pilgrim.not.wanderer

Isn’t it true that, according to the standard interpretation of the freedom of religion clause of the first amendment of the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional?

Am I wrong about this?

Here’s a discussion of the mentions of God in the Declaration of Independence.  His conclusion is the the document is theist, not deist.  But not Christian.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

One of the ways we make sense of our lives is by narrating them according to certain culturally meaningful stories.

There is almost always a grain of truth to these stories.  But they can become stale.

One of our great stories is the one where the heroic rebel steps out from the monolithic crowd.  He or she finally gets to ‘be themselves’.

Whenever things go bad for us in a group we belong to, we always narrate the situation as if we’re a heroic rebel and the group is a monolithic crowd.  We end up as the hero.

Sure, there is grain of truth to this story.  But it is getting really stale.

In our culture, we ALL think we’re the rebel hero.  That sensibility is now deeply imbued into our mass culture. The need to stand out is the engine which drives ‘the system’. 

The way we step out from the crowd and achieve authenticity is through our clothes, our music, our cars, our hobbies, etc.  All of this is consumed.  To be rebel is to be an edgy shopper.  To be rebel is to consume on the cutting edge.  Then everyone will want to be like you.  They’ll all become like you.  Then a new rebel will emerge, and the cycle continues.  This is how consumer culture works.

True rebellion now requires us to fade into the crowd.

On the other hand, what’s so wrong with consumption?  What we consume really does shape us into the kind person we are.  I like finding quirky, interesting things to buy.  Is this so bad?  Always?

Isn’t the problem with the way sellers try to harness us by our base passions, bypassing our critical judgment?  

Again, being ‘passionate’ is always praised in our society.  Maybe the problem isn’t really with consumerism, but with ‘passion-ism’.  Who is praised for having good judgment?  

Embodied creatures must consume, right?  That’s how life works, right?  So isn’t a good and interesting life built (at least in part) by consumption?

Dualism is totally passe.  If you confess dualism or engage in practices that seem to presuppose dualism, that’s a major clue that you don’t ‘get it’.  There are many rationales for this.  Pick your favourite.

So why then all this talk of embodiment?  You can be as pro-body and pro-embodiment as you like.  Good for you.  But to do so is to continue to live in the realm of dualism, right?

This seems so obvious to me.  How is it that everyone is missing this?  Am I missing something?

BTW - I’m in favour of all that pro-body and pro-embodiment talk.  But I’m also a dualist of sorts.  Though I’m not sure precisely what sort of dualist I am.

No problem really, if by multiculturalism we mean the welcoming of the food, fashion, art and private religious practices of the many people groups immigrating into Canada which differ from the larger Canadian tradition.  

I recently attended our local multicultural festival.  It was great.

The philosophical problem with much of the talk about multiculturalism is that it goes on as if multiculturalism itself is not a substantive culture.  

Not just any culture can function as a host for multiculturalism.  Not right now.  Maybe with time, but not right now.

Multiculturalism depends for its survival on certain cultural values and institutions, right?  

Don’t we have to tend to these cultural values and institutions if we want multiculturalism to thrive?

So long as we treat these cultures as flavours to spice up our boring Western lives, aren’t we being patronizing?

When those comic strips were published, our first worry was hurting the feelings of Muslims and the hate crimes against Muslims they might inspire.

When savage protests broke out across the Muslim world (at least as seen in the news media), no one blinked an eye.  In the face of death threats, Western media were expected to refrain from publishing the comics or repent of having done so.

This happened because Muslims are the other.  

Because of they are the other, their savage religious violence wasn’t condemned.  But surely if we engaged in such savage religious violence, we would have condemned ourselves, right?

Here we uncover a bizarre form of socially acceptable bigotry.  Those savage Muslims simply cannot be held to the same standard as we Westerners.

(I’m not endorsing this.  I’m saying that this is what our actions say, whether we realize it or not.)

The extent to which this double standard exists is the extent to which Muslims are barred from being fully welcomed into our society.  

The only person who is free from self-limitation in view of the other, is the other.

The only person who can issue a naked demand for what’s in their interest, with no shame, is the other.

Only the other can boldly engage in overt self-assertion, even violently, without a hint of shame.

The Nazis were able to rise to ascendancy because of their ability, thanks to post WWI realities, to cast themselves as the other.  How else were they able to lead the Germans in such bold self-assertion without shame?

You can bet that soon we’ll all be trying to narrate history such that we end up as the other.  In the world of tomorrow, which has already broken in upon today in many parts of the West, this will be THE way to achieve cultural power.

Only the other is free from social pressure to engage in self-questioning and self-doubt.  

The icon of righteousness is the other, fist raised high, defiantly culture-warring against larger society.

How do you think white-power racism groups get off the ground?  They ‘otherize’ themselves, right?

…even though most of it is phony.  The more self-consciously ‘punk’ the band is, the more phony it is.  At least nowadays.

Topic for discussion: the only music more sonically inbred and conservative than punk is new country.  Talk amongst yourselves.

Another topic for discussion: when Hanna Montana started wearing studded belts the ‘punk’ look finally (and mercifully) died (been sick for years) and went to rest in peace in Disney heaven.  Pick one up at your local Disney store and look just like Good Charlotte or Simple Plan.  Take that mom and dad!!!  Talk amongst yourselves.

http://www.ruinediphone.com/

Punk is how Disney sells children’s albums, GM sells SUVs, and McDonalds sells BigMacs.  The Sex Pistols were the original boy band, designed as an elaborate advertisement campaign for Malcolm McLaren’s ‘anti-fashion’ leather fashions.

You can spot a phony punk a mile away by their over fondness for the Sex Pistols.  

I hear many folks these days speaking in hush tones about ‘the other’.  How do we treat ‘the other’?  Hmm.

