Thursday, August 30, 2007

Dinosaurs, shminosaurs

On the recommendation of a fellow Xoogler I've been reading a truly excellent book by William Bernstein called "The Birth of Plenty : How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created". Although it's ostensibly about economics it relevantly touches on religion and philosophy as well. Bernstein argues (convincingly IMO) that scientific rationalism is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for economic growth and prosperity. (The other three necessary conditions are property rights, capital markets, and an efficient communication and transportation infrastructure.)

Berstein insightfully identifies the willingness to discard old ideas in favor of new ones as one of the defining characteristics of scientific rationalism, and indeed as the principal distinction between modern Western culture and all other human cultures throughout history. This is significant because if Bernstein is right (and it seems like a no-brainer to me, but read his book if you need to be convinced) then the potential dangers of fundamentalism go far beyond the fears of even the most paranoid among us. If Bernstein is right then the fundamentalist's rejection of scientific rationalism will lead us back to the economic dark ages just as surely as the Communist's rejection of private property did the same during the latter part of the 20th century. For that reason alone I believe that it is vitally important that fundamentalism be resisted by any means necessary.

I actually believe that there are fundamentalists who think that breaking the back of the modern capitalist economy would be a good thing, but I think these are a tiny, tiny minority. I think most fundamentalists -- certainly most Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. -- know in their heart of hearts that getting rid of science would be a Bad Thing all in all, hence the odd spactacles of so-called Creation Science and Intelligent Design, Al Quaeda recruiting on the Internet, and Pentacostals praying to God that their Power Point presentations will work properly.

The problem is that science is based on the premise that reality is the ultimate arbiter of Truth, and reality is a harsh taskmaster. You realy can't fool Mother Nature. That is why fundamentalists tend to focus on things like evolution where much of the scientific evidence is subtle or not readily accessible or even lost in the mists of time. Scientists (and I mean that with a capital "S") fall readily into the fundamentalists' rhetorical trap, which is one of the reasons that fundamentalism is gaining so much ground these days. Fundamentalism may not be correct, but fundamentalists are very, very good at making it feel as though it is. Fundamentalism has a much, much better marketing department than most of its competitors.

I have said it before but it bears repeating: I have no quarrel with religion, only with fundamentalism. I believe that religion serves a genuine human need, and the failure of atheists like Richard Dawkins to recognize this, let alone propose a credible alternative for fulfilling that need, is one of the reasons for the rise of fundamentalism. (Karen Armstrong thinks so too.)

One indication of the utter futility of rational debate when it comes to fundamentalism is the amount of effort spent on arguing about things like whether or not humans were contemporaneous with dinosaurs. If you're going to try to take Genesis seriously as an alternative scientific hypothesis you have much, much bigger worries than dinosaurs. Let's take a brief tour of Genesis, shall we?

In the beginning God created the heavans and the earth. And the earth was without form and void...

So... what shape was the earth at that point? Well, it didn't have a shape. That's what "without form" means. So what does it mean for the earth to have been created but not have a shape?

...and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

So earth didn't have a shape, but the waters still had a "face" for God to move upon. And how, exactly, does God "move"? I don't mean to ask by what mechanism God moves, I'm asking what it actually means for God to move. On the usual meaning of the word move it means to change location from one place to another. But that is only possible for a thing that has a definite location to begin with, and modern Christian fundamentalist dogma holds that God is everywhere at all times. So how can He possibly move?

We're not two verses in and already there are a host of questions that are perfectly legitimate to ask from a scientific point of view, but which are utterly unanswerable except by e.g. holding that words mean different things when they apply to God, at which points all bets are off. To quote Tom Stoppard, "The only point of using language at all is that words are taken to stand for certain thoughts and ideas and not for other thoughts and ideas."

And God said, "Let there be light" and there was light.

Where was the light coming from at this point? Remember, this is only the First Day, and the sun and stars don't get created until the Third Day.

