Category Archives: Written by Amy Cools

Cycling Through Edinburgh, First Time

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This blog post is going to be a bit different than the others: it’s going to be about cycling!

Hope you don’t mind the departure.

So today I finally had access to a bike, though I don’t think you, Bryan, my dear husband and resident bike mechanic extraordinaire, would approve of it.
It was abandoned at my hosts’ place by a former guest who couldn’t take it with them. And no wonder. The goddamn thing weighs about a hundred pounds. Adam (of the couple I’m renting a room from, nicest guy you’ll ever meet, as is his lady, Krystallenia) did fix it up a bit, but I discovered issues with it while riding. For one thing, the seat was way too low, I felt like I was riding a little clown bike (made of lead), and my knees started to ache fast.

But I was cheered at the prospect of exploring Edinburgh’s awesome hub of dedicated cycling/pedestrian paths (greenways), converted defunct tram lines, so I made the best of it. 

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Not too shabby! So I meandered through these bike paths, and while I had a general idea where I was going, a kind man soon disabused me of that notion. He could see my eyes glaze over as he tried to explain how the spiderweb of paths would lead me to where I was eventually headed, so he offered to accompany me. He pointed out (as I had realized) that the downside to the lush greenery that surrounded the paths was that you were completely shielded from seeing any landmark that could indicate where you’re going.His name is Adrian, a family practitioner, and he’s getting back into shape from being off the bike for three years. On his last cycling holiday in the Pyrenees, he fell and broke his neck. He’s okay now, he reassured me. We exchanged travel tips: he’s about to travel to the US with his wife and teenage daughters to see the usual beauty spots, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and so forth.

When we reached the end of the bike maze, we parted, after he showed me where a bike co-op shop was, who might do quick repair. The other major issue I had discovered: the handlebar stem as not firmly bolted down, and would slip off to one side whenever I’d stop, then push off to start again. A sweetheart named Dougie (or Duggie?) raised the seat and tightened down the handlebars for me, after grumbling over the bike a bit (I apologized for asking him to work on such a shitty bike, and he grumbled, kindly, that it came from a ‘car shop, not a bike shop’). He refused to take any payment at all.

I continued on my way, through a maze of little windy, hilly, cobblestone streets. Would have been impossible without the handlebar repair.

When I neared Calton Hill, I turned towards Arthur’s Seat, which I had seen from my explorations on my first day there. Here it is, seen from the hill that day:


And here it is as I start the ascent:

It’s so beautiful, and has a wonderfully wild feel to it, for a place right next to the city

It was hard to stop stopping to take pictures, every bend in the path revealed a scene more enchanting than the last.

So at the summit, I stopped to eat lunch, as it started to sprinkle. There was, like, twenty weathers that day. But I dressed as a San Franciscan in spring, so I was set.

Smoked German cheese and a pear

If you want to keep warm on a ‘driech’ day (thanks for the cool new addition to my vocabulary, Jackie!), ride up Arthur’s Seat on a two-hundred pound bicycle (yes, it got heavier). I don’t think it really was kosher to take my bike up, but the signs didn’t specifically say not too, so I did. You would have been proud of me, Bryan, there was definitely some ‘gnar’. I was roasting by the time I reached the top.

So I went down, and spent the rest of the day half biking, half sightseeing by foot.
On the way back (I couldn’t linger ’till dark cause I had no lights, I went by way of Dean Village, which drops below the Dean Bridge and along Leith Waterway.

And finally, I reached my temporary home, to this sky


It was a good day. David Hume’s birthday! Yet I was the one that got the gift. Adam made scones and tea, and before bed he and I, and eventually Krystallenia when she came home from work, talked about Poland where he’s from, Greece where she’s from, and the US.

Hume Sites and Monuments, Part 2

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117 (2)Thursday, ‎May ‎08, ‎2014

…or more accurately this time, Hume sites and artifacts.

On Thursday afternoons, the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust holds an open house for Riddle’s Court (a small square enclosed by the buildings that surround it), where David Hume bought his first house in the 1750’s. In his time, the building was called a ‘land’, and a floor or suite of the building that comprised the rooms where the tenant lived was called a ‘house’. So a ‘land’ held several ‘houses’, today’s ‘flats’.

The rooms that are open to the public are on the opposite side of the court from where his house was; records are not clear from the time, but it’s pretty certain he lived in one of the upper houses on the Royal Mile side of the court. I’ll show you where in a moment.134 (2)

This room with the beautiful ceiling was a drawing room for later inhabitants. You can read about it in the center photo below. The closeup of the ceiling shows David Hume’s monogram, to commemorate his living nearby.779

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Here (above) are views looking upwards from inside the court; the reddish color of the walls at the right is a natural color that they would have used at the time, and he probably lived in one of these upper houses. The photo on the left is at the left of the reddish wall, and I include it ’cause it’s pretty!

And here’s the view of the building that I’m in, opposite from Hume’s house, from Victoria Street below. Victoria Street was built in the 1830’s, where a steep, narrow footpath used to run through the gardens behind Riddle’s Court and the neighboring houses. My mother-in-law recommended that I visit Victoria Street; coincidentally, I discover that in constructing it, they almost decided to tear down the Riddle’s Court buildings, one of the most important sites I’ve come to visit. Fortunately, someone decided it was best to keep them since the buildings have such a rich history and Patrick Geddes, who was responsible for saving and restoring so many of Edinburgh’s most important historical buildings, turned it into a student center.

Two views in Riddle’s Court, Old City, Edinburgh

Now I turn to the first artifact I find on this trip that David Hume himself touched: a letter written just a few months before his death. It’s on display at the National Museum of Scotland, where I spend some hours this afternoon gazing at wonderful natural specimens and historical artifacts of Scotland. Hume had gone to Bath in hopes that the mineral springs there would help relieve the symptoms of the intestinal or abdominal disorder, probably cancer, that he died from. In the letter, he’s telling a man named Andrew that he’s feeling better at the moment.

A letter from David Hume to ‘Andrew’ dated May 20th 1776, at an exhibit in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh

Jenner’s department store off St Andrew’s Square in Edinburgh’s New Town

Note: The following story has an update.

The next day, I set out to find the commemorative plaque at the site where David Hume’s New Town house (apartment) was at 8 South St. David’s St. at Rose. I can’t find the plaque anywhere, but his house may have stood about where this large department store stands now….

I return to the National Library of Scotland to catch up on my writing and research, and there’s another letter in Hume’s own hand on display just feet away from where I’m writing this post, at an exhibition celebrating the achievements of the Scots people.

David Hume worked for some years in the 1750’s as the librarian for the Advocate’s Library, which eventually became the National Library. Although he had a falling out with the library over their blocking of some ‘undesirable’ books he had ordered, he continued to work for them since he needed access to their collection for the ambitious, multi-volume History of Britain he was working on, for which he was most famous during his lifetime. He donated the small salary that he earned from the Library to a blind poet friend, Thomas Blacklock.

