Author Archives: Amy M Cools

Review: Modern Coffee in Downtown Oakland

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Just for fun, I’ve decided to start writing little reviews of coffeeshops and other venues I visit to work on my writing. This is the first in the series.

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coffee of the day & a brownie at Modern Coffee

Coffee Shop: Modern Coffee, downtown Oakland

What I had: mug of house coffee (the chalkboard identifies it as ‘Streetlevel’) and a brownie

Prices: totally reasonable

Decor: Sleek, modern, large windows

WiFi: Yes, and no time limit

Seating: Ample for the size of the shop

Would I come back: Yes!

A lovely, tall, blonde woman with a friendly (direct, not gushing) manner was at the counter, and it was a lovely start to my visit. The coffee is delicious, strong but not overly so, of the earthy, chocolately sort I like. (The trend in Bay Area coffee shops over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed, has been to serve coffee of the tart, even sour variety, which I detest, but which is popular with the aficionados, I hear.) The brownie is tasty, of the lighter cake-y sort, and tastes like a cross between a classic homemade chocolate cake and a brownie

Piece I’m working on: Anxiety-Depression: An Experiential Account

The Fetishization of Suffering

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In the art on the walls of my childhood home, the theme of suffering was pervasive: crosses with sculptures of hanging, tortured Christs, Marys with torn and bleeding hearts, saints in various imploring poses, as if pleading for relief from the awful plight of living in this world. Suffering also popped up regularly as key to understanding reality. Why do the good and the innocent suffer as well as the wicked? Well, the wicked suffer because they are being punished, of course, but the good and the innocent suffer because they are loved, because it provides a God-given opportunity to conquer it and become even better in the conquering. So to better our characters, us kids were required to endure some sort of self-inflicted suffering from time to time, however mild: to give up candy during Lent, or or to spend an uncomfortably long time on our knees reciting rosaries. This view of suffering was held by many cultures throughout history (remember the Spartans?), and became common in modern Western societies through Christian influence. Suffering, regarded as both the indicator of and the creator of goodness in the world, and eventually became something to be desired and admired for its own sake. It became fetishized. As I grew and began to puzzle over the matter, this glorification of suffering seemed more and more strange, especially as I observed that, while suffering appears to strengthen and nobilify some, many more people tend to be broken down by it, especially if it’s pervasive in their lives, and rendered more desperate, less empathetic, less hopeful, less dignified, more scarred. I began to wonder if, on the whole, it’s a mistake to fetishize suffering.

So why do so many people so often glorify such a seemingly nasty thing as suffering? Well, for one thing, a beloved philosophy professor of mine pointed out once, there’s a distinct difference between suffering of the constructive sort and suffering of the destructive sort. There should be separate terms for different sorts of suffering as there is in ancient Greek. If there was a separate discussion concerning each kind, many of my objections to the fetishization of suffering should be rendered moot. Examples of constructive sorts of suffering is the burning sensation felt in hard exercise and the healing of wounds, the squirming mental misery of trying to finish a paper or book on time and still do quality work, or the tearing pain of bittersweet grief at the loss of a dearly loved one. Destructive suffering, such as the despair of watching children suffer from illness or starvation, the maddening confusion of feeling one’s mental acuity and individuality eroded by Alzheimer’s disease, or the disgust of watching others ruin their own and other’s lives through crime, political machinations, or thoughtlessness, is not so self-evidently beneficial, to say the least. But I don’t remember  this distinction being made clear to me at any point. Any sort of suffering can be explained away as destructive or constructive as conceived in the mysterious, unknowable mind of the creator, for example. This treatment is especially convenient in attempts to resolve the infamous ‘problem of evil’. But for those not satisfied with the ‘mysterian’ explanation and really want to understand the matter, the problem remains: how does one justify the fetishization of suffering via a reliable method of distinguishing between its destructive and constructive forms? 
 
Perhaps the distinction between these forms of suffering exists but is just too hard for individuals to distinguish most of the time because the emotions get in the way. It’s hard to recognize suffering as constructive when you feel compassion for other sufferers, or you feel discouragement or weariness in the face of your own. Or, even more encouragingly for proponents of this view, one type of suffering can be transformed into the other based on the attitude of the sufferer. There is some truth to be found in this characterization of certain experiences of suffering. There does seem to be sorts of suffering that’s unavoidable and necessary given the current state of evolution (or of a fixed human nature, for those who don’t believe in evolution, *sigh*): the helpful warning that pain provides, or the fear of death, strangers, or inexplicable noises that aids in self preservation. But upon reflection, the category of suffering of the entirely beneficial sort is really not very large compared to suffering of the harmful sort or suffering that seems to be some mixture of the two. The pain of exercise and of mental exertion seems to deter far too many people from consistent rigorous physical and intellectual exercise (I’m certainly among these!); the pain of grief leads far too many to resort to such comforting tactics as justifying the injustices of the world with flimsy excuses or to believing in flimsy or patently false metaphysical claims, or to vengeance; and so on. When I consider various sorts of suffering, I’m hard put to find any that most of the time and for most people, the result of experience it is entirely beneficial in the long run.

Perhaps the difference between constructive and destructive suffering is a matter of degree and duration, then, rather than of kind. The kind of suffering experienced in sport or in military training and combat, for example, are experienced in limited blocks of time and have a foreseeable end, allowing hope and the expectation of a better time to come mitigate the potential bad effects of suffering and strengthen the good effects. But this answer isn’t entirely satisfactory either. While it can seem true in some circumstances, it’s not for many others. People can become obsessed with and addicted to suffering, for one thing, as in the case of  over-zealous religious who become sado-masochistically addicted to corporal punishment (sadistic ruler-wielding teaching nuns of yore, anyone?) Or, suffering can burrow deep into a person’s psyche and undermine their entire personality, as in the case of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by veterans and victims of  sustained bullying. It appears, then, it’s not the degree or duration of the suffering that makes it constructive or destructive: rather, it’s more feasible that the constructiveness or destructiveness is a feature of the effects on the sufferer, not of the suffering itself.
 