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Here in verse 5 we collide headlong against a scientific brick wall. What does it mean for there to be "evening" and "morning" in a universe where the earth has no shape and there is no sun?

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were above the firmament from the waters which were below the firmament. And God called the firmament Heaven.

Leaving aside the linguistic question of how God can create "heaven" on day 2 after already having created "the heavens" on day 1, this is quite possibly the most transparent indication that Genesis is just a bronze-age creation myth like any other. Bronze-age people thought that the sky was blue because it was full of water. Forget dinosaurs, where are the waters above the firmament?

There's so much just in the first chapter of Genesis which is utterly ridiculous from a scientific point of view that it is hard to know where to stop. God creates plants on day 3, but doesn't create the sun until day 4. The sun and the moon are called "two great lights" despite the fact that the moon is not a light, it's a big rock. The sun, moon and stars are created "to divide the light from the darkness" but the light was already divided from the darkness back in verse 4. And then we get to chapter 2 where the whole story is told over again, except this time man is created before the animals instead of after (the animals are created specifically to keep man company, but the plan doesn't work so God has to try again, at which point He creates Eve). As a scientific hypothesis, Genesis is utterly and transparently hopeless long, long before we ever get to Noah. It's not even a close call. And yet the arguments go on. And on and on and on and on and on.

The problem is not that Creationism is wrong, the problem is that it is wrong only from a particular point of view. Genesis is wrong from a scientific point of view, not from the point of view of faith. But Creationists are adept at flitting back and forth between these two points of view while the Scientists (and the scientists) are stuck in their Baconian and Popperian epistemologies. The success of science is so overwhelming that they cannot accept that there might be truth beyond science despite the fact that there is scientific evidence that this is in fact the case! The placebo effect, for example, is scientific proof that believing in things that aren't scientifically true can have materially beneficial effects.

Faith is a placebo, and I do not mean that in any sort of pejorative way. Placebos can be effective. Sometimes they are the most or even the only effective medicine available for certain maladies, and the modern world suffers from such maladies much more than atheists generally acknowledge. And in that regard atheists have their heads buried more deeply in the sand than the fundamentalists, with the net result that the fundamentalists are winning.

And as someone who enjoys the creature comforts that modern economies provide, that's bad. Really really bad.

17 comments:

denis bider said...

I believe the implicit assumption made by religions' critics is that one should keep an open mind about questions for which we have no evidence, or at the very least, not make unfounded claims about the answers to those questions, until evidence is found.

What do you suggest? How do we reconcile the objective need for scientific rationality with people's ostensible personal need to know answers today that have yet to be discovered?

Should we manufacture answers? Create a new religion that is more compatible with scientific rationality? A religion that will be willing to forfeit its made-up conclusions if/when eventually science is able to answer progressively more of our fundamental questions about the universe?

And just how exactly shall this religion be propagated? With truth, which would make it a unique exception, or with lies, like all other religions?

Imagine that this religion would be different and honest upfront. Would it say: "Here's something that we think you might want to believe in the absence of evidence to the contrary. You're free not to believe it, but we think it will bring you peace of mind. That is, at least until the truth is discovered by science, at which point the truth may well be entirely different."

The problem with religions is that they are fundamentally dishonest. They purport to answer questions to which no answers are known to exist. That is fundamentally hurtful. There is no way to have a religion like this and avoid adverse effects on the believers' reasoning abilities.

Do you think an honest religion would fare better? It seems oxymoronic that a religion which openly confesses to be made up and which does not defend its claims with fundamentalist fervor would fare better than existing religions which assert infallibility and divine truth.

And if a new religion does assert infallibility and divine truth, then it's no less an enemy of reason than any of the existing.

Ron said...

The problem with religions is that they are fundamentally dishonest. They purport to answer questions to which no answers are known to exist.

No. This is a perfect example of fundamentalist atheist prejudices in play. Religions answer questions for which no scientific answers are known to exist. Some religions even provide answers which are at odds with the scientific answers. But (and this is the crucial point) whether or not that matters to you is your choice.

