Fertility

A fertile mind or a fertile idea?

If one pursues a fertile idea, does one consign themselves to personal and intellectual staleness?

Conversely, does the fertile mind say anything about its activity? Is the fertile mind eclectic, studious, or the polymath.

I suppose having strong elements of both will always be ideal, but coming down to one; what is more important? Can we continue to argue of old issues and debates to the effect of having overly technical terminology so as to prevent the kind of repetition that is inevitable from being age-old issues; or does intellectual fertility as a mindset allow for a freshness and interplay of perspectives in such a way that invokes originality?

It would seem that there is a subtle difference between one who seems to have depth as the scholar of the fertile idea, and one who appears to have depth as the one with a fertile mind.

With the former, depth in a specific issue is a well-rehearsed and tired routine.

With the latter, depth comes not necessarily out of expertise, but the surprising depth, clarity, and summation that comes from the sporadic and spontaneous entertainment of the idea itself.

Destre

Harris’ argument on Christian moral sentiment

There is an line of thought on Letter to a Christian Nation (Sam Harris) that I find an interesting point about Christianity.

Harris makes a point about how the Christian Right in the US spend much effort campainging on what might be seen as marginally morally important campaigns particularly concerning sexual morality and promoting pro-life ideals. While someone on the Christian right may not see this as a marginal issue, it seems ephemeral an issue to the more important global issues of human rights abuse and poverty. Christianity (or bettter put, Christians) have the flaw of overemphasising these self-indulgent national issues over the global human catastrophes.

A lot can be said about Harris’ argument, one can direct it in many ways, and as such, pull it apart in many ways also. Responses include:

i. The critique of Christian-believer behaviour says nothing about the character of Jesus
ii. This only applies to a sector of the Christian contingent

There is, however, a very powerful thought in this line of argument. Something we often forget are things distantly in the past, to which some or many are still affected by. Often, the issues in the public’s consciousness only involve those issues which are directly or closestly reminded to them.

Stephen Fry made the point once that the plight of HIV/AIDS victims are slowly becoming forgotten by many. It is seen less as a problem compared to something like obesity. There are various reasons for it, one, is the newness of it fading as years passed.

HIV/AIDS is becoming slowly forgotten, and we often need reminding about global poverty. Indeed there are many campaign issues in the world, and I suppose, there are so many that we often must dedicate ourselves only to a few. Those few that we consider are often those that have immediate or distant impact upon us (breast cancer, for instance). Otherwise, they are then dismissed and forgotten.

That seems to be the most salient point about Harris’ appeal to the poor moral sentiment of Christianity in his Letter.

Destre

Same matter, different subject

Crime, how do we study it?

There are many different ways to look at crime. The most conventional way it would seem to me is to look at it as a human and social behaviour. There are many perspectives on crime, and that there are perspectives on crime reflects the way we construe our subject manner. We might say for instance:

1. Crime is a social construction (constructivist)
1*. (therefore, there is no such thing as crime)

2. Crime is a natural phenomenon, we shall see it as while inevitable, there should be a rate to define a healthy rate of crime (positivist)
2*. Crime, or evil is a necessary pervailance in the immanent world (a religious-leaning viewpoint)

3. Crime is a situational behaviour established by a series of circumstances to dispose one to deviant action (generic psychological)

4. Crime is a situational occurence established by a system or social organisation which oppresses people to commit crime (Holist)

There are so many different ways to cut a phenomenon such as crime, here are some distinctions:

1. Focus on the individual vs. Focus on society or groups as a whole
2. Focus on the agent’s preferential and motivational set/Focus on causal factors
3. Focus on quantification of recorded occurences/Focus on speculative insights to which fit best to explain data
4. Focus on a scientifically validated measure or dataset, and establish as tight a methodology as one can/Focus on instituting change

Note that these distinctions are not mutually exclusive.

There has been recent talk as to the establishment of teaching sexology as a subject in universities. While a similar point is to be made about crime, there is an established ‘criminology’ that is taught in many universities (how it is organised often, is as  a collaboration of law scholars, social scientists and sometimes psychologists).

I may pose a similar question: how do we understand sex? There can be many ways to understand sex, how we determine this question leads to what kinds of answers we have. Is sex a natural phenomenon wherewhich we may address issues of medicine? Is sex a social issue, that represents at its most fundamental, the power relations between men and women, the complexitity of social identity (sexuality), and the relation with other important social notions (criminality, deviance, education, class, work).

Sex and criminality bring up many issues: the notion of paedophilia, for instance has a question-begging notion of childhood. A study like Philippe Aries and many others shows how our attitude towards the pre-pubescent and pubescent has changed over the past few centuries with industrialisation. Some criminalised sexual behaviours can reflect social attitudes, why is it criminal to put out a cigarette on one’s partner if they both want it [there are many documented stories like this]?