Throughout my trip, I’ve been working intermittently in the Special Collections reading room at the National Library of Scotland, referring to first editions of David Hume’s books, all published in his lifetime, save for a few ‘dangerous’ works that were published shortly after his death. I’m not allowed to take photos of them, but you’ll find them described in my various Hume essays written during and following this trip, in the section that follows each essay, called ‘Sources and Inspiration’ (my informal brand of works cited page that I use for my blog essays). When I’m back home and have more time and my own computer, I’ll look for more information on these books, with links and photos.

Letter from David Hume to James Balfour dated Mar 15, 1753 on exhibit at the National Library of Scotland

The library is closing, so I must go. More on Hume to come!

Ordinary Philosophy and its Traveling Philosophy / History of Ideas series is a labor of love and ad-free, entirely supported by patrons and readers like you. Please offer your support today!

First Day in Old Edinburgh: Hume Sites and Monuments

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On Calton Hill with Edinburgh’s Old City in the background.

‎It’s early Sunday afternoon, and I’m recovering from probably the single longest day of walking I’ve ever done, and that’s saying a lot for this avid hiker and walking enthusiast. My hip joints ache, my feet ache, my calves ache, my shins ache. But I don’t care, each of these aches are little tokens of a beautiful day. But let me back up a bit…

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Saturday, ‎May ‎03, ‎2014

I started my exploration of the Old City from the other end, where the Castle of Edinburgh overlooks all from its high perch on a craggy rock, along the Royal Mile, which heads east from the castle to Calton Hill and the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

The first half of my day is spent getting my bearings, creating a mental map of how the Old City hangs together, while spontaneously popping into any historic place that looked interesting. That can get expensive, paying entrance fees, but what the hell, it was my first day. Anyway, that’s what keeps these wonderful old places from falling into ruin or turning into tacky gift shops, so it’s worth every penny.) I have my little camera out to keep my hands free and snap a gazillion photos along the way. I don’t have a way to upload those photos and share them with you now, but I will when I get back home in a couple of weeks. The photos you see here are taken on my tablet.

Arthur's Seat as seen from Calton Hill on a gray spring day, Edinburgh, 2014 Amy Cools.JPG

Arthur’s Seat as seen from Calton Hill on a gray spring day

So here I am, overlooking Edinburgh from Calton Hill.

It’s on Calton Hill that my journey following David Hume really begins, though I had looked into some sites associated with his life on the way, that I’ll return to later. It’s here on Calton Hill that he’s buried, and it’s here, I discover, that he caused the first path in Edinburgh to be built dedicated solely to the improvement of mind and body. Here, people would be encouraged to take their exercise by having a lovely place to walk, on this hillside with its spectacular views of the city, the surrounding countryside, and the Firth (estuary), away from the hustle and bustle, the crowds, the dirt, the unhealthy air, and the smells of the city. The first path to be built is named Hume Path in his honor, so of course, that’s the path I choose.

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Hume Walk sign, Calton Hill, Edinburgh

David Hume’s grave monument, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, Scotland

Old Calton Cemetery, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, 2014 Amy Cools.JPGI head back downhill a little from the park at the top of the hill, and Calton Hill Cemetery is on my left. I go through the gate and up the short flight of steps, and a bit ahead to my right, I find Hume’s elegant and rather simple monument and gravesite. I spend a good bit of time here musing: the power of physical objects to really bring things into focus still never fails to surprise me, and my sense of purpose in this journey to Edinburgh is strengthened.

I’ll soon write a reflection on his good and noble death…

Hume's and Abraham Lincoln Scottish soldier monuments,

Hume and Scottish soldier monuments at Old Calton Cemetery

I’m also moved to discover that a monument to Scottish-American soldiers was erected, featuring a statue of Abraham Lincoln. It seems to me so fitting that these two great heroes of freedom are honored here side by side, one of freedom of person, the other of thought.

When I leave Calton Hill, I return to the Royal Mile by an alternate route, with a detour along York Place to St. David’s Street. This street got its name from a fond prank by his close friend Nancy Orde, who wrote this little tribute in chalk on the side of Hume’s house. The street bears the name to this day.

My explorations are sure to bring me back to this street since Hume once lived here, so stay tuned. I’ll be back when I’ve gathered more details.

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Statue of David Hume on the Royal Mile by Sandy Stoddart, 1995

I return to the Royal Mile and this time head west, passing by a grand statue of David Hume, across from St. Giles’ Cathedral. I’m not sure it looks anything like him based on all of his portraits I’ve seen, but it’s a handsome statue, very classical. This bronze Hume probably looks much better with his shirt off than the real man ever did; he was a portly and not terribly good-looking fellow, as much as I admire and respect him. But who knows? Perhaps the younger Hume was a little more fit, before the years of poring over books left him out of shape. The statue’s right toe is polished and very shiny, looks like it’s a tradition to rub his toe for luck.

Plaque in close leading to James’s Court, where David Hume lived for a time

James Court on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh

James Court on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh

I return to James’s Court, where he lived for awhile in a tenement (apartment) with his sister. The original buildings are mostly gone, lost in a fire ages ago. I visited Gladstone’s Land and the John Knox house earlier in the day, two restored tenements from the era, and the Writer’s Museum, the restored home of Lady Stairs, built in 1622 and purchased and decorated by her in the 1700’s, all of which gives me a good idea of what Hume’s place would have looked like generally. James’s Court is a lovely little courtyard reached through a couple of lit

The old city is full of such little closes leading to pretty little courtyards or providing access to who knows where, all nearly irresistible to an American like me, where ancient cities are rare. Each time I see one of those closes, it looks like a little magic portal to some other place and time, and I just have to go through it. I spent much of my day stumbling on interesting corners of the city this way.

Tenements on the Royal Mile at Lawnmarket. 'Tenements' used to just refer to apartment buildings; the term gained its negative connotation later

Tenements on the Royal Mile at Lawnmarket. ‘Tenements’ used to just refer to apartment buildings; the term gained its negative connotation later

Granny's Green Steps

On the other side of Lawnmarket (the same little neighborhood as James Court) is another stand of tenements across from the castle, in the area where Hume was born in 1711. The original buildings are also no longer there; while most of the tenements that stand today in old Edinburgh are old, most of them date from the mid-1700’s and later. Many of the original tenements were lost in fires, a common occurrence in those days when people depended on open flames for all light, heating, and cooking, and a fire that started in one place would quickly spread. Many of the others were torn down, since after Hume’s time, the tenements became the homes of the poor, where overcrowding and the accompanying disease and filth left them in very poor condition (people and buildings like).

I end my first day of Hume-seeking here, as I suddenly realize I’ve been walking for hours without eating. I eat a meal of the obligatory haggis (it’s delicious, even if it does sit a bit heavy; I suspect it’s not the haggis that the Scots of yore ate, which was boiled. This haggis does not appear to be prepared that way), and I wash down with a pint, of course.

