David Brooks has another of his patented “science explains social things but I won’t tell you how or cite any actual articles” pieces today. This one is about the “science of morality.” It’s hard for me to read neocons talk about morality without thinking about torture. Brooks:
Many of our moral emotions and intuitions reflect that history. We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.
The first nice thing about this evolutionary approach to morality is that it emphasizes the social nature of moral intuition. People are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.
[….]It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning.
Oh, the morality of those religions and traditions (from Steve Waldman via Sully)!
When George W. Bush was running for President, Christians hoped that having a devout man in the White House would lead to more a more moral government.. traditions and religions!
[….]But Bush wasn’t the most interesting test of the theory. Though his faith was important to him, it never had nearly the depth of another member of the team — John Ashcroft…
[….]In Never Again, his book about his years as Attorney General, Ashcroft doesn’t mention torture or “enhanced interrogation” at all. He doesn’t ackowledge wrestling with the ethical issues, even by way of justifying the decisions. The closest he comes is a phrase defending the right to “ask probing questions” of suspected terrorist detainees.
On one of the greatest moral questions of the administration — and arguably one of the greatest challenges to Christian ethics of the last decade — he has nothing to say.
And thank God for cooperation as well.
Medical personnel were deeply involved in the abusive interrogation of terrorist suspects held overseas by the Central Intelligence Agency, including torture, and their participation was a “gross breach of medical ethics,” a long-secret report by the International Committee of the Red Cross concluded.
I hope I don’t sound hysterical here, but hearing a war-supporter who has been silent about torture tell the world it’s wonder how morality works is just a bit too much for me this morning.
Update. It took me a while to understand what Brooks was driving at here, but I think I get it now: it’s a defense of doing as you’re told, of not questioning things, of living the life of the “Organization Kid“, to use of his own phrases. It’s a message that runs through all his works from the “shut up and drive your Audi” message of “Bobos in Paradise” to the “shut up and eat at Applebee’s” message of “On Paradise Drive.”
When I lived in Athens, Georgia, the excellent free weekly The Flagpole did an article contrasting the Brooks “Organization Kid” piece with some book that had a title like “How To Get Through College”, which gave advice on things like how to avoid doing laundry, how to show up for class hung-over, and so on. I still remember how it closed: “The student who has read `How To Get Through College’ may stagger when he walks, but at least he doesn’t goosestep.”
El Cid
Right, because if there’s one lesson one should draw from scientific research into the empirically verifiable processes followed by the human brain, it’s that you can’t trust them damn a-theists with their big mouths and their lookin’ down on people who say that a fancy invisible space guy is what done everything. Thank you David Brooks, Deep Thinker (TM)!
schrodinger's cat
When I glanced at Brooks column this morning, I was wondering how long it would take you to comment on it. I don’t know why but Brooks really bugs me more than say Krauthammer and others. He seems so pleasant and reasonable when he is anything but.
Also, why do we even have to listen to these shameless war-mongering torture approving neo-cons preaching about morality, I wonder.
aimai
I’m too tired to read Brooks, or even to clarify why I hate him. El Cid can do a way better job, I think. I was up all night in the emergency room with my youngest daughter and now i’m staring, zombie like, at the screen pondering how and whether too cook passover dinner for 20. But taht being said, I really hate Brooks and most of all I hate the fake, passive aggressive approach he takes to social science and philosophy. I hate the way he always pretends to be "discovering" something totally "new" and "counterintutive" that will totally "change your mind" about something you thought you already understood. But he’s always at least five years behind, if not more, on the actual research and writing–he only ever gets to whatever it is when its just been published for the no necks and the chattering classes in a coffee table size version "blink" or "the tipping point." And.He.Always.Gets.It.Wrong.
Because the other half of his shtick is that underneath his "look, over here, interesting science" is the reality that he only agrees with stuff that feeds directly into his propaganda intentions. And he always uses exactly the same cheezy sleight of hand: start out with a fake interesting "nugget", a factoid, and end up with a weak defence of some right wing belief. It never fails. I used to entertain myself by guessing just what twisted logical path he would take to get from some bland observation "did you know that fish originally may have had ‘hands’ at the end of ‘limbs?’ just like mammals?" to "and so it turned out to be OK that Cheney tortured people and ate them with barbecue sauce. Then I got tired of it. Because I was always proved fucking right. And it got tedious.
And now, take it away el cid. I know you can do better.
aimai
DougJ
Bingo.