That is fundamentally hurtful.

Only by your quality metric. Other people believe that a blind adherence to scientific rationalism leads to a spiritually bankrupt existence which they find every bit as abhorrent as a materially bankrupt existence is to you and me.

What do you suggest?

For starters I think that Dawkensian atheists should get off their high horse and come to grips with the fact that their worldview is based on unprovable assumptions, and to understand that there are sound reasons why some people may choose not to accept those assumptions. Cast out the beam from thine own eye before beholding the mote in thy brother's.

denis bider said...

[denis] The problem with religions is that they are fundamentally dishonest. They purport to answer questions to which no answers are known to exist.

[Ron] No. This is a perfect example of fundamentalist atheist prejudices in play.

I don't think that's correct. My statement is an example of agnostic reasoning.

I believe it is reasonable to require that a sane person's mental model of the universe should be (1) consistent internally, and (2) consistent with phenomena the person has observed.

If we agree thus far, then in my view, agnosticism requires also that a sane person's mental model should (3A) avoid making claims about phenomena a person hasn't had a chance to (directly or indirectly) observe.

The rationale for this requirement is that if a person has not observed said phenomena, there is no way to assess the consistency of the mental model with observed phenomena, and thus any claims made by the mental model are potentially in error.

Conversely, an atheist's and a believer's mental models both make claims about unobserved phenomena, at least to the extent that one claims the existence of divine beings, and one denies it.

This isn't science, it is sense.

[denis] That is fundamentally hurtful.

[Ron] Only by your quality metric.

By mine and yours, since as you wrote yourself, the economic viability of a nation is questionable if dominated by people with insane mental models: [Ron] "If Bernstein is right then the fundamentalist's rejection of scientific rationalism will lead us back to the economic dark ages just as surely as the Communist's rejection of private property did the same during the latter part of the 20th century."

[Ron] Other people believe that a blind adherence to scientific rationalism leads to a spiritually bankrupt existence which they find every bit as abhorrent as a materially bankrupt existence is to you and me.

Would you mind explaining the concept of spiritual bankruptcy to me?

I understand that material bankruptcy means having no posessions and no money.

What is spiritual bankruptcy, then?

[denis] What do you suggest?

[Ron] For starters I think that Dawkensian atheists should get off their high horse and come to grips with the fact that their worldview is based on unprovable assumptions, and to understand that there are sound reasons why some people may choose not to accept those assumptions.

By unprovable assumptions, do you mean the atheists' assertion that god does not exist, or do you mean other things in addition?

[Ron] Cast out the beam from thine own eye before beholding the mote in thy brother's.

Assuming the criteria I presented for a sane mental model of reality above, the atheists are less in error (mote in eye) than believers (beam in eye): although the atheists are claiming without evidence that there is no god, their mental model is much more (1) consistent internally and (2) consistent with observed phenomena than the mental model of a believer - especially a fundamentalist one.

SpaceGhoti said...

The reason people like Dawkins have stepped forward to bring the battle to religion is because people are allowing religion to pattern their thinking. It boils down to a tradition of believing something because someone in authority told you to. Can you see the danger there? Where's the critical thinking? Where's the free will in choosing what you want to believe? Are you likely to worship Vishnu if you're never exposed to Hinduism? Or are you more likely to reject Vishnu as a deity if you're brought up a Methodist? More to the point, how can we even make an informed decision about the existence of Jehovah or Vishnu, let alone what they want us to do? All we have to rely on is someone's word that it's all absolutely true.

Is it spiritual bankruptcy to assume that which cannot be proven is, by definition, false? Even our legal system is based on the assumption that since you can't prove a negative, you are only allowed to act on things you can prove. It seems to me that all of our wisdom is derived from this concept, except religion. Religion is the one thing we're not allowed to question or criticize. Dawkins suggests it's dangerous to allow such exceptions, because it tempts us to either create more or expand that exception to encompass all aspects of life. The Fundamentalists have chosen the latter because it's a logical progression of the mindset.