It’s a typical Scottish spring day, cloudy and a little chilly, totally bearable to one used to San Franciso weather. It rains on me just a little during my walk back to my temporary home.haggis-and-a-pint-edinburgh-scotland-2014-amy-cools

Ordinary Philosophy and its Traveling Philosophy / History of Ideas series is a labor of love and ad-free, entirely supported by patrons and readers like you. Please offer your support today!

Hume’s New Scene of Thought, and, It’s Good to Be Able to Say ‘I Don’t Know’

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David Hume, sculpture by Sandy Stoddart on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh

David Hume was always a nerd, something I love about him. Since he was a young boy, he always had his face buried in a book. And he was a happy nerd, self-described as having a ‘cheerful’ and ‘sanguine’ (optimistic) personality. I like that too.

Perhaps that’s why he was able to enter into his self-described ‘New Scene of Thought’. It was a whole new philosophy, one which included, as a central guiding principle, that the honest thinker should never claim to know, or to understand, that which the human mind can’t know or understand, and if they can’t know or understand it, they shouldn’t make strong claims of knowledge about it. But another guiding principle is this: the process of learning and thinking critically is among the noblest endeavors there is.
 
This sounds simple enough. But to the thinkers and to the everyday person in his time, this was not the way people thought. It was the end of the long period of scholasticism, of academics and theologians who took great pride in devising complex and subtle arguments about anything and everything under the sun (and above it), and whose authority was not to be challenged. If you were a member of this elite, you better support this system or you better find another occupation if you don’t want to be financially, and reputationally, ruined. if you were an everyday person, you should stay in your place, accept what the great thinkers have to tell you, and don’t ask too many questions.
 
It’s also a challenge to the way many people think today, from the strong skeptic who says ‘no one can know anything at all, so who cares?’ to the theocrat who says ‘I know the author of the universe, I know what he says, and I know what everyone must believe and how they should act’. We live in an age where screaming pundits dominate the media, who are certain ‘the other side’ is leading us all straight to ruin; where politicians are more reluctant to serve the public interest by putting aside their differences and working together on important issues; where the funding and communication of science is up for grabs to the highest bidding corporations.
 
Hume challenged the philosophers, the theologians, all those who made extraordinary claims about the ultimate nature of reality and of the workings of the human mind. He thought that they were undermining, even destroying the great project of philosophy by being so abstract, and so extravagant in their claims. Too many, Hume thought, had pretensions of knowing exactly how the universe came into being and how it worked, what was ultimate source of morality, what is meant by ‘the soul’ and how human beings are defined by it, and so on. These thinkers based their claims on two things: that the author of the universe has communicated these things to them and that they knew what the author meant, and that the elaborate arguments they constructed were all based on irrefutable logic and careful reasoning. Or some combination of these.
 
Yet these philosophers and theologians were in violent disagreement all the time, sometimes with the such disastrous results as a willingness, even an enthusiasm, for silencing, oppressing, even killing those with different opinions. This was so for even such highly abstruse arguments as to whether there were one or three persons in God, or what was the nature of the invisible force that made the planets go around the sun.
 
How do we account for such disagreements, when they originated from such seemingly perfect sources, revelation and logic? 
 
That’s because, Hume said, they got this wrong: that there’s such a thing as perfect human knowledge or understanding, or even that there is any mind at all that exists that knows all there is to know about everything. The honest thinker is the one that understands that a mind is a limited, fallible thing, and that the one way to know the most we can know is to carefully observe the world then only accept those ideas as true which observation can support. ‘The wise man…proportions his belief to the evidence.’ That’s another thing they got wrong: they tried to go so far with their logic, that the evidence they founded it on was so far removed, or so slight, I’d liken it to building a pyramid of elephants on a ball in a cartoon circus. Better to have a pretty solid foundation before you try such a thing.
 
Hume’s ‘New Scene of Thought’ helped make philosophy a reinvigorated, attractive scene for the curious and the thoughtful. Philosophy, at the time, referred to all areas of study whose project was to discover and understand as much as could be known about the universe. 
 
Funnily enough, it’s the attitude that human beings are fallible in our perceptions and our thinking, that enabled us to learn out as much as we have so far about so many areas of life, and that made the scientific process not only sucessful, but possible. That means when we observe something, or think something, we can’t just run out and proclaim our discoveries, just like that. We have to talk to each other compare notes, patiently test our theories again and again, and even if we’ve done all that, be able to say, humbly, ‘I was wrong’ if a better explanation comes along. This doesn’t mean we can’t believe in anything. It means that belief is always on a spectrum, is stronger or weaker depending on the support we have for it: whether it’s supported by observation and evidence, whether it consistently leads us to make successful predictions and form quality explanatory theories, and so on. But it should never be absolute. We should always be open to finding out more, and always suspicious if someone tells us they have the final, absolute answer.
 
It took this optimistic, friendly (Hume was well known to be a kind and genial person), and careful thinker, of great integrity, to form such a beautifully honest philosophy. Always having his nose in a book, he was well-read, and understood that there was an incredibly wide range of human thought and experience to draw from, much of it contradicting each other. And his reaction was not that we should resolve these contradictions by finding some orthodoxy and sticking to it, or saying at all that is not strictly logical in some abstract, perfect sense is valueless. He was able to take it all at face value for what it was: the natural outcome of what it means to have a human mind. The human mind is not just a reasoner, or a believer: it also perceives, dreams, thinks, feels, hallucinates. It’s variable, and it’s fascinating, and it all needs to be taken into account, if you want to pursue understanding to the utmost that you can. 
 
If you don’t yet have the answer, you must always be ready to say, honestly, ‘I don’t know’. That leaves you able and ready to say the next best sentence in the quest for knowledge: ‘Let’s find out.’
 
And this is only his epistemology (the study of knowledge) and his answer to metaphysics (the study of the fundamental nature of reality). Don’t get me started on his moral philosophy, which is even more awesome….. ’cause that will be the topic for another essay.
Ordinary Philosophy and its Traveling Philosophy / History of Ideas series is a labor of love and ad-free, supported by patrons and readers like you. Please offer your support today!
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Sources and inspiration:
 
Hume, David. ‘Letter to a Physician‘, 1734. 

Hume, David. My Own Life, 1776. 

Morris, William Edward. ‘David Hume‘. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009.

The Myth of the Divide Between Individualism and Collectivism

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‘What!?‘ you may well ask.

These are diametrically opposed, are they not? Those in favor of one of these views of personal identity, the economy, and public life generally despise the other. Proponents on one side of the ideological divide often shudder at the very thought of being identified with the other. So what could I mean by this?

I’ll start, then, by defining my terms.

