This first thought kind of relates to everything I've been talking about when it comes to religion and evolution and stuff like that.
It's amazing how perfect everything works isn't it? I mean... out of all the stuff that can go wrong in the scheme of things... it's amazing how perfect everything works.
Here's a thought I had earlier:
What do dogs hear when we talk to them? I imagine it would be like someone talking to me in very fast Japanese. I have NO IDEA what they're saying. But then think about an infant. The infant makes noises, thinking it's communicating in an effective manner... but it's not. But what the infant does do is as it develops, it learns that the words it hears from its parents have meaning beyond just being sounds. That the word "chair" refers to something shaped like a chair and that if it wants to reference the chair, it should say chair. But despite hearing "chair" a million times, a dog could never absorb the word chair and learn that it should say the word chair if it wants to talk about the chair. I mean, its obvious that it doesn't have the same capacity for vocals that a human does. But still, can you imagine the cognitive function and upper-level thinking that it takes to absorb first language? We learn new languages by referencing the one we already know and so it's crazy thinking about we first make associations.
Oh i remember what I wanted to talk about..
I've been reading Rousseau almost out of genuine interest (but don't have nearly enough time on my hands) and he talks about a lot of interesting things. For example, he says that because we live in a civilized society, we feel the ever-increasing need to advance ourselves that, without society, we would never do. That there are so many illnesses and maladies that exist simply because, as creatures in society, we indulge and therefore push our bodies beyond their natural capacities. It's just really interesting to read about his state of nature.
I have a very similar view as Rousseau, I think. He talks about nature treating infants as did Sparta. That is, weak or deformed infants just die because of the demands of living in the wild. Nature would treat humans the way it treats all creatures, with a fair and crushing indifference.
He says that man in the state of nature has to be strong. That he could easily beat up civilized man, even with all of his tools because nature has crafted him to be resourceful, smart, and cunning. It's funny because beyond the natural sciences, every single thing we learn is an attempt to understand the society that has emerged from this hypothetical state of nature. Rousseau says that man has no need for reason and thus, no need for philosophy.
And without philosophy, there is no need to ponder the workings of the universe.
And thus, no need for any other discipline.
In the state of nature, man knows all he needs.
Anyway, I might post more things that he talks about that I think are interesting.
Oh and another thought I had during my terrible, awful philosophy seminar:
We spent nearly 2 and a half hours talking about whether animals have ideas and if we need to worry about the content of their ideas in order to show that they have them. On the one hand, I believe it can be argued that animals are little more than fleshy things with feelings. I believe animals can feel pain and respond to stimuli. In the vein of Hume I believe that animals have a very limited capacity for reason in that they can be trained through Pavlovian conditioning.
For example, when my Dad opens the fridge and takes out the pack of American cheese, the dogs come running because they've been conditioned that when he takes out the cheese, they will get some. They come because for whatever reason, dogs just like to eat and eat and eat and I think if you somehow had a never-ending pile of cheese, a dog might just sit there and eat it til he died.
On the other hand, you could say that the dog had the desire for cheese or that when my dad gets the cheese out, they already know they want some and now is their opportunity to grab it. This would imply that animals have desires and no matter the content of their desires, gives us some insight to proper moral treatment. Now I think it's very possible that animals can have desires. Like when it comes to playing games. Maybe dogs legitimately like fetch or tug-of-war because they have fun doing it. Maybe they only do it because it helps them work out their instinctual frustration that being a house pet surpresses. If the former, then dogs have desires to play games. If the latter, my point stands that they are little more than fleshy things with rudimentary brains.
I can't decide and frankly, I don't care. Still, it's interesting to think about.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
On schadenfreude and suicide
I'll keep this short, mostly in part because I don't have a ton to say on the matter but I think it's important and should be said.
With the recent suicide of Tyler Clementi, the homosexual football player from Rutgers who was lead to the act because of bullying, I've been thinking about how society views suicide. Not only have I wanted to use schadenfreude in something, but I think it certainly applies in part to how the media portrays suicides. I mean, schadenfreude is German for a concept that means to delight in the pain of others. Now I'm certainly not saying anything like the media is delighting in the pain of Tyler and his family, but LGTQB groups as well as the media are jumping all over the over-arching themes behind the suicide such as LGTQB bullying. And yes, of course, this is important. We need to learn from tragedy and things like that, but it was really hard to find this kid's name in the news. I mean, they've completely forgotten about him. Most people have. They only remember now that bullying is bad. Again, a good thing to remember but I think it's kind of disrespectful to the victim. Now LGTQB groups will forever put his face on a collage full of people who have been victims to bullying and he's just going to be a statistic for their cause.