This, most often from the lips of the self-professed enemies of abstraction.  Ironic, no?  Isn’t ‘the other’ among the most repulsive of abstractions?  And it positively reeks of Cartesianism, right?.  

I’m prejudiced against these kinds of folks.  

I much prefer the company of those who concern themselves with the well-being of others, rather than ringing their hands, faces ashen, in worry about ‘the other’.

BTW, if you still think being ‘the other’ is a sorry state to be in, you are living in the past.  ’The other’ sits on the throne of political/cultural power.  That’s why everyone is in such a rush to belong to a minority community.  And that’s why minority communities are in such a rush to establish sub-communities.  I suspect that most talk these days in praise of community and in criticism of individualism is phony.  Its end game is 7 billion communities of one.  Community is the new individualism.  This is the engine which drives consumer culture.  

The decision to retreat to an ivory tower to engage in philosophical reflection is a moral decision.  That is, it is subject to moral evaluation.  Why not feed some starving children?  Even to stop and think about this question is to choose to delay helping the starving.  What about the safety and luxury of life in an ivory tower?  Somehow you obtained this.  From whom?  Justly?  

Ever notice that when folks do embark on this kind of philosophical retreat, they imagine it to be a noble, even heroic, thing to do?  The reality of our moral obligations precedes even our philosophical reflections on them.  We find ourselves with them.

The person who refuses to acknowledge that they find themselves with these moral obligations is seriously unwell, bluffing, self-deceptive, or satanic.  

Acknowledging these moral obligations is not a matter of fideism.  Such an acknowledgement is the beginning of moral reason, not its end or its crowning achievement.  

Unless we are are seriously unwell, we all know that moral obligations exist, even before we stop to philosophize about it.  This, regardless of what we have to say about it.  Even the false heroism of blanket skepticism is animated by a knowledge of our moral obligations.  How else would this kind of skepticism have attained such an aura of bravery and nobility?  

I’m really lovin’ me some Hall & Oates.  What can I say?  You like it too.  Liar.  You like it.  Admit it.

In other words, while a radical denial of absolute obligations cannot destroy the moral passions of man, it can render them homeless.  The desire for justice and brotherhood can then no more confess itself for what it is, but will seek embodiment in some theory of salvation through violence.  Thus we see arising those skeptical, hard-boiled, allegedly scientific forms of fanaticism which are so characteristic of our modern age.

{snip}

[Academic freedom] consists in certain metaphysical assumptions without which freedom is logically untenable, and without the firm profession of which freedom can be upheld only in a state of suspended logic, which threatens to collapse at any moment and which in these searching and revolutionary times cannot fail to collapse before long.

Man’s rapidly increasing destructive power will soon put the ideas of our time to crucial test.  We may be faced with the fact that only by resuming the great tradition which embodies faith in these realities can the continuance of the human race on earth, equipped with the powers of modern science, be made both possible and desirable.

Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty, 58.

Prayer has been unusually fervent and lively lately.  I may have never prayed with such intensity and sincerity.

Quiet times of meditation have brought me face to face with myself in an especially stark and unguarded manner.  Solitude has been very precocious.

If you pray, pray for my mother.  She’s in surgery Monday June 23, 2008.

I keep hearing about this:

Even in Africa – where there is a serious and deadly Aids crisis in some countries – the international focus on Aids has been motivated more by pernicious moralism than straightforward charity. Diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis are bigger killers than Aids. Yet focusing on Aids allows western governments and NGOs to lecture Africans about their morality and personal behaviour. It also adds a new gloss to the misanthropic population-control arguments of western charities, which now present their promotion of condoms in “overly fecund” Africa as a means of preventing the spread of disease.

Surely malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhea treatments would be cheaper than AIDS drugs, right?  And given that in Africa more people die from these diseases, shouldn’t it be obvious that we should be throwing our resources behind these treatments?

Science or scholarship can never be more than an affirmation of the things we believe in.  These beliefs will by their very nature, be of a normative character, claiming universal validity; they must also be responsible beliefs, held in due consideration of evidence and of the fallibility of all beliefs; but eventually they are ultimate commitments, issued under the seal of our personal judgement.  To all further critical scruples we must at some point finally reply: “For I believe so.”

We are living in the midst of a period requiring great readjustments.  One of these is to learn once more to hold beliefs, our own beliefs.  The task is formidable, for we have been taught for centuries to hold as belief only the residue which no doubt can conceivably assail.  There is no such residue left to-day, and that is why the ability to believe with open eyes must once more be systematically re-acquired.  

Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty, 37.

I’d say all of my philosophical interests revolve around this.

I’m especially interested in academic or intellectual conflict.  

It is a sign of your inexperience or immaturity if you are scandalized by the persistence of conflict even amongst seemingly trustworthy and intelligent ‘experts’.  

We used to think (we still do?) that if set we two brilliant minds (or groups of minds) into conflict with each other, the battle will eventually end with a winner and the truth will be uncovered.  

Things haven’t panned out like this.  Conflict persists and seems to be hardened by these battles.

In my experience, if you give both sides a sympathetic ear you’ll find that each is somewhat convincing.  To the partisans, however, the other side will always be wrong in some plain and obvious way.  Folks on the right-wing are simply greedy and are pandering to the corporations.  Plain and simple.  Folks on the left-wing care more about seeming nice and growing bureaucracies than in actually helpful real people.  Their economics has been proven false, plain and simple.  I can’t accept either view.

Once problem is that we can’t even agree on what the problem is or what the relevant data are.  We can’t even agree on what sorts of things would rightly confirm or disconfirm the opposing positions.

Sometimes I’m tempted to think the side you choose has more to do with constructing your identity, with deciding what kind of person you want to be, than it has to do with arguments or truth.