Individualism, I think, is easier to define in a way that’s generally acceptable. In this view, protecting the rights and liberties of the individual is the ultimate aim of morality and politics. It holds that each human person has their own integrity of mind and body (and by extension, property) and should not be subject to coercion, harm, or theft. Individualism is preeminent in American culture, and the values associated with this worldview are emphasized by most modern democratic, capitalistic societies. It’s also, at first glance, most consistent with the ideals of the Age of Rights, which places the highest value on the rights of individuals, which should not be infringed on by the state nor by others.

Collectivism is harder to define. The 20th century saw the rise of collectivist, or socialist, states, the largest and most influential of which (ostensibly) valued the society more than individuals. When many think of collectivist societies, they think of Chairman Mao’s China, Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, or Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. To my mind, however, these societies were collectivist in name only: since it was the will and interests of one individual or few individuals that were imposed on those societies, usually to the detriment of everyone else. There was little or no willing collective effort for the collective’s sake, little to no public input regarding the collective’s rights and interests, and little to no collective benefit.

For the purposes of this piece, I define collectivism more broadly as the idea that a good society, in which people flourish and live as freely as possible, can only be achieved by some significant level of collective action. In this view, there is such a thing as the public good, and morality demands that everyone should do their part to sustain it. The full details of what the public good consists of and how it can be achieved should be debated by the public, but its characteristics include the idea that all human persons have as much moral worth as much as any other, that all have rights regardless of ‘merit’ (real or perceived) and wealth (or the lack thereof), that all are morally accountable when they fail in their responsibility to protect and nurture those rights, and that the fates of all are intertwined.

It may seem to you, as it does to me, that these conceptions of individualism and collectivism each have their attractions, and each contain some level of truth. Both are ultimately concerned with the well-being of all people, even if they might seem to start from a different end of the spectrum in deciding where the foundation of values should be (with the individual, or with the group). Both focus on human rights. So why are people so divided in their views on this matter, at least as presented in the mainstream media and by political parties?

Perhaps it’s because the arguments that we hear so often present a distorted view. Not only do public figures, pundits, commentators, and even educators offer caricatures of others’ views, they often present a misleading, even simplistic view of their own. Here are some ways I see the how we make [non]sense of the tension between individualism and collectivism, between the one and the many, as manifested in public discourse:

From libertarians and the far right:

– A tendency to systematically overemphasize the individualness of individuals. In other words, they represent individual achievement as attributable entirely, or almost entirely, to the innovation, creativity, and hard work of the individual. But in almost every case, each great ‘individual’ achievement is possible because they had the infrastructure of ideas, innovations, inventions, technologies, and discoveries of those who came before available to build on. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, for example, were able to accomplish what they did because their admirable hard work and creativity enabled them to take the discoveries of mathematicians, physicists, metallurgists, etc, to the next level of technological advancement. The widely-mocked (and admittedly clumsily worded) ‘you didn’t build that’ quote from a 2012 Barack Obama speech was a cynical reaction of the radicalized right against any sort of public recognition that while individual talent and effort are crucial, we also rely heavily on each other in achieving what we do.

– A tendency to underestimate the degree to which a robust morality of social responsibility makes individual freedom not only more expansive, but possible in the first place. Without morality, without a social framework of cooperation, self-restraint from plunder and violence, and the generosity that’s more the rule than the exception in any human group, individual human beings would be left in the narrowly circumscribed situation of the forager and lonely hunter. We would have little time and leisure left to such luxurious pursuits as the acquisition of knowledge, the sharing of ideas, artistic creation, and technological innovation that human beings are so uniquely good at, if we are constantly busy simply feeding ourselves, warming ourselves, and fighting each other off of what little stash of goods we’ve managed to obtain. It may be objected that since human beings naturally desire to better their situation, self-interest would lead to cooperation through the desire to trade. But that only begs the question of why we would engage in fair trade, and not simply plunder if we are the strongest. Why has this instinct for reciprocity has become part of the fabric of the human personality?

From 20th century-style communists and socialists

– A tendency to devalue the importance of the individual out of proportion, and even divorced from, the importance of society. The major autocratic socialist regimes ruthlessly quashed opposition, disposed of enemies, and systematically repressed all but the most insipid, and most propagandist, forms of the arts (and still do! Though not so many). Societies ended up in the odd state of being glorified by their leaders as the greatest in the world, while simultaneously made up of citizens that were each so worthless that any one of them could be legitimately disposed of like so much garbage, if it seemed in the best interests of the state.

From liberals:

– A tendency to declare that government should not be in the business of ‘legislating morality’, while at the same time demanding that government demand accountability for some forms of wrong-doing. Government is a moral enterprise by definition. For example, when a law is made that one person may not kill or injure another, it’s made because of a society’s moral position that life is better than death, and that it’s wrong to infringe on another person’s right to live and thrive. Morality, and law, have everything to do with a society’s deciding what people should or should not do; in other words, it’s normative. There are many who try to downplay the relationship between law and morality, including this blogger who described the law as simply a set of rules to ensure that society is ‘harmonious and safe’, while morality has to do with your ‘personal sense of right and wrong’. But this is not at all how law works now, and not at all how law emerged as a product of human psychology as a social. From the beginning, the law has always had to do with retributive, distributive, and restorative justice, though the balance of these three differ from society to society. Laws that attempt to harmonize society, for example, are based on the notion that harmony is better than discord, that people ‘ought’ to maintain harmony by refraining from violence and disturbing the peace. Laws that govern parking originate with the idea that public spaces ought to be used and maintained for the benefit of everyone. Laws that protect people from assault originate from the idea that people have a right to life and health.

– Closely related to the above, a tendency to incoherence as to whether they themselves view government as moral, or morally neutral. Many liberal people decry any governmental attempts to interfere with some behaviors, such as those pertaining to sexuality and drug use, on the basis that these are moral, and therefore strictly personal, issues. But at the same time, they will demand that government regulate or prohibit other behaviors, such as fraud committed by financial institutions, or in the use of torture and the targeting of minorities in stop-and-frisk policies, on the basis that the latter practices are wrong or unfair. Yet all of these issues have everything to do with morality: what we ought and ought not to do, and why. For example, a democratic government is based on the moral norms that every individual has rights and that every individual’s well-being matters. Therefore, a good government is based on the moral norm that every individual should have a say in what their government does. A society with such a government also, by the very fact they have a government at all, think that all members of society have responsibilities to one another. After all, if there is no moral accountability, there are no norms, no law, no society. We end back up where the radical individualists left us: lonely scavengers or predators, without the vast resources social cooperation offers.

So how do we reconcile these seemingly disparate views?

I think we need to realize that the very idea that there is a sharp dividing line between individualism and collectivism is an illusion. In fact, individualism is not only reliant on collectivism, but is a product of it. We get to pursue such energy-expensive, extravagant projects as music, literature, art, government, architecture, and the rest because at some point we started banding together in a network of support rarely seen in other creatures. We rallied to protect our big-brained, long-vulnerable young, share the fruits of the hunt and of foraging, and invented such social-cohesion-strengthening practices as making music, telling stories, taking part in rituals of marriage and burial, and creating art.

