For some unfathomable reason, the tragedy that unfolded in the US a few days ago (a crazy young man with an assault weapon opened fire and killed a number of people and nearly killed a US Congresswoman) is being attributed by some commentators to the vitriolic political rhetoric in the US. In fact this is the main topic of discussion with respect to the event in the US news...rather than, for example, why is it so easy for ANYONE to get their hands on an assault weapon....or how and why individuals like this exist and what (if anything) can be done to prevent them from harming others.
Hello? Are we to believe the shooter would not have been a danger if the political discussions in the US were more cordial?
I find it rather disturbing that this irrational and nonsensical discussion is taken seriously while the REAL issues are completely ignored.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Are right-wingers less rational than centrists or leftists?
No....I am not talking about hockey, soccer or any team sport! The question I pose is whether or not the right-wing politicians, commentators and followers in Canada and the US are, on average, less rational than those making up the rest of the political landscape. And of course I think I have the answer: YES. "Why" you say? Well, I think that roughly speaking right-wingers in North America usually lie somewhere in a particular quadrant of a three dimensional space. The dimensions are: 1) the religious (usually, but not always Christian)/family values axis, 2) the fiscal conservative axis and, 3) the libertarian ("live free or die") axis.
I would argue that anyone who strongly believes in any one (or more) of the following -- i) that gays/lesbians have no place in modern society and their unions and activities should be banished and/or ii) believes that feminism is wrongly-motivated and/or iii) that that there should NOT be a separation of church and state -- is a member of the religious/family values right movement. I think it should go without saying that these beliefs are motivated by poorly justified religious or social rhetoric where the personal preferences of the people in question (whether they be gay, feminist or a member of an elected political party) are being condemned because they don't conform to some particular religiously-inspired 'moral' rule. I don't think there is a well justified and reasoned way of defending the above beliefs. Therefore they are inherently irrational. I don't want to defend Enlightenment values right now -- but please post an argument if you disagree and we can work through it in a later installment.
How about the second axis -- the fiscal conservative axis? This one is harder for me to define, but I think it roughly corresponds to the degree of trust one wishes to accord to the efficiency of the private sector operating in a competitive marketplace in delivering goods/services at optimal prices/volumes to members of a society. The real differences in how 'fiscally conservative' someone is may be many-fold, but often boil down to how much of a democratic society's goods/services should be provided by the government or government corporation versus how much should be allowed 'free market' status as well as the attendant question of how 'regulated' should that marketplace be. Strong right-wingers in this sphere (Bush republicans, Harper Conservatives, Tea-baggers) tend to prefer small government and offloading of as good/services production to the private sector, citing the efficiency of the free market as the rationale. They also tend to want minimalist regulation of this market. I think that good arguments can be made in both directions with regard to privatization of the production of many goods/services, except in the case of education, health care, the arts/culture and research where I believe strongly that there should be strong corporation-independent funding from the government.
In the case of health care, the reason for this is simply that most developed countries that have nationalized health care pay less per capita for their health care (i.e. more than twofold less than the US for example) and have better health indicators (lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy). This is simply a fact that anyone can look up, so I can't really see a strong rational argument against this (if you don't believe me you can plot the data yourself at http://www.gapminder.org/). In terms of funding of research in science and the humanities, I think that it is extremely important to uncouple the search for the "truth", "facts", predictors of happiness or probe the depths of human understanding from a profit motive. The recent problems with drugs produced by major drug companies (Avandia, Paxil etc.) were uncovered NOT by the companies themselves but by independent researchers funded by the government despite the fact that drug companies themselves are regulated to do long-term health studies of their products and trials before they go to market. Remove the "independence" of scientists from companies entirely, and you can kiss the objectivity of their findings good bye! That cannot be in the best interests of society.
As for the funding of arts/culture, well I think that, were it not for governments and private foundations, much of the diversity in human culture would quickly be lost and supplanted by product-placement and marketing aimed at convincing you to buy something. Maybe that is fine with most people....but I think its no accident that financially secure people tend to gravitate toward arts, music, literature as a way to amuse themselves. Its a basic human need that needs to be satisfied. However, often it will not be "economically viable", to maintain a diverse cultural environment if it is left entirely to the private sector.
