The Word of... meh.

One thing that I find… difficult about writing this blog is not giving completely the wrong impression of my actual viewpoint. Let me give feminism as an example. If I’m just going to talk about what I would naturally talk about, I’d probably end up being a lot more likely to be speaking against feminism than for it. Not because I am, but because most of what feminism says is entirely reasonable, and talking about it seems somewhat pointless. Let’s say someone is raped. This does not seem like something I can spend that much time on. Rape is terrible. Right to ownership of one’s own body is the second most important right, if you agree with the concept of rights. Or rape is treating someone as a means, rather than an end, if you’re a Kantian. If you’re a utilitarian, it’s a little lower pleasure at the cost of a lot of higher pain. What… what else am I going to say about that? Is there disagreement on this one? There is really nothing much to say. Say someone is found guilty of rape and is given a shorter jail term than if they’d been caught jaywalking? Well, I can tell you that that’s awful, and that that is a really skewed sense of priorities. But, again, I don’t have much else to say about it. There are no complex issues involved, it’s just wrong. I also don’t feel the need to mention that I disagree with the Chinese treatment of Tibet, or that I am broadly in favour of women getting the vote. I’m a lot more likely to mention it if I disagree with the feminist movement on something, since that’s actually a lot more interesting to talk about, and likely to require more explaining. Dog bites man is not news* – man bites dog is. That I don’t like rape is not something that’s worth your time to read about, or that I feel the need to explain – that I hate freedom and apple pie is. That’s one reason I try and avoid current events, since if I’m not talking about one particular issue I don’t end up expounding only those of my views that make me look even more like an evil bastard than I actually am***. Also for other reasons, but that’s one of them.

Now, in a normal blog, one written by someone with skills such as ‘planning’ and ‘vague coherence’, this would be when I’d come to the ‘but’ part of the post. But, sadly, you are not reading a blog by a member of that exalted company (and if anyone is still reading this blog under that false impression, I would direct them to the ‘next blog’ button at the top of the page, which random chance dictates shall lead you to greener pastures****). Thus, the preceding paragraphs have little or nothing to do with… anything, really, but are merely the insane product of my deranged imaginings. As, I suppose, will be the succeeding ones, so maybe they’re more connected than I thought.

Anyway, I’m a Christian. As you can of course tell from my unfailing love and kindness, my dedication to humanity, and my habit of burning at the stake those with whom I have minor theological disagreements. But I am also what is known as an apatheist. That rather rare word means that I don’t think it matters whether or not God exists. Now, many people would say that it’s quite important if an omnipotent being rules over the entire universe. Some would say that the existence of Heaven and Hell is a question that might concern people somewhat. I, however, disagree.

Let me start with the idea of the idea of the Irenaean theodicy. Which you’ve probably heard in a more basic form – but I’m going to explain it again in order to give myself a false sense of self-worth, and to try and justify to myself all the time I’ve spent studying the bloody thing. Also, my conception of it is mixed up with Hicks, meaning that it’s not quite the same as the traditional theodicy (not that that actually matters too much in this case). So, here’s the basic version: Ought implies can, you can’t say someone is wrong for doing something if they couldn’t have done anything else. I cannot really be blamed for the crusades, because even if that might be the kind of thing I would do, Christian that I am, there remains the minor fact that I hadn’t been born back then, which would make blaming me pretty unreasonable.

The extension of ‘ought implies can’ is that ‘ought implies can not’. If you can’t say someone is wrong for not doing something unless they could have done it, then you can’t say someone is right for not doing something unless they could have done otherwise. And if you can’t say that someone was right for not doing other than as they did, it follows that you can’t say that they were right for doing as they did. So morality implies freedom of choice – cliché as it is, a gun cannot be good or evil.

Which means that people without the opportunity to be evil cannot be good.  So, the argument goes, there is no point in God creating a world in which we do not have free will. The only way people can be good, is if they have the chance to be evil. Furthermore, one is only truly good if one is tempted to do evil – if one simply does the right thing because one might as well, that’s not really good.  Only a truly evil person does evil when it provides no advantage to them over doing good. By which I mean that I don’t think anyone does that, actually.