And how do we craft societal practices that promote the rights and interests of the free individual, without undermining the collectivism that makes individual freedom possible?

As we have seen, 20th-century-style ‘socialist’ governments revealed how a society is undermined when it under-emphasizes the individual and overemphasizes the collective. But given the utter disregard for individual human life, and individual human rights, it’s not so hard to recognize how badly they got it all wrong. When your ideology holds that a great society is made up of individuals that are so worthless that they can be eliminated at the whim of the government, or have no personal rights or value outside of their value as laborers or fulfillers of some pre-determined role, or have no say in what their government or their autocratic ruler does, than the whole society is undermined by being made up of powerless, dehumanized, devalued, uninspired, unmotivated people.

It’s also the case that those social instincts that make us such successful cooperators combine with other instincts sometimes in a way that leads to atrocious behavior. Anti-Jewish pogroms, racially motivated massacres such as those in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and rampages following sports games are such example of violent mass-hysteria. The tendency of people to ‘follow the leader’ in heartless behavior is as thoroughly documented in laboratory studies as it is in the history books. Democracy and reason are the two best tools human beings have come up with to correct the excesses of our strong social instincts. The secret ballot box allows us to participate in governance without coercion or in-the-moment peer pressure, and reason allows us to step back and reflect on whether or not we we’re doing, or what we’re about to do, is really in our own, and everyone else’s, interests. 

Independent-minded individuals, less prone to coercion, herd instinct, and social pressure, are also absolutely essential corrective not only to mass cruelty, but to to entrenched laws and norms that have outlived their usefulness, and whose immorality have been overlooked, explained away, or overridden due to other social interests. Slavery is a classic example of this: a popular desire for attaining personal wealth combined with entrenched racism (the ugly side of tribalism), led a majority in many societies to ignore their own moral sense of sympathy, justice, and beneficence in favor of policies that catered to their baser instincts. It was a few dissenters that reminded society of what morality is for, and how institutionalizing cruelty and indifference to the interests of other human beings harms everyone, that led societies to reform themselves and change their policies to better serve both individual and collective interests.

On the other hand, oligarchic, fascist, and other ultra-capitalist societies, which hold that government’s only job is to enforce contracts, prevent invasion, and prevent people from assaulting one another, also undermine themselves, because they have only a negative conception of freedom as their moral foundation. When a government is structured according to the idea that human beings have few responsibilities to each other than fulfilling contracts and respecting property rights, they become a society where fewer and fewer people are enjoying the fruits of everyone’s labor. For example, monopolies develop (as Adam Smith pointed out), which set prices and wield most of the power over legislators. You have fewer and fewer wealthy individuals and organizations that pay to influence the halls of power, that monopolize the dissemination of information trough mass media, while the voices of those that have little or no money to do so are drowned out. You get societies made up that look like the early industrial towns when capitalism first flourished without regulation, where many got rich, while a great bulk of others ended up doing crippling labor in squalid conditions, withe the empty ‘choice’ of accepting such work, or facing privation or starvation. You end up a society that drives down wages for most people while fewer and fewer funnel all or most of the gains made by an economic system to a few, more ruthless individuals that are left at ‘the top’. 

Because I see individualism and collectivism as intertwined, I’m in favor of a strong democracy and a mixed economy. In a healthy, democratic society, it’s the innovators, the creative geniuses, the ‘weirdos’, that ensure that a society is adaptable, rich in ideas, technologies, and creativity, and does not stagnate and wither away. Human beings succeed not only because we are social, we succeed because we are adaptive and innovative, and it’s the freedom of the individual to come up with new art forms, technologies, ideas, etc, that make a society dynamic. The incentive of improving one’s lot in life through one’s own hard work also fuels the drive to better ones’ self.

A ready analogy for this is the necessity of genetic mutations in evolving a successful, adaptive species. While not all mutations (innovations, new ideas) are beneficial, there are some that are, and without those pioneering one-offs, a population cannot adapt to meet new and challenging circumstances, and does not possess that wonderful variety of traits that make it both capable of much, and fascinating to behold. A society of individuals free to pursue their own goals and protect their own interests, so long as they contribute to the public good and don’t harm others, is that which is likely not only to survive, but thrive. For example, free trade, sometimes derided by modern liberals, is an excellent tool that is both highly individualistic and highly socialistic. It incentivizes and rewards individual innovation and hard work, though an elaborate framework of cooperativeness that includes, but is not limited to, a strong commitment to fairness and reciprocity, a conception of justice that demands recompense for hard work, and a distaste for theft and exploitation. But like all tools, it must be used wisely and well, and within certain parameters.

And this this is why I also believe in such collective projects and institutions as publicly-funded roads, public education, and health care. I believe in regulations such as gun control and strict regulations for drivers, since these don’t prioritize the rights of some individuals to put others in danger for insufficient cause. I don’t believe in society-aggrandizing, anti-individualist enterprises such as war (in most circumstances). After all, you have few rights when you are incapacitated by injury and disease, and none at all when you’re dead. A society that places few restrictions and responsibilities on gun owners and operators of motor vehicles make it all to easy for one individual, in a moment of temper, carelessness, or mental instability to permanently remove all or most rights from fellow human beings. As we can see from (most) heavily-armed, hyper-individualistic societies such as the United States, we kill and injure one another at enormous rates with our guns and our cars. A more morally robust concept of civic duty would lead to the creation of laws based on the premise that a right which bears greater risks engenders a greater burden of responsibility. And since government is a moral enterprise, its laws should not only hold people accountable for doing wrong to one another, but demand some responsibility to do right by each other. 

Why morality requires both accountability and responsibility is another Big Question. Sounds to me like a great topic for another essay…

****************************************************************************

Some sources and inspiration:

Anderson, Elizabeth. ‘Tom Paine and the Ironies of Social Democracy’, 2012 Dewey Lecture in Law and Philosophy
Darwall, Stephen. ‘Moral Accountability’, 2014, Philosophy Bites podcast

Ellis, Joseph. Revolutionary Summer, 2013

Heath, Joseph. Economics Without Illusions, 2010

Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, 2011

Sandel, Michael. ‘A New Citizenship’, 2009 Reith Lectures



On Being Part of Something Bigger Than Oneself

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Sometimes, I’m carried away by the awesome realization that I’m part of so many things that are larger than myself. In fact, I feel quite mystical at these times.

I’m part of a particular family; part of many communities of friends and of people who share passions and common goals; part of a cultural group; part of the whole human family. I love and am loved in return. I cooperate with my husband, with my family and friends with my coworkers, with the people I interact with everyday, be it in everyday life, in romance, in play; in conversation, in sharing meals, in commerce, in navigating traffic, and in other countless ways. I share in the business of life and in the struggle to survive, which for human beings necessitates this high level of cooperation, because with our relatively weak teeth, slow gait, blunt ‘claws’, big clumsy bodies, and expensive brains, we are much more vulnerable, as individuals, than most other animals to predation and hunger. So I share in this great community of empathy, some to a greater or a lesser degree, and we all do what we can to be good and decent people, at least much of the time.