And last, but not least: education. If one is to rely on an informed public to elect politicians based on their policies rather than succumbing simply to emotional manipulation, then one needs to have a broadly educated public. People living at or near the poverty line cannot afford to pay for the education of their children entirely......For this reason, the existence of a livable democratic society depends on public education. In fact, the degradation of public eduction is probably one of the major reasons why a civilized democratic society is starting to fall apart in North America. Bush was elected mainly because "he's the kinda guy who you can have a beer with".....not because of the brilliance of his policies.
As for government regulation of the private sector...After the financial meltdown, I think its pretty clear why regulation is actually needed. This seems to be a lesson that Stephen Harper has learned about economics while in office as he is apparently now a big supporter of gov. regulation of the banking industry...a rather abrupt about-face it seems to me.
If you are still reading, you might remember that I claimed that the third axis of conservatism is libertarianism. This seems to be peculiar to North America, although it seems to be strong in Australia (fro similar reasons I would guess). The general claim here is that individual freedom is amongst the most important aspect of life and so government control over most things should be minimized (insert Ayn Rand quote here if you really want to). Presumably we need some laws -- against killing each other etc, but most other laws and government taxation are to be completely avoided because they limit personal freedom. This has led to a somewhat large division between libertarians and the religious/family value-types since true libertarians think pot-smoking for example should be legalized....whereas its rather naughty to the uptight social conservatives. In any case, I think that the support for libertarianism really comes from the 'frontier' mentality and harks back to the European colonization of North America (and Australia) where colonizing people were separated by vast swathes of ranch land and could do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to. In rural Canada, the US and Australia, this still seems like a reasonable way of life......What I don't really understand about this general philosophy is how it would be effectively implemented in high-density human societies -- that is, cities such as New York, London, Toronto, Tokyo etc. In fact, I would argue that something effectively like a liberatarian society exists in giant cities in the developing world where there is little rule of law or the law enforcers are corrupt: e.g. perhaps Mombai, Mexico City etc. Having traveled to a few large cities in the developing world, I can tell you that life there seems kind of crazy, dangerous, polluted and there are lots of slums occupied by the poorest and most miserable people alive.......Perhaps that is solely due to economic circumstances, but I don't think so. Opportunism, cheating, exploitation all get out of control in high-density human environments where there is no rule of law...the founding principle of forming collectives/coops to bring everyone up to a certain level of comfort...is the opposite of libertarianism....Since the majority of people in the world (and North America) live in big cities, I just don't see libertarianism as making any sense in this kind of environment. Perhaps I don't really know what it would look like.
Ok -- there it is. My arguments as to why I believe most of those on the more extreme side of the axes of the right wing are actually less rational in their beliefs. Please argue with me if you think I'm wrong.
I would argue that anyone who strongly believes in any one (or more) of the following -- i) that gays/lesbians have no place in modern society and their unions and activities should be banished and/or ii) believes that feminism is wrongly-motivated and/or iii) that that there should NOT be a separation of church and state -- is a member of the religious/family values right movement. I think it should go without saying that these beliefs are motivated by poorly justified religious or social rhetoric where the personal preferences of the people in question (whether they be gay, feminist or a member of an elected political party) are being condemned because they don't conform to some particular religiously-inspired 'moral' rule. I don't think there is a well justified and reasoned way of defending the above beliefs. Therefore they are inherently irrational. I don't want to defend Enlightenment values right now -- but please post an argument if you disagree and we can work through it in a later installment.
How about the second axis -- the fiscal conservative axis? This one is harder for me to define, but I think it roughly corresponds to the degree of trust one wishes to accord to the efficiency of the private sector operating in a competitive marketplace in delivering goods/services at optimal prices/volumes to members of a society. The real differences in how 'fiscally conservative' someone is may be many-fold, but often boil down to how much of a democratic society's goods/services should be provided by the government or government corporation versus how much should be allowed 'free market' status as well as the attendant question of how 'regulated' should that marketplace be. Strong right-wingers in this sphere (Bush republicans, Harper Conservatives, Tea-baggers) tend to prefer small government and offloading of as good/services production to the private sector, citing the efficiency of the free market as the rationale. They also tend to want minimalist regulation of this market. I think that good arguments can be made in both directions with regard to privatization of the production of many goods/services, except in the case of education, health care, the arts/culture and research where I believe strongly that there should be strong corporation-independent funding from the government.