I think one of the most important reasons that more kinds of suffering is destructive than not it that it tends to  draw people into themselves and away from others. For example, I’ve noticed this in some athletes: as the pain of exertion accompanies the achievement of higher levels of physical fitness, the pain becomes an addiction, an obsession, and the greater the to suffering, the greater the tendency to self-absorption. This may be an explanation for the behavior of athletes who self-destruct with steroids. I’ve also noticed this, as aforementioned, in some whose religious beliefs hold say that suffering is necessary for redemption, and so attempts to avoid it, for oneself or for others, is fruitless or even evil. Martyrdom is, then, a virtuous state of mind and even the ultimate goal. Yet, I think this tendency to lose oneself in these forms of self-absorption, of attitudes of martyrdom and addiction to suffering, can be antithetical to human flourishing, because human beings are intensely social creatures. Now, it’s true that human beings also have an individualistic side. So some level of self-absorption, some level of obsessive and addictive behavior, is not necessarily negative to the human personality taken as a whole, and when balanced against other personalty traits, can be part of an interesting and dynamic personality. They can even be more sensitive and empathetic. This goes for many creative people, political people, and other idealists. (As a working artist and daydreamer myself, and an enthusiastic fan of the arts, I’m intimately familiar with self-absorption: a certain level of it is necessary for the visions to arise, the ideas to take shape, and the drive to realize them.) It’s also a defining characteristic of “drama queens”, who can be exciting people at some level. But, there’s a real danger that this addiction to suffering, when it starts to dominate, can undermine the social instincts and emotions of a healthy personality. Consider highly neurotic people, for example, whose internal suffering can become so all-absorbing that, after a while, they reach a point where they can’t see much else in the world besides it. Also, consider the aforementioned ‘drama queens’ who sometimes become so addicted to conflict and the suffering that accompanies, it that they end up needing to create conflict and ‘drama’ where none exists. In a very real sense, very neurotic people and other suffering addicts can separate themselves from society, since they eventually find it difficult to identify closely with others, and in fact, end up imposing their need for suffering on others.

So it seems to me that, in the end, the healthiest attitude to have toward suffering is that it’s an evil to be mitigated and avoided if possible, and if neither is possible, it’s the ability to endure it and triumph over it that’s desirable, not the suffering itself. It’s true that suffering accompanies and is even an integral element to many worthy endeavors, such as athletic training, and humanitarian efforts that involve placing oneself in the same horrific surroundings as the sufferers. But it’s best seen as a tool and a means to an end, not an end in itself. It’s just too easy to allow the high that sometimes accompanies it to become an addiction that can lead from obsession and self-absorption to alienation from others, and, far worse, to a complacent attitude towards the suffering other people. Human beings are most generous, most expansive, most supportive, when free from suffering because they are happy, they are unburdened with personal cares and so are able to look outside of themselves and possess the energy to give of themselves to others. By contrast, people who have a more sacrificial, suffering-infused world outlook don’t, in the end, do so well when it comes to helping others, even if the feeling of sacrificing oneself makes it seem more difficult and therefore more virtuous than helping out of an easy-going feeling of well-being. (Daniel Gilbert’s work provides an excellent explanation of the current research on emotion and how it effects human behavior). The habit of viewing suffering as an evil and not a good does far more, overall, to help human beings flourish as the social creatures we are, In the end, I do think it’s a mistake to fetishize suffering.

The New Pope Says Something Nice About Atheists! Is This Really A Big Deal?

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I’ve seen a lot of news stories, opinion pieces, critiques, and other buzz regarding the new pope’s comments about atheists and other non-Catholics, to this effect: that all can do good, and that doing good is what should bring us all together. Sounds nice, right?

While there are many prominent atheists, secular humanists, and others who are gladdened by the pope’s remarks, many others are skeptical or dismissive, as exemplified by participants in a recent online discussion I took part in. They point out that the Pope’s historical positions on many important issues is aligned with the officially systematized bigotry of the church he leads: opposition to gay marriage, women banned from the priesthood, and so on. With this, I agree. They also think it’s a mistake to ‘hope for acceptance’ from the Catholic Church, or that atheists are ‘eagerly’ ‘falling for’ a positive interpretation of the pope’s actual stance on atheism. This is the part of the discussion where I think it veered off into treating some hypotheticals about what the glad atheists are thinking as fact. I think the skeptical reactions may be based on misunderstanding the reasons behind the positive reaction.

My point in the discussion, and my understanding of why there was such a glad reaction to the pope’s comments, was this: the pope’s current tendency to use more peaceful and ecumenical rhetoric is more likely to inspire better behavior in his followers, who generally look to him for an example to follow, not Vatican officials who issue a legalistic statement later. So, even if it’s true that the pope is still a bigot and his church is still an organization that promotes hateful and untrue doctrines, it’s still the case that if the words that come from his mouth are of a more peaceful and ecumenical tone, those who look primarily to him as their role model are more likely to adjust their own attitudes accordingly. That’s one point. There is nothing in this having anything to do with caring whether the pope or any other church members personally approve of atheists, or whether official church doctrine has changed regarding the afterlife and how it pertains to atheists, or any of the other red herrings such as charges of ‘hoping for acceptance’ that came up in the discussion. The positive response of many atheists, especially prominent ones, focus on whether or not the pope’s words signal a positive shift in attitude, and whether his words will provide a good example to his followers.

But another point I didn’t make, which upon reflection I think is more important, is this: the single most influential moral leader in the world just publicly classified atheists (and others) in the same moral category as Christians and Catholics. Christians do good. Atheists do good too. So both are good! Big deal, an atheist, a cosmopolitan, indeed, any reasonably informed or empathetic person might say. That’s as obvious as saying: atheists think and have emotions and are competent language users, therefore, they must be human too! I mean, c’mon! Duh!