I’m part of the history of human thought, part of the rich legacy of human curiosity and wonder over the millennia, whose love of learning and of doing our bit more to expand human understanding makes us, as Carl Sagan so beautifully put it, ‘..a way for the universe to know itself.’ And every one of us who takes part of this quest to understand the world get as far as we do only because those before us passed down what they learned and what they invented so we can build on it. No one human being can, on their own, invent languages to create and organize ideas, observe the full vastness of the universe, and form the myriad theories that make up the incredible body of knowledge we can access and enjoy today. But millions of human minds, sharing in this knowledge quest, have achieved a level of understanding that our ancestors could never have dreamed of, and our descendants will do the same. When we think about it, each of our individual minds is filled with the words and ideas created by others, which we rearrange and build on to create our own, which we then pass along. In this sense, it’s hard to tell where our own minds end and others’ begin; we all share in one human stream of consciousness, millennia-old, from which we draw, and into which we contribute, constantly, all of our lives. This is one sense in which we’re immortal.

I’m also a part of the great creative outpouring of humanity. We all participate in this, some as the makers, some as the enjoyers, most of us as both, to some degree or another. I am inspired by the beautiful, interesting, innovative, and curious things others create, which inspires me to create things I think are beautiful as well. I dance to music others make, some of us make our own, and some of us sing along and pass the songs on to our friends and to the next generation. I cry and laugh and smile and immerse myself as I read the stories and hear the jokes and watch the movies that our fantastically, restlessly, endlessly creative species never stops coming up with.

Finally, I’m part of the great workings of the universe, of the great process of evolution, where all the stuff I’m made of was forged in stars and crafted into what eventually became me, by the myriad forces that arranged every molecule in my body, in new formulations in each successive environment through the ages. Every bit of me used to be something else, and I’m intimately related to every single other thing in the universe; every human being, every plant, every insect, every thing that lives and moves is my cousin.

I often hear people expressing discontent, that they’re searching for something that’s missing, that they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. So we join cults, buy self-help books, immerse ourselves in various ‘spiritualities’ and ‘philosophies’, even immolate ourselves and destroy each other for the sake of some extremist ideology, in restless pursuit of that quest. It’s all too easy, in day to day life, to forget the all the amazing, myriad ‘something bigger”s that all of us are a part of just by virtue of existing. 

I’m now in a happy time in my life when I’ve learned to recognize and appreciate this fact more than ever before. These days, I have other ways to more fully participate in these ‘something bigger”s. I have an insatiable hunger for reading and learning in the last few years to a greater degree than any other time in my life, and since I left the stifling religion of my childhood, I’ve found the entire range of ideas available for my consideration, and the whole of humanity and of all living things is my spiritual community. I’ve taken a job in a new field so I’m learning something new every day, I’ve taken up writing and spending more time creating and developing my art, and trying to be more prudent with making and spending money so I can help out my family and travel more. We all have our own ways.

Being a part of something bigger is the simplest thing there is. It’s realizing it that’s the hard part.

What is a ‘Natural’ Medicine, Anyway?

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I’ve often found that many people aren’t aware of the difference between herbal medicines and homeopathic remedies, perhaps because these terms have come to be used more and more interchangeably. There are many herbal, or ‘natural’, medicines, that are proven to work for many conditions: aspirin, quinine, ginger, marijuana, and so on. Homeopathy refers to nothing of this sort. Rather, homeopathy makes two claims: 1. like cures like (for example, a substance that makes a stomach ache will also cure it) as long as it’s greatly diluted, and 2. water has a ‘memory’, and it can be ‘imprinted’ by adding such a substance to it. Neither of these claims can be substantiated by any scientific means, and to my mind, they’re preposterous.

Homeopathic businesses, just like peddlers of many other ‘natural’ cures, wish to remain immune from demonstrating, through studies and testing, that they actually work and are not harmful. Yet they are both multi-billion dollar industries with the potential to do massive harm. To my mind, their efforts to remain immune from regulation and oversight are just as corrupt as those of some pharmaceutical companies and other industries that seek to shield themselves from public accountability. There are other ‘natural’ medicines which are proven to work, offered by honest practitioners who care enough to demonstrate effectiveness, that the health-conscious consumer can opt for instead.

I use the word ‘natural’ in quotes because I think there’s something odd about qualifying certain medicines as natural, and some as not. Since I don’t believe in anything ‘supernatural’, by default, everything is natural. The difference between all these medicines, then, is whether they’re effective or not, or whether they’re harmful or not.

~ This little essay is a reflection inspired by Jerry Coyne’s article ‘Why Do Liberals Tolerate Pseudoscience at Whole Foods?‘

Is the Market Really The Most Democratic Way to Determine Wages?

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When it comes to just compensation for labor, people disagree on how wages should be determined.

Some say that wages should be allocated according to the value of the work itself, and that this value is based on how beneficial the work is to society. For example, a nurse or a doctor saving lives should be paid much more than a financial speculator or a star athlete. In that sense, pay rates in the US and indeed, almost everywhere, are often grossly unjust.

Others say that people who work the hardest deserve the most pay. This is perhaps an even more popular view here the the US, where a strong work ethic is a traditional, highly prized virtue. Yet it’s easy to find countless examples of people who work equally hard yet earn vastly different salaries (a day laborer versus a high-powered attorney, for example), so even on this view, too many people’s wages are unjust.

And many others say that the market is the fairest mechanism. This is an especially popular view in the liberty-loving US. After after all, it’s people’s free choices that determine prices, since a price is simply how much people are willing to pay for a thing; and where the prices are high, the wages for its creators are high too. So, for example, if lots of people decide to pay high ticket prices to see a live sports event, then people are voting with their dollars and therefore, it’s democratic and fair that star athletes earn sky-high wages. And if people are only willing to pay a little money for a cheaply made product, well, then it’s fair that people who make it should earn less, at least per unit made. An unfettered market, then, is the most democratic, fair way to determine wages.

For the most part, I think that people tend to hold some kind of combination of these views, even as they lean a little more towards one, and they will consider each job and the justness of the wages it pays on a case-by-case basis. And there are related considerations as well, such as whether the job indirectly creates
societal benefits, whether it’s innovative, whether it’s aesthetically valuable, and so on.

But I’d like to challenge one of these views because it’s based on a false assumption. Can you guess what it is, before you scroll down?………………………………………………………..

………………………………… If you think it’s the assumption that since wages are based on prices, and prices are based on free choices, therefore the market is a democratic way to allocate wages, you’re right. So now why do you think I think this assumption is false?………………………………………………………..