Again, it's important that people learn from the tragedy, but does anyone really think that this guy killed himself so people would use him in their campaign against bullying? I just think the whole system is kind of messed up. What should they do instead? I don't know. Talk about it. Tell people what happened. Just inform the public that he did this because of bullying. Don't parade it around.
Maybe there isn't so great of a point here (and thus merits another use of the word schadenfreude), but take it for what it's worth.
Again though, society feeds off this stuff. Stories based off pain and suffering are incredibly popular. There are entire genres of music dedicated to pain and suffering. As John Cusack puts it in High Fidelity:
"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
So potent.
On the other hand though, I think the actual act of committing suicide is very interesting. In fact, the phrasing I just used is interesting: committing suicide. It makes it sound the crime goes way beyond the victim. The interesting thing about the "crime" of suicide (among all the others), is that the victim and the suspect are the same person. To commit murder involves at least 2 people. To say that someone committed suicide, at least in context, makes it seem like there are more victims than the person who did it. Now obviously everyone around them are affected and maybe my tone sounds like I disagree, but I don't. Suicide, in one respect, is the most selfish thing you could do. But it's also fascinating when you think about what it takes to do it.
I mean, people have a biologically driven desire to further their own lives. To end it by your own hand must take an extraordinary amount of desperation. I mean, if you can rule our intrinsic motivation by the idea that one is biologically pre-determined to preserve one's own life, then you must say that it takes at least 1000% more extrinsic motivation to get them to actually do it.
What makes life not worth living anymore? When the things that you're living for don't matter? Think about homeless people. They spend the latter part of their years in the streets begging for money. Most of us, having lost everything, would really think about just ending our lives. I mean, why don't they? You've got nothing left and you're reduced to begging. And to what end? To make another day of life possible? And then when you think of these college students who end their lives because of bad grades... it's just incredible. To be under such pressure of performance that when you have an inkling of failure, your life is suddenly less worth living than if you were homeless. Again, maybe suicide is incredibly selfish. And maybe it's stupid. Life could always be worse, right? Maybe.
This whole post feels really scatterbrained so if you are shaking with rage by now because I didn't make any sense, I sincerely apologize. I think it made more sense in my head.
Next time--something that makes sense.
With the recent suicide of Tyler Clementi, the homosexual football player from Rutgers who was lead to the act because of bullying, I've been thinking about how society views suicide. Not only have I wanted to use schadenfreude in something, but I think it certainly applies in part to how the media portrays suicides. I mean, schadenfreude is German for a concept that means to delight in the pain of others. Now I'm certainly not saying anything like the media is delighting in the pain of Tyler and his family, but LGTQB groups as well as the media are jumping all over the over-arching themes behind the suicide such as LGTQB bullying. And yes, of course, this is important. We need to learn from tragedy and things like that, but it was really hard to find this kid's name in the news. I mean, they've completely forgotten about him. Most people have. They only remember now that bullying is bad. Again, a good thing to remember but I think it's kind of disrespectful to the victim. Now LGTQB groups will forever put his face on a collage full of people who have been victims to bullying and he's just going to be a statistic for their cause.
Again, it's important that people learn from the tragedy, but does anyone really think that this guy killed himself so people would use him in their campaign against bullying? I just think the whole system is kind of messed up. What should they do instead? I don't know. Talk about it. Tell people what happened. Just inform the public that he did this because of bullying. Don't parade it around.
Maybe there isn't so great of a point here (and thus merits another use of the word schadenfreude), but take it for what it's worth.
Again though, society feeds off this stuff. Stories based off pain and suffering are incredibly popular. There are entire genres of music dedicated to pain and suffering. As John Cusack puts it in High Fidelity:
"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
So potent.
On the other hand though, I think the actual act of committing suicide is very interesting. In fact, the phrasing I just used is interesting: committing suicide. It makes it sound the crime goes way beyond the victim. The interesting thing about the "crime" of suicide (among all the others), is that the victim and the suspect are the same person. To commit murder involves at least 2 people. To say that someone committed suicide, at least in context, makes it seem like there are more victims than the person who did it. Now obviously everyone around them are affected and maybe my tone sounds like I disagree, but I don't. Suicide, in one respect, is the most selfish thing you could do. But it's also fascinating when you think about what it takes to do it.