But remember: atheists have been distrusted and marginalized for so long, since most Christian religions claim that belief in Christ’s divinity is necessary for deliverance from evil, that the idea that atheists can be good people is a novel one for countless religious people all over the world. Yet these are same people who adjust their beliefs to align with the pope’s, and his words constituted a sort of permission to consider atheists and non-Christians good people too. In my own family there are still those who use the word ‘atheist’ as an epithet for one who’s wicked, stupid, or depraved! The previous pope’s hyper-conservative, dogmatic, and divisive rhetoric did nothing to help matters. This pope’s remarks, by contrast and for the first time at this level of authority and clarity that I’m aware of, places atheists in the same moral category as religious people: those who do good. It humanizes atheists for those who simply don’t understand atheists, who think atheists are evil and have rejected the good since they don’t believe in any gods. And this is important because of what we know about human psychology: people are kinder to others when they identify with them, when they think they’re on the ‘same team’, when they’re humanized and no longer ‘the other’. 

I think that the Pope, with these few remarks, just helped a whole lot of people all over the world to really believe that when it comes to doing good, most human beings believe in the same and most important thing. Thomas Paine described it best: ‘The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.’ (The Age of Reason, 1794) Whether the Pope himself really shares the conviction that atheists are worthy people, I think his remarks will lead a whole lot of other people to believe so.

Draft – Gun Control Debate in America: Some Double Standards From the Right and From the Left

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In the heated debate over gun control, with extremist rhetoric proliferating from those on the liberal left and those on the conservative right, I’m finding that many from each of these two sides hold inconsistent views. (The libertarian arguments on this matter are more consistent, but aside from their devotion to liberty, incorporate some of the worst ideas from both sides, in my view.) To paraphrase the main points of each sides’ position:

From the right: A society is engaged in an moral endeavor when it governs itself, and as the arbiter of social rights and responsibilities, social institutions such as the government, the family, and the native religion(s), are an inherently moral institutions. Morality involves the shared code of behavior that every individual is required to follow. The distinction between ‘morals legislation’ and other laws is, therefore, meaningless, since morality is involved in everything we do. As a member of society, just as in a family, each individual has certain rights and responsibilities. Therefore, it is right and just that the laws enforce and support our moral code, and prohibit those actions which would threaten the survival of our social institutions, be it the family or the state. At the same time, each individual has a personal dignity and inherent worth which must also be protected from harm and from the encroachments of others. For example, it’s right that that law punishes rapists, murderers, child abusers, and thieves, since it is the proper role of law to discourage individuals from transgressing the moral order which is essential for familial and societal cohesiveness. The law also should punish these transgressors since they trample on individual liberties, such as rights to life, personal property, and freedom of speech and belief. Since human beings are fallible and prone to error, our social institutions

But it’s not enough that the law should just prohibit us from doing certain things. Besides imposing punishments on immoral behavior, the law should enforce certain duties, certain moral obligations, we should fulfill in order to deserve and enjoy the benefits of living in a society. For example, the law should require everyone to contribute to the overall welfare by paying taxes, to pay for such essential public goods such as  infrastructure, defense, and some additional degree of support and protection of the most vulnerable members of society, such as children, the disabled, the elderly, and the very poor. It also includes such reasonable obligations as registering ownership of our motor vehicles, obeying traffic laws, and purchasing auto insurance. These legal obligations should not only enforce the moral duty of citizens to fairly contribute to society, they should also enforce some degree of taking responsibility for some of the costs and and hazards we may potentially impose on others in the course of enjoying out personal liberties. For example, driving a motor vehicle is widely considered a personal choice, but it can easily result in harm to others if not enjoyed wisely. Without such legal requirements listed above, for example, a careless or drunk driver could run down and kill or maim innocent bystanders without fear of suffering any consequences. A road full of vehicles driven without traffic laws would result in severe traffic jams, severely impeding each individual’s liberty to travel, let alone the innumerable deadly crashes that would result.

A certain amount of prudent regulation, therefore, is actually necessary for protecting liberties. After all, when an individual exercises their liberty to fire a gun, they can potentially nullify every single liberty of another with a single shot. When the American Constitution says ‘Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…’ this does not mean that each and every action which could be categorized as speech cannot be limited or regulated if the speech of one can substantially infringe on the liberties of others. For example, Bradley Manning’s right to free speech and Julian Assange’s freedom of the press should be curtailed if their speech substantially threatens the security of other Americans. Therefore, regardless of the literal wording of the First Amendment, there can and should be laws abridging the freedoms of speech and of the press. We recognize that at least some of the Founding Fathers recognized this. For example, President John Adams championed the Alien and Sedition Acts which made it a crime to criticize the government, just a few years after he participated in the formulation of the Constitution.

From the left: Society and its governing institutions are constrained by morality, as is true for the conservative view; the government should never engage in immoral actions, such as infringing on essential liberties of citizens, engage in exploitative and unjust warfare, or be complicit in oppression anywhere in the world. Individuals also have public responsibilities, just as in the conservative view, such as paying taxes and obeying wise regulation. However, it is not the role of government to decide on intimate matters of personal liberty and expression of personality, since such governments have historically oppressed and even killed entire populations of people, such as religious and ethnic minorities, women, and political and other dissenters. Rather, it’s the role of government to protect the life, health, and liberty of individuals from the encroachment of others, such as powerful exploitative monetary interests or religious or ideological orthodoxy. Therefore, government should regulate commerce, since shortsighted financial interests of some can and often do harm the public as a whole, such as environmental polluters and makers of dangerous auto vehicles. But, the government should not not engage in ‘morals legislation’, since this infringes on the rights of individuals to control their own bodies and minds.

