Soma: Ignorance is Bliss... Right?

In our weekly discussions, we continually return to the theme of what our response ought to be the growing consequence of our neglect.  One of the DQ's asked us whether resisting climate change is futile?  Or have we become jaded and indifferent to climate change? I must admit, I probably fall short of my larger duty to society as a whole--but that failure is not limited to climate change alone.  When I see the sheer scale of the socioeconomic problems that the United States, developed and developing countries face, I get dispirited.  I mean, what can can one guy do?  

It is a bit strange, honestly, that I would be detached from the issue of climate change.  I am an avid hiker.  I regularly spend weekends backpacking, and experiencing mother nature is cathartic.  One would assume that I--of all people--would take climate change personally.  While I have taken small measures whenever possible, if that ecological footprint calculator is accurate, my lifestyle is only moderately better than the average American (and that's not saying much).  Despite these actions, I tend to be cynical when it comes to politics and generally avoid "hot topics."  More often than not, the headlines have no bearing on my day-to-day life; thus, I ignore them.

                                                          

In mulling the DQ prompt, I considered a discussion I had a earlier this fall over Adolphus Huxley's Brave New World.  Specifically, the soma.  In Brave New World, the people life in a utopian society.  One of the central features of the utopia is soma, a mind-deadening drug.  The members of society enjoy peace and prosperity, whilst enjoying a world of mediocracy.  Huxley starkly contrasts the value of classical, high society versus the base, mindless happiness of humanity (this is a gross oversimplification).  The average citizen is not interested in reading the Bible, Othello, or The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.  Instead, they would rather choose the blissful ignorance.  

Soma is a drug with vague, undefined properties.  However, it is a recurring theme throughout the book.  There is plenty of literary analysis out there discussing the nuances the soma metaphor, but I have always interpreted soma as representing basic, hedonistic pleasures.  Brave New World offers a satirical rebuttal to John Stuart Mill's classic argument that individuals, when given the choice, would choose "higher quality" pleasures over "lower quality" pleasures (e.g. better to be a miserable human than a happy pig).  Mill's proportionality doctrine has been criticized, and a fair amount of research has been done on evaluating its merits.  For example, Michael Sandel has surveyed his students and asked them to decide between the Simpsons and Hamlet.  Most students said that the Simpsons was "more enjoyable," but Shakespeare was "better" (Sandel 54).  The punchline is this: people, in general, will settle immediate and mediocre fulfillment.  If happiness requires an endless struggle of self-improvement, most people will not be interested.  As Huxley puts it:

“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

This is the crux of the matter.  Fighting to stop climate change requires massive mobilization--a grand campaign.  Not using a straw with one's pop or banning plastic grocery sacks alone will not stave off ecological disaster.  The world needs drastic action, but people are politically exhausted.  It is hard to muster the energy when it feels like the political process is flawed and any action you take is not going to change much.  Instead, we turn to our soma, our bread and circuses.  We choose to, in the words of Huxley, overcompensate for our misery, our discontent.  For me, it hiking.  I "escape the word" to go walk around in the woods.  I ignore the pressing problems of the larger world to go wander rugged Smokey Mountains or and the twisting rivers and canyons of the Big South Fork.

This is not meant to be some sappy sob story about my crappy lifestyle, nor a depressing take on humanity.  This is an assessment, the result of a dawning realization that I need to motivate myself to stay motivated.  Whereas one could typically settle for mediocrity and enjoy the bliss of ignorance, there is no middle ground when it comes to climate change.  Even if addressing climate change appears to be a Sisyphean task, I must remember to keep moving forward.  

Citation:

Sandel, M. J. (2009). "Justice: What's the right thing to do?." New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

(Edited) Semester total: 40

- Weekly essay

- Commented on Betty Mae's post (Jaded Left)

- Commented on Dr. Oliver's post (Green New Deal)

- Commented on Tyler Brook's post (Automation)

• Should we genetically alter humans to make them more altruistic and communitarian, if we can? 201 Or just go after the "unbelievably small percentage" of greedy oligarchs "at the top of the energy heap" (Kochs, Exxon...)? 202

This can be a really tough and a really easy questions. We are already starting to live in an era in which we are trying to filter certain things out when we create babies. Especially when it comes to fertilising eggs in a lab, there is already ways to make sure your kids do not have certain diseases or develop illnesses. Manipulating the genes and the odds becomes something normal to us, why would it not also be possible to manipulate genes for other things too, e.g. characteristics of the baby and how the are going to develop socially. I believe that a society lives and strives off of different people with different characteristics and beliefs. It would be really monotonous if we just create everyone equal, right? Of course, it has its perks, but what kind of society are we really trying to be then.