………………………………… So here’s why I think it’s false. I don’t think prices actually reflect people’s democratic choice regarding what people should be paid for their work; prices reflect what people are willing to pay for a particular good or service, and that’s it. When people pay a certain price for a sports game ticket, for example, they’re just indicating how much they’re willing to pay to see the game itself. It’s anybody’s guess what they would vote to pay an athlete if they could write the figure on a piece of paper and slip it in a ballot box. Same goes for a grocery shopper voting on the pay of crop pickers. Do you really think that, just because a person happily pays only $.80 a pound for oranges on special, that they think the people who picked those crops should make very little money? I’m willing to bet that just about anyone, when they think about how hard the labor of the average crop picker is, how invaluable their labor is for sustaining life, and how much a living wage is, just about anyone would write down at least that figure on the slip of paper. In fact, I bet they’d vote for quite a comfortable salary. And I bet they’d lower the wage for most athletes substantially, especially if that meant the money saved there could go to someone doing a more ‘important’ or ‘worthy’ job, whatever we think that is.

I’m not sure myself exactly how we should determine wages, I’m sure I’m like most people and think there should be some sort of multifaceted approach. When I think of a more ideal world, I’d like to see wages have more to do with social utility when it comes to providing necessary goods and services (food production, the medical field, infrastructure), education, law enforcement, public arts, and so on. The market could have more to do with determining wages and prices for ordinary luxury goods and entertainment, within limits, of course.

Anyway, when we debate  wages and wealth distribution, don’t let’s kid ourselves that wages are set by a process that’s at all democratic. If that were the case, ultra wealthy financiers and many CEOs wouldn’t enjoy such vast wages even though they enjoy abysmal approval ratings, and it wouldn’t be so hard to get the minimum wage raised even though most Americans poll in favor of it.

Now in fact, most wages, most of the time, are actually based on how hard it is to replace the worker, more than on any other consideration. Crop pickers, though they do valuable work to society, are easy to replace; brain surgeons are not. So in this way, we see that the market does set the wages, but we also see there’s nothing choice-driven, nothing democratic about it. It all has to do with what it takes to do the job: brute facts abut the world. Some tasks are, by nature, complicated and take incredible skill and learning to perform. Others do not. All, however, are necessary, and all suit people of different personalities and capabilities. So given that this is how wages end up being what they are, do we think that this is how wages should be set?

What do you think?

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Inspiration for this little essay is drawn most immediately from ‘Should a Banker Be Paid More Than a Nurse?’, episode 3, from Michael Sandel’s ‘The Public Philosopher’ discussion and debate series, though it’s also based on many other things I’ve read, such as Joseph Heath’s Economics Without Illusions, talks I’ve heard, and many other discussions I’ve engaged in

Happy Thomas Paine’s Birthday!

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It’s January 29th, the date commonly chosen to commemorate the birth of the great freethinker and author of the American revolution, Thomas Paine. (His exact birthdate is unknown.) Paine offered eloquent political and moral arguments in support of the colonies’ right to break away and form independent states, using ordinary language accessible to all. He probably did more than any other individual to rally popular support to that cause. But Paine not only offered compelling arguments in favor of freedom from tyranny in politics: he was a staunch deist and opponent of religion, and considered the clergy as oppressive as any monarch could be.

Paine, whom Theodore Roosevelt once referred to as a ‘filthy little atheist’ died in poverty and obscurity, yet many of us quote him frequently without even knowing it. He shared with Thomas Jefferson the uncanny ability to encapsulate ideas into perfectly turned phrases so well, that they remain in common usage today.

If you’re intrigued, find out more about Thomas Paine here
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paine/
here,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine
and, very briefly, here
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1592233

The Debate Over Motherhood, and the Human Family. Or, To Have or to Have Not…

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…children, that is.

Over the last year, it seems, there’s been a deluge of essays, articles, and other works about the decision of whether or not to have children. The Time cover story on ‘The Childfree Life‘ kicked off quite a bit of controversy, as well as some applause. Many were thrilled to have their choice not to have children finally presented in a positive light in such an influential publication, but many found it distasteful and even insulting. Others, such as Melanie Notkin, criticized the article, in this case not for what it promoted or criticized, but for containing too many assumptions and misinterpretations.

So here’s another take on the subject, from a fond auntie from a very large extended family, who chooses not to have children.

So why all the fuss? Why are we still arguing over all this in a time and place where women, generally, have the right their own persons, to say no to sex, to pursue careers, to engage fully in public and political life?

Although birth control has now been widely and cheaply available for decades, it’s clear that we’re not yet comfortable with our newfound ability to enjoy our sexuality while simultaneously controlling our reproduction. We haven’t yet decided what this means for us. What are the ramifications, economically, morally, legally? Will we be better off overall, or not? Are we to be frightened that people will stop valuing parenthood as a worthy choice, if remaining childless is considered just as good? Or are we to rejoice that the human race may slow its population growth to a sustainable level?

Mark Driscoll is a ‘celebrity’ pastor from the Seattle area, whose view of the whole birth control issue is not positive, to say the least. His essay ‘Who’s Afraid of Pregnant Women?’ first appeared in the ‘On Faith’ blog in December 2013 (now found on FaithStreet). Driscoll’s essay conveys some of the same feeling I sense in many parents, especially women, when they write or share comments and articles that extol full-time motherhood. He expresses a feeling of beleaguerment for parents of large families, and fears that human life has become less valuable to us than other animals, that pregnant women are regularly belittled for being ‘breeders’, and that it is our godly duty to bear and raise children.

I came upon his article weeks ago, and have mulled it over several times: it stuck with me because I recognize some of his ideas and attitudes as very similar, if not identical, to those of many of my own relatives. I belong to a very large, largely conservative Catholic family, and they are huge fans of having children: my father is one of fifteen kids, my mother one of nine. I’m one out of five siblings, and as of last count, I have 70 or so first cousins. Indoor family reunions are out of the question unless we rent a large hall, and when we dance our traditional Virginia Reel, it’s quite a work-out!

I’ve always considered it great fun to be part of such a big family. I’ve had playmates and companions at hand my whole life. It’s fascinating, at family reunions, to see how various family traits pop up, reshuffled and recombined in so many ways; which traits seem to skip a generation and which do not, how a male family member might appear if they were born a woman instead (and vice versa), and so on. (With so many first cousins, the likelihood that there are more close look-a-likes evidently increases.) My extended family is, in fact, just of the sort that Driscoll extols, and is going strong.

I’m also a sucker for babies and children generally. They are adorable in their smallness, with their squeaky voices, their quirky and often hilarious pronunciations and turns of phrase as they learn to speak, in their toddling walk, in their displays of newly acquired, unexpected, and impressive intelligence, and in so many other ways. Of course, I tend to see them at their best: rarely at bedtime, or sick, or throwing tantrums. I see them when they’re on vacation or when they’re excited at the prospect of playing with a visiting auntie (or cousin, or family friend) who’s not worn out from childcare, and who’s easily manipulated into lenience.