Where the right is inconsistent: So American conservatives, like other conservatives throughout the world, agree with the basic principles of political thinker Edmund Burke, who held that a society is a natural, organic institution (rather than a rationally constructed artificial entity), whose traditions must be respected and whose citizens are properly bound by moral duties and prohibitions. Yet, somehow, so many American conservatives argue as if all of these principles evaporate in the matter of gun control. In other parts of the world, the arguments for gun control often come from conservatives, who take the view that morality is the business of society, and people should not have the right to just run around doing whatever they want when and if it’s clear that what they want to do results in a moral wrong. For example, Australia adopted stricter gun control laws following the horrific massacre at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in the mid-nineties, and the arguments in favor of these new restrictions were traditionally conservative ones: the individual has moral responsibilities to society as well as morally determined limits to their behavior. Freedom does not mean people can just do whatever they want and have whatever they want: a responsible, moral member of society expects that some smaller liberties can and should be limited if such limitations lead to an overall more morally sound, liberty-enhancing society. The evidence shows that when weapons proliferate among a population, more people tend to die violent deaths, while populations that are less heavily armed tend to have low homicide rates. For example, consider the low homicide rates in Japan or Great Britain, where private gun ownership rates are also low, compared with the high gun ownership and violent death rates in the United States. Consider also the high death toll of mass attacks in the US, where mentally unhinged people easily possessed themselves of guns capable of killing many people within seconds, compared with mass attacks in China where it’s very difficult to obtain a gun, so the total of deaths and injuries inflicted with far less lethal weapons is a fraction of the US totals. Even if individual gun owners are responsible, the argument goes, it is their moral obligation to give up the particular liberty of owning certain weapons since the proliferation of such weapons undermines the security and stability of society as a whole. Many American conservatives say that individuals owning such weapons should actually make society safer, but this theory is simply not borne out by the evidence. In a morally good society, the right to one’s life is considered prior to and more precious than the right to own property, so the prevention of the moral evil of homicide takes precedence over personal desires to possess powerful weapons.

The American conservative stance against gun control but in favor of proscriptions against birth control and abortion, therefore, is incomprehensible to liberals, who rightly point out that if the right to life and the primacy of the procreative role of sex are greater than all other considerations, then the ‘pro-life’ movement should be at the forefront of the gun control effort, as it is for conservatives in other countries. Yet, the rhetoric of the conservative gun rights movement in the United States centers on a particular reading of the text of the 2nd amendment to the U.S. Constitution and an emphasis on property rights; the pro-life arguments are out the window for conservatives on this one. Therefore, American liberals consider the conservative gun rights position at best inconsistent, and at worst, hypocritical.

Where the left is inconsistent: The liberal left in America, however, does not consider it the primary role of a society and its governing institutions to promote and enforce personal morality. Rather, society’s role towards in the life of individuals is to protect them from harm from one another, and to ensure that each individual enjoys the same opportunities as any other to accomplish their goals and live a satisfying and meaningful life. Yet, arguments against so-called ‘morals legislation’ and arguments in favor of laws that prevent harm and promote equality are all based on moral considerations: that harm is worse than non-harm, that individual liberty is better than oppression, that human rights are sacred and that trespassing on them is wrong. There is no societal rule or proscription that is not derived from one moral precept or another: a human society is an inherently moral endeavor. When American liberals argue for laws that limit gun control but against laws that regulate other activities, such as abortion or sexual behavior, on the grounds that the government’s only task is to prevent harm, the arguments are often so inconsistent on that it’s no wonder that conservatives, in turn, consider liberal arguments to be inconsistent and hypocritical.

Where does the confusion originate? While American conservative arguments are generally based on a foundationalist moral system, which holds that all of morality is derived from a single founding principle (for example, Aristotle’s function-based system, or the divine command theory espoused by evangelicals), American liberal arguments seem to hold that, while the law is based on the foundationalist ethic of utilitarianism, personal behavior is governed by a pluralist moral system, which can differ from society to society. The various and often conflicting values we hold, such as liberty, compassion, beneficence, and so forth, must be weighed and balanced against one another in each matter under consideration. The law and issues of personal morality, then, should be determined separately, because utilitarian considerations are more readily determined and amenable to democratic consensus and evidence than value considerations. For example, it’s easier to find and present evidence regarding rates of gun ownership and crime statistics, and argue that high homicide and suicide rates    by gun reveal that the current system in the United States results in more harm than systems in other countries, or vice versa, than to demonstrate clearly that the value of liberty is more important than the value of safety, or vice versa.

I agree overall with the liberal position that the law should be utilitarian, and that moral pluralism seems to be a fact of human nature: I think that there is more evidence that morality is in fact based on a pluralism of values, and that a utilitarian ethic has done more to inform laws that promote human flourishing than laws based on other moral systems. Yet, American liberals so often argue as if their positions are only about harm and fairness, as Jonathan Haidt points out, when really there is and should be a more rich moral system that informs them (I think that Haidt has too simplistic a view of liberal morality, though I agree with his assessment of most mainstream liberal arguments, taken at face value). It seems to me that the choice of utilitarianism as the dominant theory in law formulation is a moral choice, based on the higher valuation of liberty over obedience, individual freedom from harm over social convenience or enrichment, knowledge over ‘blissful ignorance’ (soon to come: my critique of ‘innocence’ as a prized value), etc. The distinction between the harm/fairness basis of legal utilitarianism and the pluralistic basis of personal morality is, then, an artificial one, and American liberals would be well served to take the moral high ground, proudly trumpeting their commitment to moral excellence and responsibility rather than trying to hide it under the relatively dry and uninspiring rhetoric of mere consent and fairness.

 

Libertarianism and Me

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You may perceive in my recent essays and remarks a tendency to argue against libertarian positions. If you’ve known me very long, this may surprise you, since I’ve long taken libertarian arguments very seriously. I’m sympathetic to the libertarian instinct because I share many aspects of it in my personality: I’m very independent, have always liked to go my own way and do my own thing. (To a fault: if something’s popular, if everyone who’s hip is wearing it, listening to it, eating it, etc, I have a strong instinct to immediately run off and do the opposite, since cliques, to me, since childhood, have represented oppressive communities that, in their own way, demand deference to their codes, behaviors, and aesthetics just as thoroughly as the dogmatic and hierarchical religious community I was brought up in. My libertarian instincts are so strong, in fact, they tend run amok, and I have to chase them down to rein them in constantly! Pesky things!)

Yet, as I’ve studied and closely examined my positions and beliefs, I’ve found that many of those arguments I took seriously and even espoused, such as the position that morality is a personal matter and not a societal or governmental one, or that individual considerations are separate from and always take precedence over the desires and needs of the many, are flawed or entirely incorrect. My recent tendency to argue against libertarianism, then, is not based on a desire to pick on this philosophical and political viewpoint, or that I think it’s worse than all others. Rather, I’m sharing with you aspects of my own journey, and where I am so far when it comes to my endeavor of seriously considering each philosophical school and each argument, on its own merits, before I accept it, discard it, or keep in in mind for future consideration if I don’t have enough information on hand to make a sound judgement.