I agree that religion is a placebo, and it can be used or abused like any tool. But there are other tools we can use to better effect, like philosophy and art, that achieve the same results. Life doesn't have to be devoid of meaning because there's no deity involved. It simply requires us to be more responsible in choosing the meaning we attach to our lives. Sure, it may be a little more work and it certainly involves a lot more learning, but how can this be a bad thing? Why not earn the benefits we can derive from our belief systems?

Ron said...

I believe it is reasonable to require that a sane person's mental model of the universe should be (1) consistent internally, and (2) consistent with phenomena the person has observed.

On that definition I am not sane, and I doubt that you could find very many sane people. Internal consistency is a very tall pole.

[denis] That is fundamentally hurtful.
[Ron] Only by your quality metric.
[Denis] By mine and yours

That's right. But my point is that this is a quality metric that you and I have chosen. It is far from an absolute truth that material wealth is a Good Thing.

Would you mind explaining the concept of spiritual bankruptcy to me?

That's tough because it means different things to different people. It probably deserves a post of its own, but I'll take a quick whack at it here: Spiritual bankruptcy is when you don't have a sense of purpose or meaning, no hope of trancendance, no contact with the divine. It's when you can't find the inner strength to face reality, to face pain, to face injustice, to face death. It's a dark and scary place, and if you've never experienced it you are very, very lucky.

By unprovable assumptions, do you mean the atheists' assertion that god does not exist?

No, I mean the Scientist's assumption of materialistic naturalism, that physical reality is All There Is. The non-existence of god(s) follows from that assumption.

atheists are less in error

Only by their own standards. That is the key concept that atheists fail to grasp.

Ron said...

Is it spiritual bankruptcy to assume that which cannot be proven is, by definition, false?

Not in and of itself, no. But it can, and empirically often does, lead to spiritual poverty. Reality is harsh, and not everyone can handle it all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that people like Dawkins are taking the battle to religion. What I lament is not that they are doing it but that they are doing it IMO ineffectively in part because they are operating on a false assumption, to wit, that religion is bad because it is "wrong".

And I certainly agree with you that religion is not necessary to lead a spiritually fulfilled life. I'm very happy being an atheist. (I tell my relgious friends that I once told God that I didn't believe in Him, and He replied and said that was OK.) But it's a lot easier to just believe that Jesus loves you than to try to, say, unravel the mysteries of quantum mechanics and try to find meaning there. (You get a lot more reinforcement from your peers too.)

If atheism is to thrive it has to compete successfully in the marketplace of ideas. And to do that it needs to be a lot more than merely correct.

SpaceGhoti said...

But it can, and empirically often does, lead to spiritual poverty.

I don't know that I agree with this. As I said, the tools are there for everyone to lead a full and rewarding life without resorting to a frontal lobotomy in the name of invisible gods. Atheism doesn't claim to offer meaning in our lives because that is not its purpose. Atheism is not the opposite of religion. Atheism is simply the observation that there are no gods to give us the meaning we're searching for. Instead, we have to find it for ourselves.

If atheism is to thrive it has to compete successfully in the marketplace of ideas. And to do that it needs to be a lot more than merely correct.

So your complaint is that not enough atheists have focused on the alternatives to religion. I can't say that I blame them, because it's hard to get past the inertia of the crowd that says "yes there is a God, and I pray to him every day!" First you have to get them out of that mindset, and then you can show them what else there is for them.

Dawkins and his fellows are not philosophers, nor are they therapists. An argument could be made about Hitchens, but the less said about him the better. Dawkins in particular is a scientist, and a scientist's role is to test theories to discover the truth. He leaves the social implications to others. Perhaps we need another atheist to stand up and take that next step, to write a boook about what's left when you remove religion from your life. The problem is that this is a very personal and highly individual journey, and I shudder to think of a mass market approach to it.

I've written more about the alternatives here, but it is by no means a final proposition.

Ron said...

[Ron] But it can, and empirically often does, lead to spiritual poverty.