So you need natural evil, to provide temptation towards evil. And you need the ability to commit moral evil. Furthermore, you need not to know whether or not God exists. Because if you did know that there was an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being judging your every action, who would reward or punish you depending on if you’d been good or bad, if His presence were inescapable… you wouldn’t really be doing good. You’d be doing literally the only thing that was the least bit sane to be entirely altruistic the whole time. What’s more, it would be almost impossible to do good even if you wanted to – even if you would do something based entirely on the fact that it is good, the fact that you will be rewarded for it is pretty much impossible to forget. So without some kind of epistemic distance***** good becomes impossible, and freewill non-existent.

And that’s the important bit. Because if that’s true, it means that looking for proof of God is pointless. And it means that a Universe with a God should look exactly like a Universe without God – at least as far as we can ever tell^††. So it’s not important in that way. And if you did know, how would it affect your behaviour? Well we’ve already established that doing good just because of Heaven isn’t really good at all^{†††††} – if you’re really going to do good, it has to be altruistic, it has to be done because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s in your own self-interest^‡.

So there you are then. There is no good reason why the existence of God should either be possible to determine, or should affect what you do. And I’ve mentioned before that any God who cares more about worship than about good and evil isn’t worth believing in.

That leaves only one thing: If a particular holy book is the source of morality. That would make God’s existence important, at least as far as it meant that the morality of a particular religion was right. Fortunately, I’m a Christian, and used to interpreting the word of God according to my whim. IT’s kinda how we do stuff – the bible is the word of God as written by man, so it’s not inerrant. People interpret it according to their conscience... And the point is, you can do that. The Bible is the word of God written by the hand of man, and written for the mind of man… but, actually, that’s not the point. Because even I don’t know what I’m talking about most of the time. The point is that a good person can do nothing but evil deeds, and still be a good person – because being a good person is, by any reasonable definition, based on the person rather than the thing^‡‡‡. Which means that a person who works as hard as they can to do the right thing, even if they happen to be wrong about it, is a good person, regardless that they ended up with the death of millions. The point is the goodness of the person that matters. The other point is that if a holy book happens to be right in accordance with goodness, there is no way of knowing, so it affects little, and if it is true, it doesn’t matter if God wrote it – it matters what it says.

So… God doesn’t matter. His existence or non-existence doesn’t affect anything, nor does it affect anything in my behaviour. I am an apatheist. Not much else to say, really. Even though I’m sure I forgot something. So let me finish with a sonnet I wrote in Terza Rima. Because I’ve never done it before, and I heard it was really hard.

Lo! I can see, though ‘twas hid so well

Gleaming in darkness but hid from view,

Deep in the night time and lost in hell,

Devils and demons it’s wealth accrue.

Lo! I can see, that it’s holy still,

Rising from fire, and all made anew.

Should from its depths I now drink my fill?

Should I be careful of legends so old

Endlessly ancient, but perhaps, still,

Out of the ages, something of gold?

Beautiful flowers from knowledge grow,

Oh, How much more, from this thing extolled?

Just for few small pennies I’d know,

All of the things which can from it flow.

People were right. That is actually really hard… my congratulations to anyone who can figure out what I’m talking about. And yes, that actually is a sonnet. So there.

*Because those evil creatures will attack you the moment you let your guard down**.

**I am not a dog person.

***Heaven knows, I really don’t need help with that.

****I’d also direct you to Hitherby Dragons, because it’s been far too long since I blatantly plugged it.

*****Philosophers like feeling important, so they give things like ‘God not letting people know He exists’ fancy and complicated names like ‘epistemic distance’, hoping it will fill the emptiness inside^†

^†My love to any philosophers reading… though I would like them to explain why they’re reading this… just… why?

^††Although if you were to somehow compare the two , they would probably look completely different^†††.

^†††Although only as long as it’s impossible to do so – if they are possible to compare, they have to be the same^††††

^††††I’m pretty sure there is a clearer way of putting this.

^{†††††}If your name is Ayn Rand, you may want to ignore this entire post, by the way. Should probably have mentioned that earlier. Sorry Ayn.