So there you go. I’m very fond of you libertarians in many ways, and agree with you more in instinct and sympathy than I do in logic. It’s a mark of my affection and respect that I wrangle, so often, with your arguments.

IRS Targets Conservative Groups

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This story is deeply disturbing to me. 

When any concerned citizens, be it individuals or groups, from Communists to Tea Party subscribers, are harassed or silenced, the people are cheated out of hearing arguments that enrich their understanding of the world and of what moves people to think and act as they do. 


A most invaluable lesson instilled in me, informally through listening to political and philosophical discussions around the dinner table, and more formally in my education in philosophy, is how invaluable it is to always learn the arguments presented in a positive and sympathetic manner, no matter how alien to your own, so that you come away understanding the actual arguments, not some amalgam or distortion infused with your own prejudices. In this way, the position you reach on the matter is likely to be informed, and honest.

Review: The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, by Susan Jacoby

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Just read Susan Jacoby’s biography of Robert Ingersoll: America’s eloquent and passionate mid-19th century orator who was a popularizer of science, an early champion of full equal rights for women, an abolitionist, a booster of Thomas Paine, a critic of anti-immigrant policies and religion… a man who was obsessed with justice, a believer in the intrinsic goodness of human nature, and promoter of universal human rights. It’s relatively brief, but if you’d like a quality introduction to one of America’s greatest, I highly recommend this book!

What’s especially impressive about Ingersoll was that his views on immigration, women’s and immigrant’s rights, and religious liberty (both from and of) were nearly wholly untarnished by the prejudices of his time, unlike many of his contemporaries. For example, even the great Elizabeth Cady Stanton used racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric in her advocacy for women’s rights, and Herbert Spencer used his interpretation of Darwinism to promote eugenicist policies. In contrast, Ingersoll’s commitment to justice ran so deep that he rejected such bigoted ideas, instead promoting Darwin’s own view that human beings, in a state of civilization, thrive precisely because we are cooperative, altruistic, and empathetic, and that the theory of evolution reveals that the human race is one big family.

Jacoby, Susan. The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought. New Naven: Yale University Press, 2013.

What Does ‘Lapsed’ Mean Anyway When Referring to an Ex-Religionist?

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I’ve long thought it strange to be referred to as a ‘lapsed Catholic’. I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic religion, which I rejected in my early adulthood. 

‘Lapsed’, in pretty much every other common usage of the term, refers to a kind of just letting something go or expire, such as letting an insurance policy or subscription ‘lapse’ by forgetting to pay on time, or it could refer to simply losing interest. Many who still subscribe to the religion of their parents, either because they still actually believe in it or because they just let their membership continue (as it never occurred to them to examine their beliefs, its own brand of carelessness), are simply unaware that many who no longer believe made an active decision to reject religion, for the best of reasons. 

For myself as for so many others, rejecting the religion of my youth was a long, thoughtful, difficult, yet ultimately emancipatory and joyful process. Those who refer to me and others like me as ‘lapsed’ because they intend to imply carelessness, laziness, or lacking the strength of character necessary for satisfying religious demands, are doing us an injustice. Such dismissiveness may be simple thoughtlessness, but more often, it’s indicative of a desire to cast aspersions on deconversion (unless, of course, we’re talking about deconversion from a rival religion!). Yet, remaining within the comforting cocoon of the belief system of one’s youth, with its automatic community membership and societal approval, actually seems to me to be the easy way to go. Critiquing and then rejecting one’s beliefs out of principle is much harder, and especially so for those leaving a religion that’s enforced by threats, such as hellfire or isolation from the community. For so many of us, rejecting religion is not at all a passive thing: it’s matter of acting on logical and moral convictions and of commitment to personal integrity.

A core assumption behind religious commitment is that faith is necessary for becoming a truly good human being. Many believe that life is a test and faith is necessary for passing it, for proving one’s worthiness of redemption. Knowledge, or fact-based belief, is not enough, because faith, believing without proof, is much more difficult. The faithful, therefore, prove themselves most worthy of eternal reward. 

I know I’m not alone in thinking that this is a strange assumption. As I mentioned earlier, it seems to me that holding onto unquestioned beliefs is the easy way to go. It’s what we do when we just want to to go with the flow, to avoid conflict with friends and family, to feel that easy assurance that we’re doing all that’s really required of us. On the other hand, requiring ourselves to carefully consider and weigh the evidence before accepting a truth claim, and to examine a theory’s tendency to generate accurate predictions before we consider it worthy of belief, requires an intellectual rigor that’s difficult and often very inconvenient. Of course, I’m not claiming that the process of questioning one’s beliefs is exclusive to the non-religious; many religious people subject their beliefs to the process of rigorous examination and find they remain convinced of the truth of their beliefs. What I am saying is that the assumptions behind referring to the no-longer-religious as ‘lapsed’ are fallacious and unjust.

Another common assumption behind the supposed superiority of faith is that it’s a mark of humility, traditionally a high religious virtue. Putting aside for the moment the assumption that it’s always a good thing, I’m not at all convinced that humility has any direct link to faith. In fact, saying ‘I don’t know’ when the evidence is unavailable, ‘proportion[ing] belief according to the evidence’ as Hume says of the wise man, is much more humble, much more honest, it seems to me, than the cannot-be-questioned assertions of faith. Epistemic humility, holding oneself accountable to the evidence, is much more appropriate. given how tenuous knowledge claims really are. In a world where our beliefs are constantly challenged and what we think we know is disproved by better arguments and new scientific discoveries, the assertions of faith appear more like a form of arrogance than anything else.

So, while I know that many religious people do honestly examine their beliefs and remain confident they believe what’s true, none have the right to assume that those who no longer hold religious beliefs have carelessly ‘lapsed’. Most of us, you can be assured, have not.

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Revised Aug 8th 2015, original version was posted 24th April 2013

Slang and Grice’s Cooperative Principle

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In “Logic and Conversation”, H. P. Grice outlines the unspoken but fixed rules of conversation that not only explain the workings of ordinary language, but account for implicature.