Legal issues can come up; age of consent is an obvious one, borderline cases, what about sex and legislation on an international level; where homosexuality is a corporal punishable offence at one sovereignty and acceptable at another. What about the plight of those who are between cultural identities and yet torn apart by them by virtue of their sexual identity (transexuals in Iran; the double discrimination of homosexual Israelis; the custom of forced marriage in British Pakistani communities).

Biological issues: does it make sense to classify between sexes of male and female? If sexual intercourse is a notion held by other species, is sexuality a workable notion? Can we for instance, use the insights of observing animal sexual behaviour as to understanding our own? Are we sufficiently genetically comparable?

Education: how do we properly teach sexuality in the classroom? How do we teach sexuality to children as parents and adults?

Normative: is it ethical to study sexual behaviour? What are the provisions required for ‘ethical’ study? Does the ‘is’ of animal sexual behaviour entail the ‘ought’ of sexual behaviour genera? (the answer is no).

To speak of a ’sexology’ is a bit of a misnomer in some respects. While there are many insights to be made as the biological scientist, the social psychologist, the clinical psychologist, the sociologist, the philosopher, or even the educator; those issues of sex often presuppose or come to bear upon wider issues of those subjects. To have a ’sexology’ would be at worst a failed understanding of the underlying issues which lie far beyond sex itself, or at best, an understanding simultaneously of many many disciplines at little depth or only one subject at much depth. There are some subjects that, while are importantly interdisciplinary, are not subjects suis generis, that is, without some failure or exclusion of one discourse.

This is not fair to say that some interdisciplinary efforts are irrelevant.

Many subjects in the mathematical sciences often have specialists who are non-mathematicians. Calculus as applied to the many aspects of chemistry, or the subject that has now come to be known as computer science; are noble species of wider genera subjects.

There is a sense of question-begging to which I have decidedly not answered, as to how to understand crime, or sexuality. While we may be conciliartory between the biologist interested in evolution, or the law scholar who is also an amateur marxist; we find not necessarily competing theses, but rather; competing ideologies and methods. To group them as one exclusive category excludes the manifold within each subject matter.

Destre

Philistinism

I would quite dislike a world ruled by philistines:

i. Where a non-philosopher would teach arguments for the existence of God
ii. Where someone without a sense of history would be a politician
iii. Where an artist or writer cannot look to the past, or the present, or even the future, for a source of influence, but be stuck in a moment of a style, which may or may not have passed a long time ago
iv. Where targets are a priority over concern and human interpersonal contact.
v. Where skill is seen as a threat, and not a virtue
vi. Where the best orator wins, and personal attacks are currency
vii. Where training is a distraction
viii. Where the closed-minded and unimaginative cannot see the potential for creativity or connection in the pursuit of the non-task. It is in the serf that the Romantics reintroduced folk culture; it is in the proletariat’s tragedy of war that the most sophisticated of composers found inspiration in the early 20thC; it is in nature where those greatest natural scientists found divinity; it is in the seemingly irrelevant that we can find the most eloquent and succinct exploration of our most relevant concerns and interests.

All too often I hope for the Nietzschean superman to find rule, in disdain and disgust of the very flock they object. It is, the one who is entirely delved in the most fundamental of skills and arts, I think, who would be the one that pushes those who appeal to their position rather than their inner skill, to challenge their very existence.

Antisophie (and Destre)

Alienation from one’s ends

Often I have come across the thought that being alienated from one’s ends is absurd, or rather, in some way incomprehensible.

What would this phrase possibly mean? Here are some interpretations:

1. To be alienated from your ends is to not act in accordance with your prima facies motivational states, those being desires, beliefs, and other such attitudes and epistemic states which form our preferential set.

Response: our percieved ends do not necessarily need to be our actual ends. There are many cases of self-deception, or simply not being aware of one’s ends. Nussbaum gives an example in Flawed Crystals (or is it The Golden Bowl?), where the Henry James character kept his feelings of love hidden from himself, only by discovering it, is it instantiated. But it was, however, hitherto unawares to the agent.

2. To be alienated from your ends is not to act in accordance with things in your preferential set?

Response: This requires clarification, what exactly does this mean? Surely there is always a case where there is an ellipsis to one’s own ends?

Response*: Consider the case of carrying out posthumous tasks. Perhaps for instance, you have a friend who tended to a garden, or campaigned against noise pollution; perhaps you, the agent, have no interest in these activities. You might even hate gardents or enjoy the late night party with loud music; such that pursuit of these ends are contrary to your own motivational set. If this is the case, does it look like there is an alienation of one’s ends? Perhaps.

But there is still an ellipsis. Conflicting desires are not a sufficient condition of alienation, nor are they necessary. Most preferences we have may have conflicting desires. I may desire to lie in bed for a few minutes, this may lie against the desire to get to work early, or get more work done, or curb one’s own laziness. The desire to have a lie-in for a bit longer may also be strong, so strong to overwhelm one’s pre-existent motivations. A conflict is not a sign of alienation.

Destre