^‡Unless, again your name is Ayn Rand^‡‡.

^‡‡You may think this doesn’t apply to you either, as a follower of Ayn Rand. But, unfortunately, the special treatment is just for people with that exact name. Come back when you’re on a stamp. And are called Ayn Rand.

^‡‡‡Virtue ethics away!... I make a distinction between ‘good person’ and ‘good deed’, and I make no claim here of which is more important, or of anything but the distinction between them. I simply ask that it be recognised that George Washington was a good person because of who he was, not simply because of what he did^‡‡‡‡. And that even though he was still a good person, his acceptance of slavery was kinda wrong, regardless of the perpetrator – and that he didn’t really do it because of a flaw in his character, as such^{‡‡‡‡‡}. Or if a man goes into a neighbour’s house, and lights a fire, so it will be warm when he comes home. But he accidentally lights the house, instead. The person is clearly a good person who tried to do something nice, even if they are unutterably stupid. The action (setting someone’s house on fire) is kinda an evil one.

^‡‡‡‡Which was, of course, to lead a totally unjustified terrorist revolt against the legitimate government of his people.

^{‡‡‡‡‡}Arguments about how flawed Washington was sound like things to avoid with a ten foot pole and a suit of armour. But ‘allowed slavery’ isn’t really one of them, I would say – in that time, and in that place, it was an absence of greatness, not a flaw. Incidentally, I have now surpassed my own record for number of footnotes, I think. Addiction to the things is one of my flaws.

Swift and the Onion

Happy women’s history month, I don’t think the USA is quite doomed yet!

This was going to be a post for the end of Feburary, at which point it would probably have been rather more relevant. But stuff came up in real life, this got really pretty long, and so it was later. Ah well, it's not as though I'm often relevant.

Oh, and you might end up wanting to skip the italics. They’re not that important, really.

It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through the towns, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and doorways crowded with women begging, surrounded by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and crying to each passerby for money. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in begging to afford sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to try and find greener pastures in another land into which they have unlawfully entered.
I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the country, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public, as to be hailed around the world as a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars: it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand charity in the streets.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true, a child just dropped from its dam, may be supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other nourishment: at most not above the value of one thousand five hundred shillings, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or upon the charity of others, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing of many thousands.
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I suspect, mostly to avoid the expense, a state which should move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman heart.
The number of souls in this country being usually reckoned thirty four million and half, of these I calculate there may be more than four million couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract seven hundred thousand couple, who are able to maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this being granted, there will remain almost four million breeders. I again subtract one-and-two-tenths million, for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remain two and three-quarter million children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is how this number shall be reared, and provided for? Which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses, (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by violence till they arrive at thirteen years old; even where they are of the most prodigious sort, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier; during which time they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers: As I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the district of Moroto, who protested to me, that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity, and even when they come to this age, they will not yield above forty-one thousand shillings, or fifty-six thousand shillings at most, on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriments and rags having been at least four times that value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration, that of the two and three-quarter million children, already computed, one half-million may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by these savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining two and three-tenth million may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the government, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

Do you think I’m a horrible person yet? Assuming that you don’t know the context of that piece*? Here’s the thing – It’s hard to say how many deaths Swift can be held responsible for, but I certainly put the number at well over five thousand. Probably well over double that. Why? Well, Swift, along with everything else he ever did, caused the Irish war of Independence. And hence the treaty, the parting of the ways, the Troubles, the civil war, and whatever other nastiness has happened to the Irish recently**. Okay, he wasn’t really the only cause. There may have been some other stuff to do with intolerably bad government by the British, reactions against the loss of Irish independence by the acts of union, and even other Irish thinkers, but… well, let me quote an obscure 19^th-20^th century editor named Temple Scott: ‘for the first time in Irish History, a spirit of national life was breathed into an almost denationalized people. Beneath the lean and starved ribs of death Swift planted a soul.’ He’s not the beginning of the Irish argument for independence (I think that would probably be Molyneux), but it was he who lit the country on fire (a metaphor with some cases of unfortunate literality). He was the Hibernian patriot, and he was the one whose birthday was celebrated throughout Dublin. He was the birth of Irish nationalism amongst the common people of Ireland, and, in my opinion, a massive part of the cause of it success***.