In a paper written only three years later in 1978, “Is Slang a Word for Linguists?”, Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter develop a set of criterion for distinguishing slang from other language, through analysis of historical definitions and attitudes and description of its characteristics. In the contemporary F**k, A Documentary, Steve Anderson presents a more informal exposition of a particularly controversial yet ubiquitous slang word, interviewing a host of linguists, politicians, social critics, and entertainers on issues surrounding the use, abuse, and censorship of the term. These interviewees contribute a variety of insights into the nature of slang and its influence on language generally as well as on social thought and attitudes. In this paper, I explain how Grice’s rules of conversation, besides accounting for implicature, also provide an excellent explanation of the mechanism by which slang originates, develops, and conveys meaning.

Question: if sentences and terms refer to things in the world and/or express thoughts, how is it that so many utterances actually convey meaning without using apparently appropriate or specific terminology?

In his paper, Grice considers this phenomenon of pragmatics, or language behavior. He explains that implicature, the ability of a statement to convey meaning without including literal or explicit terms, is possible because acts of language are governed by rules and maxims. The Cooperative Principle (1) contains four rules: quantity, quality, relation, and manner. Each rule, in turn, contains one or more maxims, or principles of linguistic etiquette. Grice proceeds to explain how exploiting these rules and maxims enables a speaker to implicate what they want to say without expressing it literally. Implication serves countless linguistic functions: irony, the discreet sharing of gossip, insult, raising doubts, avoiding or expressing rudeness, social and political critique, proclaiming membership in a social group, artistic expression, etc. Implication is so integral to conversation, so effective for conveying meaning while tailoring the needs of expression to the context of a given situation, that Grice argues that a philosophic theory of language is incomplete without an explanation of it.(2)

Dumas and Lighter are concerned with formalizing a set of criteria for determining what constitutes slang. Prior to their paper, ‘slang’ was a variously defined, often maligned, and poorly understood category of language.(3) The paper opens with a series of descriptions and characterizations of slang over time by linguists, academics, and authors, many of whom dismiss slang as, at best, an unfortunate habit engaged in by the uneducated, lazy, and the thoughtless, or at worst, a corrosive force on language and morals. A few of these figures, however, are much more impartial in their assessment, characterizing slang as a side product of social change or simply a sort of code; a few (Walt Whitman, for example) even approve of its use. Dumas and Lighter demonstrate an attitude of professional detachment in their exploration of slang, considering their paper a much-needed contribution to this academically neglected subject; they recognize, contrary to the dismissive commentary of their peers, that slang is an important area of pragmatics. Like Grice, they narrow their criteria of what constitutes slang language to four: it lowers the dignity of formal/serious speech or writing; it implies a special familiarity between speaker and hearer or speaker and referent; it’s taboo in higher-status social circles; and it’s a euphemism to protect the user from social discomfort or the necessity of elaboration.(4)

Anderson’s documentary, unlike the scholarly works summarized above, is an informal and irreverent romp aimed at a mainstream audience, yet it provides informative insights into the usage and functions of slang.(5) It’s an exploration into a specific slang term, ‘fuck’, widely considered offensive and confrontational by society generally. Yet, it’s a subtle term as well, capable of conveying very complex meanings in various shades, and often considered especially useful for ‘expressing the inexpressible’. (Comedian Billy Connolly provides a particularly charming example of this: “…’fuck off!’…is international; I don’t care where you are…if someone’s fucking with your bags…in Tibet…and you say…’fuck off!’ …he knows exactly what you mean…and off he will fuck!”) Some of the interviewees in this documentary enjoy using this word, some consider it obscene and find hearing or using it offensive, and some are uncomfortable with it, but consider right to free speech so democratically essential that they oppose any sort of coercive censorship of its use. Many of the interviewees (even some of those who disapprove of it generally) acknowledge that ‘fuck’ and other slang/obscene terms have historical significance for challenging and testing social norms and institutions, and many entertainers, authors, academics, and reporters consider this category of language as an important element in artistic and political expression. The academics interviewed in the film, such as Geoffrey Nunberg and Reinhold Aman (the latter humorously billed as ‘a cunning linguist’) discuss why ‘fuck’ is an interesting word strictly linguistically as well, including for its venerable pedigree and for its variety of forms.

Dumas and Lighter’s quote from James Sledd: “the most crucial feature of slang: it is used deliberately, in jest or in earnest, to flout a conventional social or semantic norm”(6) neatly dovetails Grice’s characterization of the way implicature likewise works, by flouting or exploiting conventions of use. Between the the two, Dumas and Lighter’s paper and Anderson’s documentary contain at least one specific discussion or pragmatic example for each rule and maxim of Grice’s Cooperative Principle; and I’ll present and explore these examples following Grice’s arrangement.

The first Cooperative Principle is Quantity, containing two maxims; the first is “Make your contribution as informative as required”. ‘Fuck’, ‘dude’, and other slang terms can abbreviate a large amount of information (7) (as demonstrated previously by Billy Connolly), especially between the speaker and an ‘insider’ audience, a subgroup who uses terms familiar to the speaker. So, using any of these terms exploits this maxim by violating it when speaking within the wider community, since using this term either conveys no information, or is ambiguous meaning in meaning, in this context. However, the maxim is not violated if such a term is used within the subgroup. The mirror maxim, “Do not make your contribution more informative than is required”, is exploited in one way by the element of connotation essential for slang, another method of using a term or expression to informally convey an additional amount of information not gleanable from the general term or expression itself. (8) For example, this information can include contextual information about the speaker, approval or disapproval of the content of the discourse, or compliments or insults directed at the audience.