[Spaceghoti] I don't know that I agree with this.

You should read the first chapter of "The Left Hand of God" by Michael Lerner.

I should clarify that it is not so much atheism per se as the non-theistic world of the modern technological economy that leads to spiritual poverty. To oversimplify Lerner's point, most people have jobs where they are treated as if they were interchangeable cogs in a machine. They are not valued as human beings, only as money-making components of a system that enriches their employers more than it does them. To counteract the dehumanising effects of the modern technological economy, they cannot turn to science because that is part and parcel of the system that dehumanised them in the first place. So they turn to God.

denis bider said...

[denis] I believe it is reasonable to require that a sane person's mental model of the universe should be (1) consistent internally, and (2) consistent with phenomena the person has observed.
[Ron] On that definition I am not sane, and I doubt that you could find very many sane people. Internal consistency is a very tall pole.

Indeed, but it does serve as a useful measure. Perhaps no one is entirely sane, but some people are more obviously insane than others.


[denis] That is fundamentally hurtful.
[Ron] Only by your quality metric.
[denis] By mine and yours
[Ron] That's right. But my point is that this is a quality metric that you and I have chosen. It is far from an absolute truth that material wealth is a Good Thing.

I fear that you have fallen into the tar pits of moral relativism.

The reason why we have material wealth is not that we planned for it. The reason is that material wealth arises spontaneously out of a world where people are more or less free to do what they want to the extent that it does not violate other people's freedoms. Our material wealth has arisen spontaneously out of our freedom to produce, freedom to consume, freedom to trade, freedom to speak. If you are proposing that an alternative world where there is no material wealth would be better, you are effectively proposing restricting one of our freedoms so that the wealth cannot be produced. If that is what you are proposing, then you are proposing that a world with less freedom will be a world where people are happier.

That may well be the case for some people - indeed, it may be the case for some fundamentalist believers who would do a lot to restrict other people's freedoms in terms of what they say, what they do, even what they think and believe! But most people are not happier in a world where their freedoms are restricted. You generally cannot restrict people's freedoms and expect them to be happier than they were.

The whole reason why fundamentalist religion is dangerous is because it wants to restrict the freedoms that make our material wealth and our general levels of happiness possible; it wants to lead us into a place where there is less freedom and more suffering, for the sake of pleasing the imagined imperatives of fictional gods. And religion, in so far as it is non-fundamentalist, is dangerous to the extent that it confuses a person and incapacitates their reasoning abilities so that they become blind to the threat.

There is no room for different views here. If you want to see the freedom enjoyed in a fundamentalist country, why don't you go and visit Saudi Arabia, or Iran? And if you want to see the happiness that ought to be ubiquitous in a materially non-developed nation, why don't you go and spend some time in North Korea? Or maybe sub-Saharan Africa is more to your taste?

The advantage that we have today is that, for the most part, we live in a world that we created - one in which we choose to live. This world happens to be materially rich because this is the outcome of what most people freely do and desire. And if material well-being is not what you personally like, you're free to move into the middle of nowhere and live off the land like your forefathers did. No one's preventing you - heck, if you really dislike any kind of material well-being, you can choose to be a bum. Whoever is forcing you to enjoy material wealth?

The only thing you cannot do is force other people with you. Are you proposing that in a "better world" you should be able to?


[Ron] Spiritual bankruptcy is when you don't have a sense of purpose or meaning, no hope of trancendance, no contact with the divine. It's when you can't find the inner strength to face reality, to face pain, to face injustice, to face death. It's a dark and scary place, and if you've never experienced it you are very, very lucky.

So now you're saying that "spiritual bankruptcy" equals existential crisis?

I think we've all been through that. Most people try to avoid it - as you say, they are not strong enough to face reality, to face pain, to face injustice, to face death. Instead, they try to avoid such thought with externally or internally induced delusion. Drugs and alcohol are forms of the former; religion and self-deception are forms of the latter. They are all ways to avoid thinking about issues that can indeed be very difficult to think about.