Someone with a good knowledge of Irish history could probably say I’m overplaying this – but I don’t think they could really argue that he had no influence. They might argue with me about my decision to pretend the Drapier's letters never existed, but including them wouldn't change my argument, just make it a lot longer (the assertion that I might simplify or overplay specific aspects of something for the sake of narrative is, of course, absurd). The point is, humour, used well, is massively powerful, and it can absolutely change the world. It can galvanise those who support you, convert your opponents to your cause, and make everyone who still does oppose you look like an idiot.

Why the Irish history lesson? Well it’s always a good time for an Irish history lesson – I’ve been meaning to get around to the Pavee for ages. But yeah, satire. There was a… thing… a few days ago. With a writer for the Onion Tweeting an insult at a nine year old girl****. Thing is, I think I have to defend it, and not just in the ‘freedom of speech is awesome anyway’ kind of way. I’m not really looking forward to doing this, so I decided to waste a thousand words on boring rewrites of the works of much better authors. Plus, everyone’s left by now. I can say whatever I want!

Here’s the thing. The Onion is… well, the Onion. When it says something, taking it entirely at face value is really not that good an idea. It seems to be generally agreed (and this is how I read it) that the whole point is that said actress is not, in fact, someone who you’d normally wish to insult, and that the intent was to draw attention to how badly women are, in fact, treated in society, or in the acting profession in particular. In our outrage at a sweet little nine-year-old being attacked this way, we are supposed to question when other people are attacked this way. Just as how Swift’s complete disregard for the Irish is meant to shock people into realising that, y’know, maybe we should actually do something about the whole crushing poverty of the Irish thing. I think that’s all pretty straightforward, so moving on.

The use of adorable children for this purpose is pretty effective technique, too. That’s why Swift used them. That’s why Dickens used them. Adorable children are always a good way of heightening the emotional response to something. They’re innocent, they don’t deserve whatever it happens to be. That’s why Dostoevsky’s Ivan mentions only children*****. Had the Tweet been about an older actress, it wouldn’t have had the same impact – in fact, even the fact that it was the Onion posting it wouldn’t necessarily have got it recognised as satire.

So, it is, in my opinion, a fairly effective bit of satire. Yes, there is an argument that it’s not extreme enough – that some people will agree with it, and others won’t realise it’s^† satire. That it’s the Onion posting it should really help with this, but, personally, I’m of the opinion that it really doesn’t matter that much. Certainly, satire might be a little more effective in causing social change if someone actually recognises it as such. But it must be noted that the Modest Proposal wasn’t really recognised as satire at the time^††. A lot of people objected to it because, whilst it might be a good idea, it was really going a little far. Satire, as Swift knew, is a distorted mirror in which people see every face but their own. That some people actually associate themselves with a satirical statement, even if they don’t agree with it in the end, makes them look rather stupid. So some people not realising that it’s satire can actually make the satire stronger. It’s a more little problematic if the people on the same side as you don’t recognise you as satirical, but that’s less likely – people really do seem to recognise satire more easily if they’re not associated with the target. The problem here certainly isn’t that the people objecting to the tweet ‘just don’t get it’ – I don’t think any of what I’ve read in objections isn’t at all about not understanding

So what is the problem? There’s apparently a racial issue, but that’s another reason I wasn’t entirely sure about talking about this. I fully admit that I’m really not good at race relations, spotting racism, that sort of thing, and I’d really prefer to avoid it. So I will! The important thing is that I see no reason to assume that the author was being racist, or that racism was in any way a part of their thinking – certainly it’s possible that they were subconsciously more able to say that kind of thing about a black person, but, well, innocent until proven guilty. And the entire point of the satire only works on the basis that it is utterly unacceptable to say that kind of thing to the actress concerned. Which I would argue suggests most clearly that the author wasn’t racist, and simply didn’t notice that there could possibly be any racial implications. I would admit that that probably suggests that the author was white, but, honestly, I personally don’t see any reason here to assume racism of any kind on the part of the author. So let’s move swiftly onwards.