In the case of health care, the reason for this is simply that most developed countries that have nationalized health care pay less per capita for their health care (i.e. more than twofold less than the US for example) and have better health indicators (lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy). This is simply a fact that anyone can look up, so I can't really see a strong rational argument against this (if you don't believe me you can plot the data yourself at http://www.gapminder.org/). In terms of funding of research in science and the humanities, I think that it is extremely important to uncouple the search for the "truth", "facts", predictors of happiness or probe the depths of human understanding from a profit motive. The recent problems with drugs produced by major drug companies (Avandia, Paxil etc.) were uncovered NOT by the companies themselves but by independent researchers funded by the government despite the fact that drug companies themselves are regulated to do long-term health studies of their products and trials before they go to market. Remove the "independence" of scientists from companies entirely, and you can kiss the objectivity of their findings good bye! That cannot be in the best interests of society.
As for the funding of arts/culture, well I think that, were it not for governments and private foundations, much of the diversity in human culture would quickly be lost and supplanted by product-placement and marketing aimed at convincing you to buy something. Maybe that is fine with most people....but I think its no accident that financially secure people tend to gravitate toward arts, music, literature as a way to amuse themselves. Its a basic human need that needs to be satisfied. However, often it will not be "economically viable", to maintain a diverse cultural environment if it is left entirely to the private sector.
And last, but not least: education. If one is to rely on an informed public to elect politicians based on their policies rather than succumbing simply to emotional manipulation, then one needs to have a broadly educated public. People living at or near the poverty line cannot afford to pay for the education of their children entirely......For this reason, the existence of a livable democratic society depends on public education. In fact, the degradation of public eduction is probably one of the major reasons why a civilized democratic society is starting to fall apart in North America. Bush was elected mainly because "he's the kinda guy who you can have a beer with".....not because of the brilliance of his policies.
As for government regulation of the private sector...After the financial meltdown, I think its pretty clear why regulation is actually needed. This seems to be a lesson that Stephen Harper has learned about economics while in office as he is apparently now a big supporter of gov. regulation of the banking industry...a rather abrupt about-face it seems to me.
If you are still reading, you might remember that I claimed that the third axis of conservatism is libertarianism. This seems to be peculiar to North America, although it seems to be strong in Australia (fro similar reasons I would guess). The general claim here is that individual freedom is amongst the most important aspect of life and so government control over most things should be minimized (insert Ayn Rand quote here if you really want to). Presumably we need some laws -- against killing each other etc, but most other laws and government taxation are to be completely avoided because they limit personal freedom. This has led to a somewhat large division between libertarians and the religious/family value-types since true libertarians think pot-smoking for example should be legalized....whereas its rather naughty to the uptight social conservatives. In any case, I think that the support for libertarianism really comes from the 'frontier' mentality and harks back to the European colonization of North America (and Australia) where colonizing people were separated by vast swathes of ranch land and could do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to. In rural Canada, the US and Australia, this still seems like a reasonable way of life......What I don't really understand about this general philosophy is how it would be effectively implemented in high-density human societies -- that is, cities such as New York, London, Toronto, Tokyo etc. In fact, I would argue that something effectively like a liberatarian society exists in giant cities in the developing world where there is little rule of law or the law enforcers are corrupt: e.g. perhaps Mombai, Mexico City etc. Having traveled to a few large cities in the developing world, I can tell you that life there seems kind of crazy, dangerous, polluted and there are lots of slums occupied by the poorest and most miserable people alive.......Perhaps that is solely due to economic circumstances, but I don't think so. Opportunism, cheating, exploitation all get out of control in high-density human environments where there is no rule of law...the founding principle of forming collectives/coops to bring everyone up to a certain level of comfort...is the opposite of libertarianism....Since the majority of people in the world (and North America) live in big cities, I just don't see libertarianism as making any sense in this kind of environment. Perhaps I don't really know what it would look like.
Ok -- there it is. My arguments as to why I believe most of those on the more extreme side of the axes of the right wing are actually less rational in their beliefs. Please argue with me if you think I'm wrong.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
'de-converting' the religious...how to?