I hope things worked out okay at the emergency room. That sounds very trying.
aimai
fuck, el cid and I cross posted. Damn you el cid!
aimai
BTW I was reading the comment thread on…hm…was it the second class ponzi scheme by the goy and el cid’s various comments just caused me to bust out laughing, right in the emergency room. So it was all good.
jrg
Sounds like Brooks discovered Facebook this week.
I love his logic, too. Shorter Brooks: "because beating women for not wearing a burqua evolved over hundreds of years, as a practice it is morally superior to the use of the birth control pill, which has only existed since the 1960s."
Dennis-SGMM
And then some of them torture the shit out of people.
used to be disgusted
This latest Brooks column really hits a new low.
I don’t doubt that in practice, most people rely on moral "instinct" and rationalize their decisions after the fact.
That doesn’t mean it’s a *good* practice, or that we ought to celebrate unthinking gut reactions. People often feel, instinctively, that the interests of those close to them matter more than collective welfare. I’m not really hurting anyone if I cheat on my taxes, am I? They may feel instinctively that it’s okay to inflict pain on members of an out-group, if it (seems to) serve the ends of people who look more like them.
This column is a great instance of what Brooks habitually does — justify his readers’ existing prejudices by making them *look like* the savvy results of reasoned deliberation.
jeff
On planet Bizzaro it makes perfect sense.
Jinchi
Well there are definitely scientific studies on social behavior, but Brooks doesn’t cite any articles because they typically involve nature evolving a solution to the "Prisoner’s dilemma" problem. God is completely absent from the discussion.
e.g. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5833/1905
schrodinger's cat
@aimai
I hope your daughter feels well soon.
Leelee for Obama
Hannah Arendt called it the banality of evil. It fits here, I think. David Brooks can also call 1-800-Bite Me.
cleek
mmm. smell the smug.
"unwarranted" ? guess Brooks has all the answers already. he just won’t share them with us.
so there’s this unnamed aspect of human existence and it lives in the spaces that science has yet to explain. Brooks should go Google "God Of The Gaps".
he needs to learn not to assume that things science can’t explain today are not strictly inexplicable or to place his hopes for the supernatural into those gaps, because science has this long, long record (going back eons before it was even called "science") of filling those gaps with actual empirical knowledge.
The Other Steve
Isn’t what Brooks describing here the The Theory of Moral Sentiments?
This fucking stupid argument has been going back since the 18th century when Adam Smith and David Hume were writing about Sentimentalism. Brooks is now trying to twist these concepts into a world where they support his irrational way of thinking about the world.
I don’t really give a shit. Quit trying to divide people David Brooks! Why don’t you just admit that both sides were write, they were just talking past one another you stupid arrogant elitist prick.
used to be disgusted
I’ll give him this — it actually *is* a Burkean argument. It’s Burke at his most reactionary — defending existing prejudices as more "natural" than abstract reason. But it’s Burkean all right.
El Cid
Hannah Arendt called it the banality of evil. Modern pundits call it job security!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Pyrrhonian alarm bells are going off, now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrho
gex
This, THIS, is the thing that bothers me. Equating faith in science with faith in God. Not. The. Same. Thing.
To the extent that science could be considered "faithlike" it is because we have faith in the scientific method. My faith that the sun will rise tomorrow because it has risen every single day in the past is not the same as Brooks’ faith in God. My faith is based on observation and while I can’t PROVE it will rise tomorrow no more than Brooks can prove God, which would you bet your life on showing itself to be true eventually?
And all of science is built on this foundation of observation, repeatability, and universality. Of course, science has advanced now to the point that it is sufficiently obtuse to lay people. But to reject the method that we are using to arrive our new discoveries as being no better than just asserting whatever bullshit your parents brainwashed you into believing as a child is ridiculous. There’s a reason there are no longer any burning bush/resurrection types of miracles but we have Captain Sully types of "miracles".
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gex:
Well, I can’t disagree with you on the first part of that; the second part brings up Pascal’s Wager- believe in God, because if there isn’t one you’re not losing anything by believing in God anyway. (If I bet my life there’s a God, and I find out I’m wrong when I die, what have I lost?)
A very stupid reason to be theistic, but it’s a million times smarter than anything Brooks has ever written.
gex
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: I suppose. Funny how Pascal’s wager is just applying some mathematical sciency-type thinking to the God problem.