Another question is, are these oligarchs already greedy from nature or does being an oligarch make them greedy? Maybe even the fact that they are greedy helped them to be oligarchs in the first place. Maybe if we are already starting to changing our child genes, we should just try and cut these traits out, so they become anything else but greedy and possible oligarchs. But do we really want a society without oligarchs? Is there not something fantasising about the fact that there is someone who has everything, all the money and all the political power to make his way through life. What happens if we have nothing to complain about anymore, nothing to try and remove or possible strive for? Are we just all going to become altruistic and communitarian and be an awesome citizen? Maybe, but possible not. I do believe that we should go after this "unbelievably small percentage" of greedy oligarchs and that is something that we can try and change but it is also something that happens to be a part of life and that makes our society what it is. It will never be perfect because even if we make people nicer and better, there will always be something that does not quite fit. 

This essay

Comment to Tyler and Betty

Total Points: 45

Philosophers’ Favorite Twitter Follows

The accounts followed most in common by philosophers.

List: https://t.co/3QpXUUjJGJ
Grid: https://t.co/Qm9EdqeyKO https://t.co/voBuW221kd
(https://twitter.com/TrueSciPhi/status/1319492494032187392?s=02)

But as Brian Cohen says, you don't have to follow anybody.

Pros and Cons of automation

            In today’s corporate culture, technology has evolved to the point where millions of people have already been phased out of their job so that they can be replaced by a robot.  Of course, nobody considered how having automated factories running twenty-four seven would affect the environment, so I would like to weigh to weigh the pro’s and cons of automation in the workplace.  One pro of automation is that it raises the price for human labor in service oriented jobs, such as baristas at Starbucks were according to Timothy B. Lee in his article Automation is making human labor more valuable than ever he argues in his article that automation makes people want a human touch in their product and that people are willing to pay more for that as well.  Another Pro for automation is worker safety as it also removes people from a hazardous workplace, and OSHA itself had a hand in promoting automation and robotics in factories.  Now for the disadvantages, one of which is obvious is worker displacement which does induce a period of emotional distress in their lives.  Another disadvantage that Britannica enlightens upon is the cost of automation itself being a prohibitive factor, and higher levels of maintenance to maintain your machines as well.  Also, you have to consider how rigid machines are in their production, unlike humans who can be flexible in what they are making as well.  In their next to last paragraph, Britannica, brings up the point of whether automated technology will subjugate workers and invade the privacy of the individual citizen.

Commented on Heather Faulkner and Betty Mae Miller

I should have 25 points by now

Green New Deal

Representative Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal Resolution to recognize the scale of the climate crisis and provide a roadmap to evaluate policies that can protect our planet and uplift our communities.

It is for this reason that Representative Ocasio-Cortez introduced House Resolution 109, 'Recognizing the Duty of the Federal Government to Create a Green New Deal.' The Green New Deal Resolution outlines the framework for a comprehensive and ambitious plan to combat climate change by creating millions of high-wage jobs in new green industries, transition our energy system and building new infrastructure. It consists of five Green New Deal goals, fourteen mobilization projects, and fifteen guiding principles.

The Green New Deal Resolution is about more than just solar panels and wind turbines, it establishes the foundation for a successful and sustainable 21st century economy.

Download in PDF Format
Read at Congress.gov

https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/gnd/resolution

The new conventional wisdom

Joe Biden says we're going to have to change out the oil industry for renewables.
This now counts as the conventional wisdom. That matters.
(https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1319474575340691456?s=02)

Remote

See new Twe

What teaching online feels like. https://t.co/FOeAlsJw7m
(https://twitter.com/EthicsInBricks/status/1319372711152541714?s=02)

The "Professionally Jaded Left"

     Though I understand his point, I disagree with some of the criticism the McKibben has of the "professionally jaded left" (196). He argues that a viewpoint of jaded submission does no good for the cause. That it works in favor of these corporations' actions. And he isn't wrong. Swearing off politics because you think there's nothing to be done to help is a self fulfilling prophecy. This does, though, discount those of the "radical" left who do work and organize and fight for a better world. McKibben's preference, he says, is "useful naïve outrage". What he is encouraging, therefore, is a reactionary movement that would hopefully result in reform. If enough people are shocked and outraged by the actions of a company or whatever it may be, the pressure created would launch reform to make sure these things do not happen again. He wants a reaction. Which is fair. Where I find issue is that he seems to equate the left's jadedness with a lazy resignation from the fight. I think the approach to this is off.