I've read Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I count myself as very much in step with the so-called 'new' atheist movement for a number of reasons which overlap with those publicized by the 'Four Horsemen': Dawkin's, Hitchen's, Dennett and and Harris. However, in arguing with people, both religious and non-religious, I've found that one of the most frequently-cited objections to the 'new atheist' movement is that its proponents aggressively attack religion and religious people, using ridicule and hyperbole to make their arguments. "Why can't they be more gentle and respectful in their discussions" is a common objection that I have heard. Some go even further to ask: "Why can't we just leave the religious to their beliefs since its really only the extremists who threaten the rest of us...and their motivation is more political and based on fanaticism than it is about core religious beliefs".
Now I don't actually agree with some of these objections. For example, I think that if someone claims a religious motivation for doing something nasty (i.e. a terrorist who blows up people or property), then, since there aren't any 'rules' about what constitutes religion vs. non-religion (...as someone raised Unitarian, I can personally vouche for that claim), we ought to take the claim at face value. In any case, it is quite clear that religion can inspire people to do nasty things; history definitely bears this out and nobody sensible really argues with this.
Furthermore, I do agree that the religion that is taught to everyday people in churches, mosques, synangogues etc throughout the world often does encourage people to think in a systematically irrational way and is at odds with healthy intellectual skepticism, rational ethical thinking and open debate. That is not to say that sophisticated religious intellectuals/theologians who question beliefs and discuss their doubts openly do not exist. I have debated these issues with many such people......the problem is that high-brow theological philosophy is NOT what is taught 'on the ground' in churches, Sunday schools and the like. For example, your 'average Joe' raised in a Christian tradition is taught that Jesus: a) is the son of God and part of a trinity, b) was born of a virgin (Mary), c) routinely performed miracles, and d) was killed (and martyred himself for our sins) but then rose from the dead . Furthermore, Joe, if he were raised in a more enthusiastic evangelical church, might also believe that Moses literally parted the Red Sea, rivers sometimes ran with blood, animals and plants were loaded onto a big ark by Noah (who lived to be 800 years old), the Earth is 6000 years old, and that Lot gave the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah free license to rape his two daughters in order to save some angels....and that the latter act was not just sane, but just. Clearly, these beliefs constitute either very dubious super-natural claims for which there is simply no evidence or they are based on barbaric and pseudo-ethical principles. Insofar as it actually works, convincing large numbers of people that such things are 'truths' is dangerous. How are we to expect citizens to intelligently choose candidates based on the quality of their arguments in democratic elections or make rational choices about how to raise and educate their children and participate in society if they have been taught to systematically distrust 'evidence' in favour of 'faith' and trade in-built ethical inclinations for a religiously-inspired hodge-podge of retribution and martyrdom? "Ahhh, but its all taught as a metaphor....you are not supposed to take it literally", I hear the critic say. So which part should I believe literally and which part should I take as a metaphor? Is Jesus the son of God or not? Was his a virgin birth or not? Is a communion wafer the body of Christ or not? If a coupla dudes claiming to be angels show up on my doorstep, should I shove my cat out the door so the citizens of Spryfield can have their way with him? These (except for the latter, I hope) are issues that different denominations of Christianity are well known to disagree over....they are certainly not universally accepted to ALL be metaphors.
Where I do think I differ from Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and and Harris is that I am willing to entertain the idea that HOW we go about eradicating the irrationality of religious belief in the world might matter a lot to our potential success in this project. Generally, I think that the fundamentalists committed to their beliefs will simply be enraged by ridicule and haranguing. They will (and do) fight back against atheism, characterizing it as if it were worse than Satanic worship and warning the yung-uns to stay out of our clutches. This is probably counter-productive. Instead, I think that it might be possible to try to eradicate the really stupid 'wings' of religious movements by arguing against things like Creationism, Intelligent design etc as well as decry religious terrorism simply because of its terrible consequences. By not pushing for complete eradication of religion through a 'shock and awe' approach, we can quietly try to re-establish rationality as a guiding principle in the civilized world. By doing so, I suspect the pernicious and irrational aspects of religions will actually wilt on their own from within their own congregations. As Dawkins has pointed out, this more or less already happened to the Church of England within England as this brand of Christianity more or less transformed into a cultural ritual and artifact. Indeed, many Anglicans (apparently sometimes even the A.B. of Cantab. Rowan Williams) actually do not believe in God, or a literal trinity or that any part of the Bible is literally true.....My point is basically that we should probably promote Enlightenment 'rationalist' values/world-views as much as possible and resist direct attacks on religious institutions/beliefs (with the possible exception of the Catholic church...but that is another post....). By doing this, the crazy parts of religions might dissolve from within leaving the useful parts alone -- i.e. parts like community action, meditation, comforting rituals and its functioning as societal 'glue'.