So it’s natural that though I’ve chosen not to have children, I wonder once in a while if I’m missing out on something I would actually enjoy, just as I do with other big life choices of the sort where if I choose one thing, it necessarily excludes another. I’ve noticed that many people who choose not to be parents, especially women, are torn, while others feel quite strongly that choosing childlessness is right for them. Having children is a huge responsibility, presents many risks and challenges, and requires giving up one’s current lifestyle, so parenthood appears daunting and even downright unattractive for many. But when it comes to what Mark Driscoll describes as a general modern attitude of ‘contempt for motherhood, I just don’t know what he’s talking about.

I happen to be of an age, my later 30’s, when it’s common to start having children these days, especially where I live, the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s also a place where parenting is a popular choice, despite Driscoll’s claims. I’ll use the place I live as an example, though I suspect that the same is true for other coastal, more urban areas of the US as well, if my friends and acquaintances, media and popular TV shows are any indication. At the same time, it’s true that there’s a comparatively lower birth rate in San Francisco and other large cities than in the US overall. Driscoll attributes this comparatively low birth rate to his ‘contempt for motherhood’ theory, but I don’t think his assumptions are correct.

To begin with, SF proper is an incredibly expensive place to live. When city people have established their careers and met their partners, generally, they move to the suburbs or some smaller town to have their kids, if they haven’t struck it rich and can afford to stay. What I don’t find is that people, generally, love animals to the exclusion of kids. Pets are affordable companions, and need relatively little space, perfect for small city apartments and roommate situations. But children need room, and time, and money for college if you can afford it, so you wait to have them until you have a good job and money put aside.

If you spend much time in the Bay Area, especially as a woman, you find out very quickly, and have it impressed upon you very regularly, that many women here are enthusiastic mothers. They promote the parenting lifestyle vigorously (albeit a particular pure-food-centric, small-family, hands-on, ‘sustainable’ style). The joyous new mothers I know now look at me askance when I answer their inevitable ‘So, when are you having a baby?’ in the negative. After a doubtful pause, sometimes they say, unconvinced by their own words, ‘Well, it’s not for everyone.’ But more often, a knowing nod: ‘…when that clock starts ticking…’ Who knows, perhaps I have a very, very slow clock! Which has been getting slower by the year…..

The whole ‘breeder’ as an expression of contempt-for-mothers thing that Driscoll complains of, I’ll pass over lightly. It’s a tongue-in-cheek term, a response to the eons of dismissiveness and denigration of the gay community as so-called destroyers of the family. (Weird. My gay relatives didn’t in the least bit interfere with the considerable fecundity of my extended family.) The point of that wry, joking term is to criticize the very idea of valuing a human person only in light of their birthing potential, rather than for their own sake as a human being. Yes, the term may be adopted by some who are critical of the decision to have large families in a world where not all kids who are born are cared for, but that’s generally because they see that choice as unsustainable, destructive to future generations. Whether or not you agree with their opinion on the matter, I just don’t see a logical connection to contempt for motherhood in either sense. I think Driscoll could step outside of his own sphere and experience actually talking to members of these communities to understand what they’re getting at.

Driscoll does, however, expressly reveal contempt for people who choose not to have children. He doesn’t address the reasons (other than his assumed ‘contempt’) why people make this choice, so it’s hard to know how he would argue against what would appear to most reasonable people to be excellent reasons. For some, there’s a high probability of risk to their health, as revealed by family and personal medical history. Some are poor and don’t want to give birth to children they can’t afford to feed and educate properly, and some live in dangerous or oppressive areas of the world. Some find that they can best help out their community or extended family by being more available with time and resources than they might be as parents. Some simply feel that having kids to please others, contrary to their own desires and the bent of their personalities, would be irresponsible, let alone selfish. There are many more reasons people decide not to have children, I think usually not for one, but for a variety of reasons (I am among these).

Instead, the contempt Driscoll expresses in his phrase ‘fools’ parade’ seems to be entirely Biblically based. Yet he’s he’s on shaky ground with his particularly narrow interpretations. For one, even if he’s right, that his God exists and literally commanded that humans ‘fill the earth with people’, it seems we did a really good job already, and will continue to do so even if all we did was reproduce at a replacement rate. That commandment does not logically entail that each and every person have as many children as possible, regardless of the circumstances. For another, God may be a ‘good and perfect father to millions’, it’s hard to prove otherwise. But millions of other kids, if his account is correct, are allowed by that same God to die of starvation and disease, and indiscriminate childbearing has never alleviated the problem.

Driscoll leaves no room for the idea that, as a believer in his God, you could also believe that respect for life actually entails prudent childbearing, and that if we are all part of God’s family, that means that there’s a variety of roles in that family other than parents, such as aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and so forth. (While Catholics, especially, promote the big family lifestyle, they also incorporate this interpretation to some degree, with their spiritual roles of celibate ‘sisters’, ‘brothers’, and ‘fathers’.) Parents sometimes need the all-important extra help that non-parent family members are in the best position to provide, and others who wish to rear children but not give birth, such as many gay parents, adopt those children that no one else is caring for. Others invent, build, entertain, and in other ways use all their time and energy to help create a beautiful and more interesting world for all to grow up and flourish in, and so participate indirectly in raising the next generation.

Driscoll seemingly attributes his ‘contempt for motherhood’ to ‘evolutionary thinking’ (he’s not clear on this point), claiming that it leads to thinking of human beings as ‘nothing more than a particular arrangement of cells and matter’. But I fail to see how he makes this assumption, as no evolutionary thinker I’ve met, or whose work I’ve read, thinks this way.

I, too, am an evolutionary thinker, and as such, my sense of the human race as one big family is no spiritual construct, but concrete reality. As an evolutionary thinker, I think it’s absurd that Driscoll parrots that tired old trope that if you accept the scientific theory of evolution, than you must think that humans are nothing more than the sum of their parts, with no point to their existence and with no reason to be good to one another. But why would he assume this? I think it’s unlikely that someone in his position is really that ignorant of the basics of human evolution; rather, I think he feels the need to subscribe to this this false dichotomy of selfish evolutionist or generous deist in order to reach his desired conclusion.

Morality, empathy, altruism: all are key components of human psychology, and they are the very reasons why we are an evolutionary success story. The ‘inevitable’ evils he attributes to evolutionary thinkers, such as genocide and isolation, are directly contrary to the story of how we evolved as one of the most complex, highly social species the world has ever seen. Most other species do not have the same sense of care towards one another as we do, and that’s because most require relatively little cooperation, if any, for their survival, with their short reproductive cycles, sharp teeth, strong limbs, exoskeletons, and so on. Without cooperation, a strong sense of fairness, empathy, and high regard for human life, the few human beings that exist would live lives that are ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short‘… in fact, we would not be identifiable as human beings at all.