     I am a cynic, at least in the sense of not being shocked when heinous things are done by the elite. When another oil company spills oil in our ocean, when another thousand square miles is taken from Indigenous people and/or species, when we refuse to switch to ethical means of energy, I am not shocked. I, too, say "Of course they did". But not being shocked does not mean I am not fighting. I'm not shocked because the system was created to uphold these acts of violence against our world and ourselves. Of course the elite do not care about the interests of the people. They are not the people. I expect to be let down by our current structure. I, in response, work to fix what I feel is the root of these issues. I may not boycott Exxon or post a hashtag that supports a reform movement, but I organize and I fight and I work to help the working class and those affected by the state. And I don't think that this approach is too jaded or cynical in any way.

Weekly points

This essay

Comment on Ed's post

"How Many Americans Will Ayn Rand Kill?"

Liberty doesn’t mean freedom to infect other people.

A long time ago, in an America far, far away — actually just last spring — many conservatives dismissed Covid-19 as a New York problem. It’s true that in the first few months of the pandemic, the New York area, the port of entry for many infected visitors from Europe, was hit very hard. But the focus on New York also played into right-wing “American carnage” narratives about the evils of densely populated, diverse cities. Rural white states imagined themselves immune.

But New York eventually controlled its viral surge, in large part via widespread mask-wearing, and at this point the “anarchist jurisdiction” is one of the safest places in the country. Despite a worrying uptick in some neighborhoods, especially in religious communities that have been flouting rules on social distancing, New York City’s positivity rate — the fraction of tests showing presence of the coronavirus — is only a bit over 1 percent.

Even as New York contained its pandemic, however, the coronavirus surged out of control in other parts of the country. There was a deadly summer spike in much of the Sunbelt. And right now the virus is running wild in much of the Midwest; in particular, the most dangerous places in America may be the Dakotas.

Last weekend North Dakota, which is averaging more than 700 new coronavirus cases every day, was down to only 17 available I.C.U. beds. South Dakota now has a terrifying 35 percent positivity rate. Deaths tend to lag behind infections and hospitalizations, but more people are already dying daily in the Dakotas than in New York State, which has 10 times their combined population. And there’s every reason to fear that things will get worse as cold weather forces people indoors and Covid-19 interacts with the flu season.

But why does this keep happening? Why does America keep making the same mistakes?

Donald Drumpf’s disastrous leadership is, of course, an important factor. But I also blame Ayn Rand — or, more generally, libertarianism gone bad, a misunderstanding of what freedom is all about.

If you look at what Republican politicians are saying as the pandemic rips through their states, you see a lot of science denial. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, has gone full Drumpf — questioning the usefulness of masks and encouraging potential super-spreader events. (The Sturgis motorcycle rally, which drew almost a half-million bikers to her state, may have played a key role in setting off the viral surge.)

But you also see a lot of libertarian rhetoric — a lot of talk about “freedom” and “personal responsibility.” Even politicians willing to say that people should cover their faces and avoid indoor gatherings refuse to use their power to impose rules to that effect, insisting that it should be a matter of individual choice.

Which is nonsense.

Many things should be matters of individual choice. The government has no business dictating your cultural tastes, your faith or what you decide to do with other consenting adults.

But refusing to wear a face covering during a pandemic, or insisting on mingling indoors with large groups, isn’t like following the church of your choice. It’s more like dumping raw sewage into a reservoir that supplies other people’s drinking water... (continues)

Hannah Arendt on loving and renewing the common world

NOTE to Environmental Ethicists: central to Arendt's philosophy and to an environmentally-sustainable future is her emphasis on "natality" and the ever-promising renewal of life with every birth and every new generation. "There is a tomorrow."

LISTEN. WATCH. The most interesting philosopher in today's CoPhi lineup, for my money, and by far the one with the most timely and relevant message for this moment when the future of democracy feels so precarious, is Hannah Arendt. She warned us to beware the "terribly and terrifyingly normal" average fellow citizens we'd never suspect of harboring a capacity for sadism and violence. She said:

• “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”
• “As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.”
• “Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
• “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” Origins of Totalitarianism

In other words, Fantasyland is ripe for the picking. There may never in history have been such a concentration of banal, unthinking, uninformed, lonely (isolated, disconnected, paranoid/conspiratorial) people as we find here now... (continues)

Cows and Endless Feedlots: Fixing Cattle’s Climate Issues

Fixing Cattle’s Climate Issues The United States is home to 95 million cattle, and changing what they eat could have a significant effect on emissions of greenhouse gases like methane that are warming the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/climate/beef-cattle-methane.html?smid=em-share

Defund fossil fuels

Yes! @SenJeffMerkley just introduced new legislation that would stop banks and other financial institutions from funding fossil fuels!