I mean, people have a biologically driven desire to further their own lives. To end it by your own hand must take an extraordinary amount of desperation. I mean, if you can rule our intrinsic motivation by the idea that one is biologically pre-determined to preserve one's own life, then you must say that it takes at least 1000% more extrinsic motivation to get them to actually do it.
What makes life not worth living anymore? When the things that you're living for don't matter? Think about homeless people. They spend the latter part of their years in the streets begging for money. Most of us, having lost everything, would really think about just ending our lives. I mean, why don't they? You've got nothing left and you're reduced to begging. And to what end? To make another day of life possible? And then when you think of these college students who end their lives because of bad grades... it's just incredible. To be under such pressure of performance that when you have an inkling of failure, your life is suddenly less worth living than if you were homeless. Again, maybe suicide is incredibly selfish. And maybe it's stupid. Life could always be worse, right? Maybe.
This whole post feels really scatterbrained so if you are shaking with rage by now because I didn't make any sense, I sincerely apologize. I think it made more sense in my head.
Next time--something that makes sense.
Monday, October 4, 2010
On Animal Welfare and Politics
So Professor Light was (thankfully) absent from class today and we were left with a video on animal welfare to entertain our thoughts for a small portion of the class period. Probably since it would be unthinkable to allow us to go unstimulated for two whole weeks.
Either way, it was an interesting video. But really, it just pissed me off. Not because of animal cruelty, but because of the politics involved behind the whole thing.
Now, it's not that animal cruelty doesn't bother me.... in fact... let's do this. We can accept the following as true:
A) Animals are sentient beings that feel pain and potentially slightly more complex feelings such as fear and being to know if they're separated from family.
B) There is a ton of science to back this up.
C) Good, peer-reviewed science is legitimate grounds for legislation.
D) As moral agents, humans with the knowledge of A and B have, at the very least, the ability to recognize animal suffering in factory farms.
Factory farming is horrible and unnatural and as a meat-eater, I dislike supporting the organization. In fact, I plan to be more conscientious about buying products and plan to look out for animal products market as free-range or humanely raised. In the video we were even shown how in the modern day, traditional animal husbandry can be not only humane, but just as profitable.
Now, if we can accept these things (and please tell me if you can't), we need to look at why we're actually dealing with the issue.
Agribusiness (which is actually a word, surprisingly enough) is huge. Massive. Pervasive. It has the same lobbying power as the tobacco, alcohol, and firearms industry and we can all attest to the power they have. The issue is that because the agribusiness lobby has such intense power to influence senators and congressmen from farming states as well as any other legislators, nothing gets passed. The legislation as it stands is muddy and convoluted in the way that while many common animals are protected under anti-animal abuse laws, animals under the domain of factory farms are not. It's appalling how Europe has already passed dozens of laws for the humane treatment of farmed animals and yet we lag nearly 50 years behind.
The thing is, nothing can get passed because of the greed in the legislative body. In true Orwellian style, we are being subjugated and told what to believe and not say by a totalitarian state. The worse thing is that it's not even the state that's doing this. The corporations are so powerful that they've pushed the government aside and are not only feeding us with their product, but with the power they have over how this country runs. Again, it's not just the agribusinesses. You hear all the time about how perfectly sensible bills that could really help people are stricken down by special interest groups and heavily pressured subcommittees of Congress because the vote of our legislators, the people we vote for, are up for sale.
I know it's a very Mr. Smith Goes to Washington kind of thing in that it's truly idealistic to think that lobbyists, the people who are only supposed to be providing congressmen with legitimate information, should and could never hold real power over our congressmen, but the fact of the matter is that they do.
Animals in factory farms do suffer and that's not really debatable. I know it's tough to watch PETA propaganda and it's even easier to push it out of your mind as isolated cases. But I feel like the fact that every PETA documentary has new footage of animals squeezed into tight cages is enough to say that maybe this stuff is really happening.
I'm not a vegetarian by any sense and I certainly don't plan to be. I don't think we have a moral obligation to be vegetarian, but I don't believe we have to harvest animals in a way that makes them suffer more than necessary just to increase productivity and expand profits. Natural animal husbandry in such a way that is profitable to small farmers would increase competition and drive down the prices of animal products and hopefully alleviate the suffering of farmed animals. While this still means we bring animals into this world to kill them, at least they don't have to suffer along the way.