You know and I know that facing up to these questions without having an answer at hand is hard. So we resort to fictional answers that make not-knowing bearable for us. Perhaps we reject the religion we were taught, only to replace it with new and more privately held fictions. I've been through it; I understand the need for that.

But the person who is strong is the one who can stand up to fundamental questions and be fine not knowing the answers. Not even trying to imagine them; accepting even the possibility that what we see might, after all, be all there is to it.

Such strength is rare. If what you're trying to say is that most people cannot handle this - I agree. If what you're trying to say is that atheists trying to get believers to ditch religion will be frustrated because they don't understand the depth of the believers' existential fears, then I agree. If what you're trying to say is that the atheists would be more successful in their persuasion if they accepted the existence of these fears and came up with a way to overcome them, I agree.

But if what you're trying to say is that it is all the same if (a) people deal with their existential crises by escaping into self-delusion, or (b) come to terms with not knowing, then I strongly disagree. I'd say that the person who's trying to escape into self-delusion is getting at most a short-term fix, and is harming themselves and the world around them to the extent that their unability to cope with their existential crises drives them into madness (full-blown religion and the fundamentalism and irrationality that come with it). I understand what drives people into self-deception, but I don't agree that it is a correct or upstanding response to an existential crisis. It is, after all, a form of running away from things.

Ron said...

But most people are not happier in a world where their freedoms are restricted. You generally cannot restrict people's freedoms and expect them to be happier than they were.

Unfortunately you are wrong about that. Many people do not want freedom even for themselves, and many more want it for themselves but not for others.

I fear that you have fallen into the tar pits of moral relativism.

No, I stand foursquare on the side of freedom and rationalism. My point is only that not everyone who disagrees with me is necessarily insane or stupid, and that proceeding on the assumption that they are (as many atheists do) is not likely to be productive.

If what you're trying to say is...

Yes, that is mostly what I am trying to say. But...

the person who's trying to escape into self-delusion is getting at most a short-term fix

I disagree with that. I think it is quite possible for some, maybe most, people to escape into self-delusion without it becoming pathological, just as I think it is possible for some people to take recreational drugs on occasion without sinking into addiction. In fact, I think nearly everyone does it to some degree or another, not least among them are atheists who cling doggedly to the notion that reason will prevail merely because it is reasonable despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

denis bider said...

[denis] But most people are not happier in a world where their freedoms are restricted. You generally cannot restrict people's freedoms and expect them to be happier than they were.

[Ron] Unfortunately you are wrong about that. Many people do not want freedom even for themselves,

Care to conduct a poll about that?

People may wish to offload their burden of choice to someone, and frequently they do. But this is a form of exercising your freedom: you choose to have someone else make the choices for you.

Still, you want to be able to choose who you offload your burden of choice to.

For one thing, I wouldn't be one to bet that the gratitude of North Koreans to Kim Yong-Il will be eternal. :)


[Ron] and many more want it for themselves but not for others.

But surely you don't believe that it would be objectively good for such people to have their wishes fulfilled?


[Ron] My point is only that not everyone who disagrees with me is necessarily insane or stupid, and that proceeding on the assumption that they are (as many atheists do) is not likely to be productive.

You mean, persuasion works better if you can identify with the person being persuaded. Or the principle of: "The wind can't make you take off your coat, but the sun can." Is that right?

Soft persuasion works sometimes. However, done publicly, robust and hard persuasion has the advantage that it reinforces the ideas being transmitted as strong and present.

In the case of agnosticism and atheism, I believe that this is a very much a good thing, because the atheistic and agnostic world view has for too long been drowned by the forcefulness and determination of the religiously vigorous. Given the negative impact religious idiocy is having in media and even in public policy, I think it is high time for the atheists and agnostics to get just as loud. When other people are using their elbows, there's no way other than using your elbows yourself if you want to have any influence.

And more influence is definitely something I think the agnostics and atheists need. It is high time to achieve recognition that believing in god is not something self-evident or normal.