Quality, the second Cooperative Principle, also contains two maxims. “Do not say what you believe to be false” is exploited when a speaker intentionally breaks with conversational convention by using a term that would not be true or accurate if understood according to its usual definition. (9) The following sentence is an example Dumas and Lighter provide, a slang term inserted into an otherwise conventional sentence, as an instance of flouting this maxim.”The Federal government spends nearly one hundred billion bucks annually for defense.” (10) Traditionally, ‘bucks’, as the term for male deer, would understood according to that definition, and the above sentence would be false. However, ‘bucks’ as a slang term for ‘dollars’, is accurately used within this sentence, but the truth of the statement is only preserved for others familiar with the slang usage, or for those who accept the propriety of its usage. In this case, the choice of the slang usage of ‘bucks’ in place of ‘dollars’ could convey the additional meaning of disrespect for the Federal government, or of identification with the same social group as the audience, and so on. In this way, an apparent falsity actually functions as an more efficient method of conveying the additional meaning with a simple switch of terms. “Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence” is a more idealistic maxim, though I grant that most people expect the speaker to have some justification their statement, be it independently verifiable evidence or at least an accurate, relevant anecdote. However, in ordinary conversation, it’s sometimes important for a speaker to extricate themselves from a difficulty caused by the conversation itself. Perhaps the speaker is in a position to be embarrassed by their own lack of knowledge of the subject discussed. Or, perhaps the speaker is impatient with the conversation, out of lack of interest or in a state of offense at the subject matter, or has a personal dislike of the other participant(s) in the conversation. Whatever the reason, using slang, or more specifically obscenity, can “…protect the user from the discomfort or annoyance of further elaboration.” (11)

Relation is the sole Cooperative Principle with only one maxim: “Be relevant.” Walt Whitman, quoted by Dumas and Lighter, shares the slang speaker’s disdain for strict adherence to this maxim: “Slang, or indirection, [is] an attempt of common humanity to escape from bald literalism, and express itself illimitably….”(12) Whitman here extols the potency of slang terms, in much the same way as entertainers, artists, and free speech advocates such as Billy Connolly, Lenny Bruce, Shakespeare, and Sam Donaldson do, (13) for conveying force and shades of meaning the speaker finds unconveyable in conventional terms. These slang/obscene terms import some of this meaning precisely from the novelty, unexpectedness, or seeming irrelevance of the terms. While singer Pat Boone, for example, may advocate (sometimes humorously) elegant expressions using traditional, even terms for the more intimate functions of the human body as creative ways to express wrath, insult, or depths of passion (14), this general manner of speaking simply doesn’t convey other shades of meanings, such as disapprobation of a political body or philosophy, or declaration of membership in a subgroup, or disgust with corruption, or humorous social commentary, and so forth, that’s essential to political or artistic discourse or is more relevant to the context in which slang is used.

Grice’s final Cooperative Principle, Manner, contains four maxims. Sam Donaldson, veteran anchorman of ABC news, enjoys the term ‘fuck’ as an all-purpose word unlike most others, for its versatility as a substitute for an amazingly large number of other terms while retaining its own particular shade of meaning. (15) Yet ‘fuck’ clearly violates, on its face, the first maxim “Avoid obscurity of expression”, as it seems to rarely denote its original and specific referent, but instead any one of a numerous other things (often within in a noun phrase): as a substitute for actions such as ‘destroy’, ‘harm’, or ‘undermine’, descriptions such as ‘drunk’, ‘wrong’, or ‘in trouble’, or exclamations such as ‘that’s wonderful!’, ‘that’s awful!’, or ‘that’s amazing!’ It appears to be an obscure expression until the context is considered, making it an excellent one for interpersonal and other specific conversational usage but inexcusably ambiguous (according to the maxim) for formal discourse. With ‘fuck’, as with all slang, novelty is important (16), as is the speaker’s intention (17). What the speaker wishes to express is often something they find ordinary words insufficient for: conveying such additional meanings as mentioned earlier: biographical details, general attitudes about life or mood of the moment, or status in society or with a particular subgroup, to give a few examples. (18)

“Avoid ambiguity” is closely related to the obscurity maxim. Again, ‘fuck’ provides an excellent example of slang interpreted through Grice’s Cooperative Principle. As funnyman Billy Connolly explains, it has a guttural sound which aids its expressiveness; a “primal word” (19) that, while to Connolly is unambiguous in its general meaning, is ambiguous in reference to literal translatability: the hearer can understand the word to mean a whole variety of things, depending on the circumstances. Slang is also often used as a euphemism to allay the discomfort of the speaker in a given situation, for example, saying “I love you” can seem too formal, or serious, or connote a level of commitment to the hearer that the speaker is not prepared to make. Instead, a slang phrase such as “you’re cool” or “I dig you” conveys the meaning of some level of affection of the speaker for the hearer, but in a strategically ambiguous way.20 The speaker can later claim that the statement expressed merely friendly feelings or passionate emotion, whichever best suits the speaker at the time.
Some slang actually exploits the third maxim “Be brief” (or, “Avoid unnecessary prolixity”) by obeying it to a fault. ‘Fuck’, ‘dude’, and other slang words are often used to abbreviate longer sentences, as briefly discussed two paragraphs earlier in the “Obscurity”section. Many pop-culture favorites such as commercials, video skits, and comedy films such as “Baseketball” feature characters who conduct entire conversations mostly or even entirely composed of repetitions of a single slang term, variously inflected, to express entire statements of approbation, anger, surprise, inquiry, or command (a web browser search for videos, using the single keyword ‘dude’, will quickly provide multiple examples of this). Yet, this brevity of speech is only successful in conveying the desired meanings when the speaker and hearer belong to the same social group that uses the slang term this way. (21) The general community that conducts conversations according to the Cooperative Principle will not understand such usage. The fourth and final maxim, “Be orderly, is exploited by slang terms (rather obliquely) in their function of punctuating sentences with unconventional words so as to make them more informal, less “dignified”. (22) A more direct example of this, once again, is a particular way the word ‘fuck’ is used: this time, by inserting it in the middle of another word or phrase, interrupting its expression so as to lend it additional dynamic force, in a positive (“fan-fucking-tastic”, “abso-fuckingly-lutely”) or negative manner (“no-fucking-way” or “jeezus-fucking-christ”) (23). Besides the slang classification of such terms by the conversational community, the slang terms inserted into sentences in such a way obtains its forcefulness from the very fact that it interrupts an otherwise orderly sequence of syllables or words.

From my very first reading, I was impressed, and remain so, by Grice’s explanatively powerful, tidy, and intuitive theory for how ordinary conversation and implicature function.