This is how we stop the money pipeline between Wall Street and the fossil fuel industry. https://t.co/VsDGlMjWcf
(https://twitter.com/billmckibben/status/1319054765154762759?s=02)

No debate

The #climate questions at the presidential debate better not start with the phrase "Do you believe..."
Skip right to "What will you do to tackle the worsening #climatechange crisis."

It's not a question of "belief" but of understanding and acting.
(https://twitter.com/PeterGleick/status/1318782035624742913?s=02)

Inconsistent

SCIENTISTS: "@OSiRISRex intercepted asteroid Bennu, 300-million km away, to retrieve samples for lab analysis.
RESPONSE: "Oooh!"

SCIENTISTS: "Research shows humans are catastrophically warming Earth"
RESPONSE: "That conflicts with what I want to be true, so it must be false."
(https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/1318921314057539585?s=02)

Climate Digital Storytelling Toolkit

Everyone has the power to tell their own story. Check out the new Climate Digital Storytelling Toolkit to learn how you can inspire, engage, and connect with others. 

Download here: https://t.co/KRSaVUsMFv https://t.co/vklhKHNlIL
(https://twitter.com/350/status/1319023417253822464?s=02)

"Actionable optimism"

Walt Whitman (who worked as a nurse in the Civil War while composing verses that fomented his country's awakening) on the pillars of democracy and actionable optimism as a mighty force of resistance https://t.co/ruwjbfbJJ4
(https://twitter.com/brainpicker/status/1319028690009903104?s=02)

Boldly gone to Bennu

If we had our shit together here on Earth, this would be the biggest story of the day:

NASA mission successfully touched down on asteroid Bennu:
https://t.co/m53B3N21uS
(https://twitter.com/SethMacFarlane/status/1318790741007593472?s=02)

Still in the game

LISTEN. We finish Falter today in Environmental Ethics. It would be nice to think we're all about to finish faltering, as a democratic nation under siege of pandemic, political chaos, and climate denial/indifference. For a brief while yesterday morning, queuing to vote in the pleasant middle Tennessee sunshine outside the Bellevue branch of the Metro Public Library, I believed. 

The simple act of casting a ballot feels constructive and empowering, the very opposite of faltering. It feels like moving forward. The feeling would linger if only we could lose the electoral college that effectively denies some of us proportionate representation. Ranked-choice voting in the primaries would be good too. 

But never mind, for now. Yesterday was all about the invigorating sense of democratic dignity that free people expressing their will in free and fair elections still, for now, get to enjoy in this country. Conjuring Chris Stevens' invocation of Einstein (vs. Randian selfishness) from the memory vault yesterday I've also recalled his paean to democracy in little (fictional) Cicely, Alaska. "You see, the act of voting is in itself the defining moment."

My friends, today when I look out over Cicely, I see not a town, but a nation's history written in miniature...we exterminated untold indigenous cultures and enslaved generations of Africans. We basically stained our star-spangled banner with a host of sins that can never be washed clean. But today, we're here to celebrate the glorious aspects of our past. A tribute to a nation of free people, the country that Whitman exalted. (reading) "The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives and legislators, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people." I've never been so proud to be a Cicelian. I must go out now and fill my lungs with the deep clean air of democracy. Northern Exposure Season 3, Episode 15-"Democracy in America" 

A lung-full of freedom is bracing. Breathe deep. Vote. Resist democracy's destabilizers and dismantlers while you can. The great game of self-governance has never in my lifetime felt so imperiled, or more worth fighting for.

But as Bill McKibben acknowledges in Falter, resistance comes at a cost. "I know so many people who have given over the prime of their lives to this fight." But he also knows "many people who've found their lives in this work, in burgeoning movements that are full of love and friendship." The tired cliche about finding meaning and purpose in causes larger than oneself is not wrong, the vivifying and ennobling benefits of personal and shared commitment are real. Resistance may be frustrating and may finally fail, but it's not futile. Remember Grantland Rice, a game well-played is its own reward. You don't have to fly the "W" to be a winner at life. 