Ron said...

Care to conduct a poll about that?

I don't have to. Data points abound. People work for salaries instead of equity. They submit to searches at airports. They vote Republican. They may *say* they want freedom, but when push comes to shove many people are not willing to pay the price, to accept the responsibilities and risks. I myself was such a person for many years.

But surely you don't believe that it would be objectively good for such people to have their wishes fulfilled?

Of course I don't. But *they* do.

The wind can't make you take off your coat, but the sun can.

Yes.

I think it is high time for the atheists and agnostics to get just as loud.

Loudness is not necessarily a bad thing, but by itself it doesn't make a very effective marketing strategy. Most people in the world have lives that pretty much suck. Religion offers them hope and comfort, however illusory it may be. Loudness by itself can't compete with that.

denis bider said...

People work for salaries instead of equity.

Not everyone is passionate about work. People like to avoid responsibility. Working for a salary is the easy way to get along - it is the default option - and it has a comparatively low burden of responsibility compared to working for equity.


They submit to searches at airports.

Submitting to the searches does not imply being in favor of them. You and I submit to those searches as well, even though I'm pretty sure we find them pointless and offensive.

The reason this security theatre exists is ostensibly because people in charge think that the majority of people flying are comforted by its existence. The majority of people flying might be comforted by these searches because they think they must be effective.

Such beliefs may be ignorant and stupid, but just because you're ignorant and stupid, doesn't mean you don't want freedom. You just want to exercise your freedom by making choices in your genuinely ignorant and stupid way.


They vote Republican.

The U.S. political system currently provides two realistic voting options: one that sucks, and one that blows. Both parties want to restrict your freedoms, it's just that the Republicans want to restrict your individual freedoms, and the Democrats want to restrict your economic freedoms. Each person votes for the compromise they can more easily tolerate. There is no genuine "freedom" option in the United States. The political system is such that even if you didn't want to vote for any of the major parties, you have to, because doing anything else would pretty much ensure your vote is wasted. And so the crisis perpetuates.

It is the U.S. political system that is flawed.

I see no data points that would suggest that people don't want freedom in what you enumerated.


Most people in the world have lives that pretty much suck.

This confuses me somewhat. Do you mean by this the world at large, including Africa and undeveloped nations in other continents, or do you mean the world where what we say can actually have any kind of influence, which is the English speaking world and countries closely connected to it?

I don't think that Africa and other undeveloped places really matter to our discussion, simply because they're too far culturally for our words to have any kind of influence, and too far developmentally for them to be any kind of major threat.

But if we focus therefore on English-speaking countries and the countries closely connected to them, then how do most people in these countries have lives that "pretty much suck"?

I once took a picture of this graph published in TIME. It's based on data in Richard Layard's Happiness, which I haven't read. What seems to be evident from this graph is that although a high GDP does not appear to be a prerequisite for "Gross National Happiness" (there are nations like Nigeria that rank as high as Italy), the graph does seem to show that a high national GDP pretty much guarantees a high level of happiness in the country. The graph contains no countries such that the GDP is above $20,000 per person but the "happiness" index is below 80%.

Even though Euro-America is far from free in the economic sense, and the creeping socialism is definitely a source of misery, these nations are still free enough that if an average person is really miserable, it is a consequence of their lifestyle and the choices that they make. If so, then religion is just a part of their dysfunction - not a panacea for it.

Ron said...

People like to avoid responsibility.

Yes, that is precisely my point. People think they want freedom in the abstract, but when confronted with the costs and risks and responsibilities they often choose security (or even the illusion of security) over freedom. The last six years in the U.S. has been a textbook case.

[Ron] Most people in the world have lives that pretty much suck.

[Dennis] This confuses me somewhat.

I should have said "many", not "most". This really deserves it own post, and maybe I'll get to it later today. If you want a sneak preview, get a copy of Michael Lerner's "The Left Hand of God" and read the first chapter.

BTW, getting back to an earlier point:

So now you're saying that "spiritual bankruptcy" equals existential crisis?