Now I don't actually agree with some of these objections. For example, I think that if someone claims a religious motivation for doing something nasty (i.e. a terrorist who blows up people or property), then, since there aren't any 'rules' about what constitutes religion vs. non-religion (...as someone raised Unitarian, I can personally vouche for that claim), we ought to take the claim at face value. In any case, it is quite clear that religion can inspire people to do nasty things; history definitely bears this out and nobody sensible really argues with this.
Furthermore, I do agree that the religion that is taught to everyday people in churches, mosques, synangogues etc throughout the world often does encourage people to think in a systematically irrational way and is at odds with healthy intellectual skepticism, rational ethical thinking and open debate. That is not to say that sophisticated religious intellectuals/theologians who question beliefs and discuss their doubts openly do not exist. I have debated these issues with many such people......the problem is that high-brow theological philosophy is NOT what is taught 'on the ground' in churches, Sunday schools and the like. For example, your 'average Joe' raised in a Christian tradition is taught that Jesus: a) is the son of God and part of a trinity, b) was born of a virgin (Mary), c) routinely performed miracles, and d) was killed (and martyred himself for our sins) but then rose from the dead . Furthermore, Joe, if he were raised in a more enthusiastic evangelical church, might also believe that Moses literally parted the Red Sea, rivers sometimes ran with blood, animals and plants were loaded onto a big ark by Noah (who lived to be 800 years old), the Earth is 6000 years old, and that Lot gave the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah free license to rape his two daughters in order to save some angels....and that the latter act was not just sane, but just. Clearly, these beliefs constitute either very dubious super-natural claims for which there is simply no evidence or they are based on barbaric and pseudo-ethical principles. Insofar as it actually works, convincing large numbers of people that such things are 'truths' is dangerous. How are we to expect citizens to intelligently choose candidates based on the quality of their arguments in democratic elections or make rational choices about how to raise and educate their children and participate in society if they have been taught to systematically distrust 'evidence' in favour of 'faith' and trade in-built ethical inclinations for a religiously-inspired hodge-podge of retribution and martyrdom? "Ahhh, but its all taught as a metaphor....you are not supposed to take it literally", I hear the critic say. So which part should I believe literally and which part should I take as a metaphor? Is Jesus the son of God or not? Was his a virgin birth or not? Is a communion wafer the body of Christ or not? If a coupla dudes claiming to be angels show up on my doorstep, should I shove my cat out the door so the citizens of Spryfield can have their way with him? These (except for the latter, I hope) are issues that different denominations of Christianity are well known to disagree over....they are certainly not universally accepted to ALL be metaphors.
Where I do think I differ from Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and and Harris is that I am willing to entertain the idea that HOW we go about eradicating the irrationality of religious belief in the world might matter a lot to our potential success in this project. Generally, I think that the fundamentalists committed to their beliefs will simply be enraged by ridicule and haranguing. They will (and do) fight back against atheism, characterizing it as if it were worse than Satanic worship and warning the yung-uns to stay out of our clutches. This is probably counter-productive. Instead, I think that it might be possible to try to eradicate the really stupid 'wings' of religious movements by arguing against things like Creationism, Intelligent design etc as well as decry religious terrorism simply because of its terrible consequences. By not pushing for complete eradication of religion through a 'shock and awe' approach, we can quietly try to re-establish rationality as a guiding principle in the civilized world. By doing so, I suspect the pernicious and irrational aspects of religions will actually wilt on their own from within their own congregations. As Dawkins has pointed out, this more or less already happened to the Church of England within England as this brand of Christianity more or less transformed into a cultural ritual and artifact. Indeed, many Anglicans (apparently sometimes even the A.B. of Cantab. Rowan Williams) actually do not believe in God, or a literal trinity or that any part of the Bible is literally true.....My point is basically that we should probably promote Enlightenment 'rationalist' values/world-views as much as possible and resist direct attacks on religious institutions/beliefs (with the possible exception of the Catholic church...but that is another post....). By doing this, the crazy parts of religions might dissolve from within leaving the useful parts alone -- i.e. parts like community action, meditation, comforting rituals and its functioning as societal 'glue'.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)