Anyway this is more than just about believing in God just in case. This is choosing the long odds of God over the short odds of science when the come into conflict. I’d insert an example here of whether your retirement plan should consist of stocks or lottery tickets, but that’s all been blown to hell.
aimai
Jeezus, that line about patriotism and awe leading to morality is just vomit enducing. Can anyone tell me any philosopher ever who thought that mere patriotism or the ability to be awed by stuff resulted in moral or ethical thought or action? As others have pointed out if we accept that patriotism underlay Bush and Cheney’s decision to torture prisoners does that mean that torturing prisoners was actually a moral or ethical thing to do? Obviously not. Either the torture tainted the patriotism or the patriotism tainted the torture. The thing I hate about Brooks, even more than the other stuff I said, is that every essay ends up as a kind of word salad composed of "good" vs "bad" words that Brooks seems to think he can line up neatly into a binary opposition. Because he thinks liberals and atheists aren’t patriotic and also that they don’t have morals then it follows logically that people who are patriotic aren’t atheists and do have morals.
Also, thanks for all the comments and concern. Just four hours of croup in an emergency room! Really, nothing can make you more grateful for health insurance (however enraging) and that it wasn’t worse. Passover is a’comin and you know it concentrates the mind, on the subject of children and death, just like a hanging.
aimai
DanSmoot'sGhost
@gex:
I think we are confusing faith with expectation.
Faith is belief despite evidence to the contrary. Science presents the opposite bargain, which is conditional belief only if there is supporting evidence.
Saying that science requires faith in science is just a lie told by ignorant people to bamboozle other ignorant people.
It’s on the order of the "Were you there?" argument. Dinosaurs perished before the advent of man? Oh really? Were you there?
That’s the other side of the faith coin. Mocking conditional belief based on evidence, in favor of unconditional belief based on magical thinking.
geg6
@Leelee for Obama:
Yes, exactly, Hannah Arendt. She nailed it. If there is anyone more banal and evil than Bobo, I don’t know who that would be.
I am so disgusted by these people. Christianity is morally bankrupt and so is so-called conservatism. Adherents of both spout rhetoric that is diametrically opposed to the tenets of both philosophies and blithely condemn those who don’t follow their goosestepping footsteps. And the attempts to minimize, downplay, rationalize, excuse, and cancel out the torture carried out by the Bush administration and their lackeys in the military and intelligence community are the most disgusting, morally repugnant actions I’ve seen in my lifetime.
It makes me crazy that it was done in my name. It makes me outraged that they are still trying to cover it up and keep the truth from us. And it makes me despair that anyone will ever be exposed and punished for it.
But what makes me angry is when these fucks start lecturing me on morality. Fuck you, you fucking murdering, lying, morally bankrupt mother fuckers. Every fucking one of them. It almost makes me wish there was a god, the same retributional god they so cynically use to strike fear in the hearts of naive believers and that that god would dish out some of that righteous punishment of hell on every one of them. And then televise it for our entertainment.
cleek
just like Brooks’ whole column is about how new ways of thinking about morality complicate things for people who study morality.
he starts out with:
and then goes on to tell us how this challenges "the very scientists who study morality". IOW: he’s basing his anti-science pablum on the findings of people who study the foundations of our morality – some of them scientists who study the foundations of our morality,
hack.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gex:
Yes. At this point, lotto tickets seem the safer bet. Just as if the Sun doesn’t come up tomorrow, you can bet that your area churches will be filled to capacity. LOL
dslak
@aimai: So what you’re saying is that Brooks provides easy fodder for deconstructionists?
Leelee for Obama
The early humans were, understandably, in awe of weather events, earthquakes, floods, famine, death, because they had no way to explain them. Enter the faith marketers. God did it, because we’re all bad, but you’re worse, and I know what God wants us to do. Follow my instructions and, maybe, God will not smite you. No guarantee, of course, because you’re really sinful, and God knows all.
Later on comes reason and science to explain events, but the faith marketers have already had centuries to spread their message. And now, they have power. So, lotsa luck cutting through the fog of fear.
Even the guy we admire most from early science, Newton,
bought the idea that the things he couldn’t explain were God’s territory.
So it has always been. I have to wonder if reason-centered thinking is evolution at it’s best, albeit, slowest.
RSA
I hate the way David Brooks oversimplifies complex and even controversial issues to support his own preconceptions. It’s really, really irritating. As other commenters have said, better than I.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Empirical evidence, which requires faith in empiricism. Faith in our senses. Faith that we’re correctly observing the world, and aren’t just brains in jars or something.
Of course, arguing on that level is about as useful as arguing with a vegetable. Which is part of the reason why arguments about religion (an idea predicated on empirically non-observable, metaphysical phenomena) are utterly useless.
I’m reminded of a line in "1984", something about, "If I imagine I floated a minute ago, and you imagine I floated a minute ago, then it happened. I floated." Of course, Winston Smith had had the crap tortured out of him for a while by that point, so maybe the solipsism of it all began to seem perfectly sensible. Ironically, his disbelief in a God (as an external observer, if nothing else) made this brand of solipsism a plausible argument.
