published in the WHO User manual for the revised WHO classification for causality assessment of AEFI. It uses a paper based tool that allows evaluators to review AEFI cases and guide them on their causality.
A companion electronic software application of the tool is now available for computers, IPads and tablets. The software provides step by step guidance in the assessment and reduces the chances of making errors. This tool will facilitate use of the revised methodology and help conducting research.
GVSI reference documents
- Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint - landscape analysis
- Global Vaccine Safety Blueprint
- The Decade of Vaccine - Global Vaccine Action Plan
Immunization and vaccines safety in WHO regions
Last update: 17 January 2017


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Metro Area Pheasants Forever
Welcome to the internet home of the Metro Area Pheasants Forever. A Local Pheasants Forever Chapter in Minnesota. Pheasants Forever (PF) is a non-profit conservation organization dedicated to the protection and enhancement of pheasant and other wildlife populations in North America. Read more about PF and our chapter.
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