There is, though, one major problem here, and that is this – that, unfortunately, a real person was used. Here’s the thing: even if she wasn’t the target of it, that tweet is rather famous now, and she’s probably going to be associated with that particular insult. Forever. That seems like it could, just possibly, have a slight negative impact on her life, especially if she learns about it before she is old enough to recognise it as satire. This is why every real name you ever see on here I will have spent some time thinking about before typing (every fictional name, too, but for different reasons). If it’s reasonable to do so, I’ll probably try and avoid using it. And that’s the problem I have with supporting it. It damages a person, and I really don’t like the idea of saying that it’s OK to sacrifice the individual in order to benefit society as a whole. That seems like a bad precedent.

On the other hand, I ALSO dislike the idea of putting ‘precedent’ above results – that’s the kind of thing that leads to ‘don’t lie to the axe-wielding murderer, because lying is wrong’. In other words, what if the benefit provided by persuading society to re-examine its interactions were to be greater than the damage done to the girl in question. I mean, it’s rather questionable to prevent one person from getting hurt by allowing many others to be hurt more instead. It is, surely, downright insane to prevent one person from getting hurt by allowing even more damage to be done to many others and that person seems downright insane. This logic, incidentally, has led to the death of many theoretical Native Americans. It’s all very well to say that they should just have used a different brand of humour, made the same point without using a real person, and thus avoided all this, but that’s really not how this kind of thing works sometimes.

So can I really say that the Onion shouldn’t have published their tweet that definitively? Can I even say that they should have apologised? Well the answer to the second question is easy: my entire defence of this as the right thing to say is based on the power of humour to be a force for social change. In which case, the instant the Onion sees it as having done more harm than good, then of course they should apologise. ‘I failed and hurt people in the process’ is a brilliant reason to apologise, and all the ethical issues I just raised can be neatly sidestepped if the Tweet didn’t work. I’m still a little uncomfortable with the idea of withdrawing the tweet, since I’m always uncomfortable with that kind of thing, no matter the surrounding circumstances, but that’s a minor problem really, as long as they don’t start denying they said it in the first place.

But can I say that they should not have published the tweet at all? Well… no, not really. I said that I thought I’d have to defend this, and I stand by that, I absolutely defend the publishing of that tweet by its author, and by the Onion. In fact, my conclusion is that it was the wrong thing to do, but that they still should have done it. Would I have done it? Absolutely not. But in my view this tweet is entirely fine save for one single flaw, which is that it uses a real person, a flaw from which every single complaint flows. And I would say that this is a case of them having the idea, knowing that using a real person would make it powerful, and overlooked the complications that arise when ‘[9-year old girl] is a horrible person’ becomes ‘Quvenzhané is a horrible person’ – the damage it could do, and the unintended implications there might be. It all comes down to whether you think that that’s understandable or forgivable, and, personally, I have to say that I think it was both.

*All credit goes to Jonathan Swift, who wrote fairly well, and the real Modest Proposal really deserves a read if you don’t know it already. Also, I was prioritising fidelity to the source over accuracy, so there are probably some problems. Finally, apologies to the actual district of Moroto, which I have no real reason to disparage.
**Although I must admit to some difficulty in finding a way to blame him for the famine.
***Swift himself would probably have been horrified – his relationship with the Irish Catholics who actually ended up being the main supporters of independence was rather… complex.
****The word itself is not one I wish to type, which might make this a little awkward. I’ll probably be ignoring the whether the word itself was too extreme, though.
*****I don’t really want to reproduce the passage here – the whole thing is rather long, if you want the full impact, but it also deserves a read regardless. I’m sure it’s on the interwebs somewhere. The whole of Brother Kramazov deserves a read, actually, but it’s bloody long, and some people find it difficult to get through, too.
^†I believe this to be the only sentence I have ever written in which ‘its’ and ‘it’s’ are equally acceptable words.
^††Some people still think it was serious. These people worry me.