No, at least not if you follow Wikipedia's definition of existential crisis. An existential crisis is acute; spiritual poverty is chronic. "A certain lack of faith ... is typically a prerequisite for an existential crisis." But people of faith can be spiritually poor. I think Senator Craig, for example, is probably spiritually poor, but I doubt he's going through an existential crisis. (Al Gore, by contrast, is probably not spiritually poor, but probably has undergone some existential crises in the past few years.)

This probably deserves a post of its own too. Thanks for raising all these thought-provoking questions!

denis bider said...

If you want a sneak preview, get a copy of Michael Lerner's "The Left Hand of God" and read the first chapter.

According to what I was able to find out about this book online, it does not seem to be a cause to which I want to contribute with a purchase. This review describes the book with sentences such as:

"Lerner offers a 'Generosity Strategy' based in part on his years of work as a psychotherapist."

"moving the Democrats [...] towards something more in keeping with the progressive social vision that once animated it."

"ordinary Americans, to whom conservatives [are] directly responsible for policies that do many of them economic harm"

"millions of people seem to be willing to vote for someone [Republicans] who is screwing them economically"


This reeks of a desire to create a socialist utopia where people's economic entitlements are divorced from their responsibilities. This can happen only at the expense of those who are actually willing to take on risks and assume responsibilities; this, in turn further discourages responsibility and risk-taking; and that tends to stagnate the economy in the medium term, and ruin it in the long term. In the short term, an injustice is done by confiscating rightfully earned rewards from people who deserve them. In the long term, the economy collapses and everybody suffers.

No "Generosity Strategy" can ever work as a public policy. Only an accountability strategy can.

Generosity works on the level of person-to-person interaction. But it does not work as a systemic force. If it worked as a systemic force, it would have evolved as such in nature. The only system in nature that I can think of as being generous is the sun. Everything else works strictly on an accountability basis, on the principle of here is what you did, and here is what you get. What you meant or what you intended has no significance; this is what you did, and here's what you get. That's how it should be in human politics. Rational doses of suffering are a required element of learning. Following a generosity principle will cause irrational suffering and long-term collapse.

Ron said...

According to what I was able to find out about this book online, it does not seem to be a cause to which I want to contribute with a purchase.

Sounds like a cop-out to me. Amazon has used copies for sale for as low as $1.49. And if even that is too much support for an author who advocates a socialist utopia, there's always the library. (As long as these vestiges of socialist utopias exist why not take advantage of them?)

BTW, I don't necessarily advocate the book for its proposed solutions (I think the fundamental problem with secularism is bad marketing, and I think Lerner is a pretty bad marketer). But I do think the first chapter has some good data about what some of the fundamental underlying issues are.

denis bider said...

[denis] According to what I was able to find out about this book online, it does not seem to be a cause to which I want to contribute with a purchase.

[Ron] Sounds like a cop-out to me. Amazon has used copies for sale for as low as $1.49. And if even that is too much support for an author who advocates a socialist utopia, there's always the library.

I happen to have recently moved to a Caribbean island which does not even have a decent book store, let alone a library. The nearest useful book store is 1 hour away by plane in Puerto Rico.

But before you scold me for my choice of location, I shall let you know that I happen to live 100 meters from the Atlantic beach, I happen to have moved here because there is no income tax, I get the internet and 60 channels of American cable, and I enjoy it all fully. :-D

I haven't tried ordering things from sites like Amazon yet, but I think the best way to get things here would be by courier. I may be willing to shell out $50 for a number of things, but a book that I will in most likelihood hate is not one of them.

BTW, I don't necessarily advocate the book for its proposed solutions (I think the fundamental problem with secularism is bad marketing, and I think Lerner is a pretty bad marketer). But I do think the first chapter has some good data about what some of the fundamental underlying issues are.

I understand.

I'd certainly be willing to spend the time needed to read that chapter if it's available online, but that's about the extent of my masochistic tendencies. :)