I just don't think it's possible though until we have someone in the White House that is not afraid to take a stand against Congress. We also need a total flush of Congress while we are at it. Get some young, educated, idealistic Senators and Representatives in there and get some stuff done. Again, I support a totalitarian state as long as it is one that uses ultimate power and subjugation FOR all people instead of against them. I support the state dismantling factory farms and agribusinesses so we can have smaller, more humane farms. It would probably solve a lot of problems as long it was run by a totalitarian dictator that isn't trying to kill a certain kind of people or conquer the world and instead is motivated by a desire to help everyone at the same time. I think it's very possible.
Again, always open to objections.
Either way, it was an interesting video. But really, it just pissed me off. Not because of animal cruelty, but because of the politics involved behind the whole thing.
Now, it's not that animal cruelty doesn't bother me.... in fact... let's do this. We can accept the following as true:
A) Animals are sentient beings that feel pain and potentially slightly more complex feelings such as fear and being to know if they're separated from family.
B) There is a ton of science to back this up.
C) Good, peer-reviewed science is legitimate grounds for legislation.
D) As moral agents, humans with the knowledge of A and B have, at the very least, the ability to recognize animal suffering in factory farms.
Factory farming is horrible and unnatural and as a meat-eater, I dislike supporting the organization. In fact, I plan to be more conscientious about buying products and plan to look out for animal products market as free-range or humanely raised. In the video we were even shown how in the modern day, traditional animal husbandry can be not only humane, but just as profitable.
Now, if we can accept these things (and please tell me if you can't), we need to look at why we're actually dealing with the issue.
Agribusiness (which is actually a word, surprisingly enough) is huge. Massive. Pervasive. It has the same lobbying power as the tobacco, alcohol, and firearms industry and we can all attest to the power they have. The issue is that because the agribusiness lobby has such intense power to influence senators and congressmen from farming states as well as any other legislators, nothing gets passed. The legislation as it stands is muddy and convoluted in the way that while many common animals are protected under anti-animal abuse laws, animals under the domain of factory farms are not. It's appalling how Europe has already passed dozens of laws for the humane treatment of farmed animals and yet we lag nearly 50 years behind.
The thing is, nothing can get passed because of the greed in the legislative body. In true Orwellian style, we are being subjugated and told what to believe and not say by a totalitarian state. The worse thing is that it's not even the state that's doing this. The corporations are so powerful that they've pushed the government aside and are not only feeding us with their product, but with the power they have over how this country runs. Again, it's not just the agribusinesses. You hear all the time about how perfectly sensible bills that could really help people are stricken down by special interest groups and heavily pressured subcommittees of Congress because the vote of our legislators, the people we vote for, are up for sale.
I know it's a very Mr. Smith Goes to Washington kind of thing in that it's truly idealistic to think that lobbyists, the people who are only supposed to be providing congressmen with legitimate information, should and could never hold real power over our congressmen, but the fact of the matter is that they do.
Animals in factory farms do suffer and that's not really debatable. I know it's tough to watch PETA propaganda and it's even easier to push it out of your mind as isolated cases. But I feel like the fact that every PETA documentary has new footage of animals squeezed into tight cages is enough to say that maybe this stuff is really happening.
I'm not a vegetarian by any sense and I certainly don't plan to be. I don't think we have a moral obligation to be vegetarian, but I don't believe we have to harvest animals in a way that makes them suffer more than necessary just to increase productivity and expand profits. Natural animal husbandry in such a way that is profitable to small farmers would increase competition and drive down the prices of animal products and hopefully alleviate the suffering of farmed animals. While this still means we bring animals into this world to kill them, at least they don't have to suffer along the way.
I just don't think it's possible though until we have someone in the White House that is not afraid to take a stand against Congress. We also need a total flush of Congress while we are at it. Get some young, educated, idealistic Senators and Representatives in there and get some stuff done. Again, I support a totalitarian state as long as it is one that uses ultimate power and subjugation FOR all people instead of against them. I support the state dismantling factory farms and agribusinesses so we can have smaller, more humane farms. It would probably solve a lot of problems as long it was run by a totalitarian dictator that isn't trying to kill a certain kind of people or conquer the world and instead is motivated by a desire to help everyone at the same time. I think it's very possible.
Again, always open to objections.
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