As my research for this paper progressed, I was also surprised by how neatly Grice’s Cooperative Principle and Dumas and Lighter’s description of slang fit together. From Dumas and Lighter’s retelling of historical descriptions and accounts of slang, it appears that there was a poverty of theoretical work on its origins and pragmatics. It appears clear that this was due to an attitude of academic aloofness, if not outright disdain, towards this essentially populist form of expression. Yet slang provides a living laboratory for observing the dynamics of the evolution of language and the way new terms and expressions come into being, as slang originates, changes, and disappears so quickly. It’s the linguistic fruit fly for evolutionary research! And the sheer number of scholarly articles I found on the subject of slang while I was doing my research indicates that scholars of language have discovered this.

While I share the scholar’s high valuation of precision in discourse, I also value vibrancy of expression in many forms including that such as that slang provides, as Walt Whitman did, and as the contemporary comic and author Stephen Fry does: “Imagine if the structure, meaning and usage of language was always the same as when Swift and Pope were alive. Superficially appealing as an idea for about five seconds, but horrifying the more you think about it. If you are the kind of person who insists on this and that ‘correct use’ I hope I can convince you to abandon your pedantry. Dive into the open flowing waters and leave the stagnant canals be. But above all let there be pleasure. Let there be textural delight, let there be silken words and flinty words and sodden speeches and soaking speeches and crackling utterance and utterance that quivers and wobbles like rennet. Let there be rapid firecracker phrases and language that oozes like a lake of lava. Words are your birthright …Don’t be afraid of it, don’t believe it belongs anyone else, don’t let anyone bully you into believing that there are rules and secrets of grammar and verbal deployment that you are not privy to. Don’t be humiliated by dinosaurs into thinking yourself inferior because you can’t spell broccoli or moccasins. Just let the words fly from your lips and your pen. Give them rhythm and depth and height and silliness. Give them filth and form and noble stupidity. Words are free and all words, light and frothy, firm and sculpted as they may be, bear the history of their passage from lip to lip over thousands of years.” (24)

Damn straight, Stephen Fry!

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NOTES:

1 – Grice, H.P. “Logic and Conversation” in The Philosophy of Language, ed. A. P. Martinich, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2008, 173
2 – Ibid, 172
3 – Dumas, Bethany K. and Jonathan Lighter. “Is Slang a Word for Linguists?”. American Speech, Vol. 53 No. 1 (Spring 1978) pp 5-17, 10
4 – Ibid 14-15
5 – Anderson, Steve. F**k, A Documentary, 2005
6 – Dumas and Lighter, 12
7 – F**k
8 – Dumas and Lighter, 13
9 – Ibid, 13
10 – Ibid, 14
11 – Dumas and Lighter, 15
12 – Ibid, 5
13 – F**k
14 – Ibid
15 – Ibid
16 – Dumas and Lighter, 7
17 – Ibid 11-12
18 – Ibid 13-14
19 – F**k
20 – Dumas and Lighter, 15
21 – F**k
22 – Dumas and Lighter, 14
23 – F**k
24 – Fry, Stephen. “Don’t Mind Your Language” Stephenfry.com.

What Does ‘Lapsed’ Mean Anyway When Referring to an Ex-Religionist? (Original)

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I’ve long thought it strange to be referred to as a ‘lapsed Catholic’. I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic religion, which I rejected in my early adulthood. ‘Lapsed’, in pretty much every other common usage of the term, refers to a kind of just letting something go or expire, such as letting an insurance policy or subscription ‘lapse’ by forgetting to pay on time, or, simply losing interest. I think that many Catholics and others who subscribe to the religion of their parents (either because they actually believe, or, interestingly, because they just let their membership continue because they forgot or never had much interest in examining the belief system in the first place: its own brand of carelessness) are unaware that so many who no longer believe in the doctrines they were taught in their youth made an active decision to reject them for the best of reasons. For myself as it is for so many others, rejecting the religion of my youth was a long, thoughtful, difficult, yet ultimately emancipatory and joyful process. If those who refer to me and others like me as ‘lapsed’ in the sense of implying carelessness or laziness, or that we just didn’t want to put the effort into satisfying religious demands, they are doing us an injustice. Such dismissiveness may sometimes simply be thoughtless, but it more often smacks of the desire to cast aspersion on deconversion (unless, of course, we’re talking about deconversion from a rival religion!). Yet, remaining within the comforting cocoon of the belief system of one’s youth, with its automatic community membership and societal approval, seems to me to be the easy way to go; critiquing and rejecting one’s beliefs is much harder. This is especially so for religious beliefs that are accompanied by threats, such as hellfire or isolation from a community. For so many of us (and I think most of us ex-religionists), rejecting religion is not passive at all; it’s matter of acting on convictions founded on morals, logic, and a commitment to personal integrity.

I think that a core assumption behind the tendency to dismiss the validity of rejecting dogma is that ‘faith’ is necessary for a human being to be or to become a truly good human being. But why? I’ve heard it said that faith is what’s needed to pass the test for living a worthy life, that knowledge is not enough. Faith, believing without proof, is what’s really difficult, so the assumption goes; therefore, it’s an achievement that’s worthy of reward. I know I’m not alone in thinking that this assumption seems strange. As aforementioned, believing unquestioningly seems to me the easy way to go, and is what we do when we just want to go along with what feels good at the moment, or with what our buddies want us to agree with, or what self-appointed leaders want us to thoughtlessly assent to, or what our communities and families pressure us into. Assenting to the truth of a proposition fully only after careful consideration and weighing of the evidence, or judging whether we’re justified in believing it to be true based on its tendency to generate accurate predictions, is more indicative of intellectual rigor.  Humbly saying ‘I don’t know’ when the evidence is unavailable, ‘proportion[ing] belief according to the evidence’ (as Hume says of the wise man), requiring intellectual rigor of ourselves when important decisions require this: all of these are much more honest, it seems to me, and much harder work, than relying on faith or unexamined dogmas. While I know that many religionists do examine their beliefs and are confident they believe what’s true, none have the right to assume that ex-religionists have carelessly ‘lapsed’. Most of us, you can be assured, have not.

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Originally posted 24th April 2013 by Amy Cools. See revised essay here