Still, though, to lose democracy, humanity, and Gaia to indifference and inattention would be tragic and stupid. Resisting the apathy and amused-to-death distraction that permit the plutocrats to plunder the planet for personal profit, is in that light not radical or subversive. You might even call it conservatism, if that word weren't already so tainted, to want and work for "a world where people are connected to the past and future (and to one another) instead of turned into obsolete software." Solidarity simply means the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Ask the Scandinavians, who consistently top the World Happiness Report. In 2018 the USA was #18 on that list. If we say we believe in humanity that should embarrass us.

Ray Kurzweil's posthuman vision of spiritual hu-machines with all the time in the world to cultivate "music, literature, beauty and artistic expression" sounds humane, to humans. But, says Todd May, "without mortality our lives would eventually become shapeless. If we lived forever... it would be difficult to sustain our enthusiasm for even many of our most significant engagements." We'd be bored out of our skulls (would we have skulls?) with time slowed to the pace of birds plucking sand grains from the Sahara.

No, we'd best learn to embrace the approaching shore while still pursuing our projects, "orient toward the future while immersing in the present." 

What did Camus say? “Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.” 

And Dewey?

“The things in civilization we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link. Ours is the responsibility of conserving, transmitting, rectifying and expanding the heritage of values we have received, that those who come after us may receive it more solid and secure, more widely accessible and more generously shared than we have received it.” A Common Faith

And James?

The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,— the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man’s or woman ‘s pains.—And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place. “What Makes a Life Significant”

Or as McKibben says, "our job is to keep the human game going through our time, and to pass it on." 

The game just now calls for no "magic technological breakthrough," just our best efforts to continue scaling up renewable energy, "eat lower on the food chain, build public transit networks, densify cities..." That's how we'll "reshape the zeitgeist" and "shift culture" to sustainability. It's helpful to recall that Nixon didn't necessarily want to sign the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, et al, back in '70, he was compelled by dedicated activists out to conserve the Earth. "The mere act of gathering" [them] is an antidote to despair. 

Maturity is a good word, when understood to mean growing up as opposed to just growing. J.S. Mill's remarks on the leveling of growth would surprise most libertarians these days, suggesting that the "art of living" only really matures when we stop devoting the bulk of our energies and resources to just "getting on" and accumulating ever-more material wealth.

Why grow up? Because (as we're about to read in CoPhi) that's what it means to live in the light. Maturity is a condition of success, in the climate fight and in any game worth playing.

McKibben seems to think growing up means we ought not to go into space, even to Mars, agreeing with Kim Stanley Robinson that it's "pernicious" to suppose we can just use up this planet and then go find another to despoil. But can't we "boldly go" in the spirit of exploration and maturity, not mere consumption? A mature conversation about that still needs to be had, I think.

Are "most of us, most of the time," really "pretty wonderful"? That's generous. 

"Even--especially--in its twilight, the human game is graceful and compelling." McKibben's last words are elegiac, but a mature response to them will keep us in the game at least a while longer. Let's play seven. (Go Rays!)

And then let's go to Spring Training. 

I voted!

  

 

Just an hour in line, on a beautiful morning, at the Bellevue Public Library. Only sour note: the belligerent "Recall the Mayor" guy who wanted to fight about re-opening Nashville so musicians like himself could work. Don't most musicians perform and market themselves online these days? Shouldn't they?

Why Do You Want To Live?

‘Philosophy helps’ is the theme of the videos I am making for my grandchildren. You have heard Phil refer to them. I am quick to talk about how philosophy helps, as my friend Heather knows. I like to give examples of how it helps. Our conversation yesterday about Ray Kurzweil got me to thinking. What kind of a person is this guy? Why does he want to continue to live? I think he and any person who thinks like him need some philosophical help. I don’t know anything about Camus yet, but I’m pretty sure he’d say that this is the big question – why do we want to continue to live? That’s a philosophical question, the type you can discuss in the Atheism and Philosophy class. Would you rather live for 500 years in idleness (for there is always tomorrow), or have 85 years of a life with meaning? Think about a Black Mirror episode or The Good Place. What is the meaning of life, anyway? Asking and trying to answer these questions results in a better, happier life. That is how philosophy helps. It can give you a life with meaning, eudaimonia, happiness. And that is what we all want. You can start with Plato, can’t you Savana? Kurzweil could really do with a chat with Socrates.

Weekly Participation Summary

10/20 This post

10/21 Comment on DQs

10/21 Comment on DQ Why is Scandinavia happy?

Week Nine Point Total – 5

Nine Week Cumulative Point Total – 45