DanSmoot'sGhost
"The odds of winning the lottery seem to be about the same whether you play of not." So said Fran Lebowitz.
That’s my kind of sure thing!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Leelee for Obama:
I have a feeling that "Guess what, guys, no afterlife!" is always going to be a hard sell.
dslak
@Leelee for Obama: Although this might be the reasoning you get for believing in God or being moral from some people, you’re not going to get a "God of the Gaps" picture from leading religious philosophers or theologians.
There’s really no good evidence for the idea that human evolution progresses from religious belief to naturalism, and there are plenty accounts available of how Darwinian evolution is compatible with Christian theology (and that of other religions).
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Safer than stocks, at any rate. And if the FDIC runs out of money, safer than savings accounts, too.
Jesus. I can’t believe I had to write this. If someone had said this shit a year ago, I’d have thought they were a nutter.
Leelee for Obama
@geg6: Instead of apples, I comfort myself these days with the knowledge that I no longer wake up everyday in a country that tortures people. It’s good. I want them punished, in court and prison, but I’m willing to wait for it. There are many things to be done, they must be done, or we may not have the option of prosecuting these bastards. There’s no Statute of Limitations that I know of, and, being Irish, I know that revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
aimai
Well, as I recall the Jews got along without a real notion of an afterlife for a very long time. And yet they had a certain morality. And plenty of atheists believe, quite correctly in my view, that a purely this world focused approach to moral questions leads to a better more ethical stance on human relationships. It removes the cringing fear component so typical of lots of hell fire religions and replaces it (or can replace it) with honest compassion for others for what they endure in this life.
aimai
gex
@DanSmoot’sGhost: I don’t think that belief in science is faith at all. I’m just addressing the argument presented by religious people that scientists operate on faith just like them.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
I just keep coming back to the work angle. Faith seems to be pretty easy. You just clasp the magical thought to your bosom and go.
Science takes never-ending and methodical work. Who wants to do all that damned work? Ask all those questions, when the answers are all in one little book?
Miriam
In terms of:
Petr Kropotkin wrote in 1902 in "Mutual Aid: A factor of Evolution," that Darwin in his The Descent of Man intimated that "the fittest are not the physically strongest, nor the cunningest, but those who learn to combine so as mutually to support each other, strong and weak alike, for the welfare of the community."
I think this must be what Brooks is talking about when he writes that it is evolutionary for people "to link themselves into communities" and that "we are all the descendants of successful cooperators." But there is nothing about some kind of received morality about this – it doesn’t require a god or belief in god.
dslak
@aimai: Of course, the problem on the religious side would be then be the hellfire outlook rather than merely being religious. And plenty of atheists have also been willing to play along with the "All Muslims must die," clash of civilizations narrative.
In short, no group has a monopoly on virtue or vice.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@aimai:
And the Jews and Atheists are what percentage of the population?
As I said, a hard sell. If it weren’t a hard sell, it would’ve been bought in to, en masse, a long time ago.
(I’m not even sure about Judaism, actually. I understand that there’s some concept of a "Sheol," which is distinct from oblivion. But I’m not an expert on their theology.)
DanSmoot'sGhost
@gex:
I know, didn’t mean to suggest that you did. I was trying to agree with you but my pile-on-fu was weak.
Leelee for Obama
@dslak: I, myself, believe in a God when I think of my Kids and Grandkids. I think, perhaps, a Creator existed. My problem is, I don’t find him present in the behavior of his Creation. I cannot buy the Free-Will argument, because no human parent would do that long, no matter how crappy they are at parenting. A Supreme Being who was engaged all the more so.
Morality is something you learn and develop over a lifetime. One doesn’t need faith to do it. There’s nothing wrong with a faith that directs you to moral behavior, but it’s not the only way. A faith that denies morality is sinful-torture is just one example. Hunger, disease, war. No religion should support or ignore these things.
Just like many human fathers, I can accept the Creator for the wonders. But then, he left to do other stuff. And left us on our own.
gex
@aimai: Worse yet – the belief in a bigger, better life after this one makes people care less about the impact of what they do now so long as it doesn’t risk getting a ticket in to the big show. There are certain elements of the evangelicals who WANT massive wars in the Middle East and don’t give a whit about global warming because this life doesn’t matter, only getting to the next one matters.
dslak
@Leelee for Obama: Oh, I don’t believe in God at all, but I also prefer people to be more even-handed in their criticisms. I am however more skeptical of the abstentee landlord deity you seem to subsribe to more than I am of more traditional theism, as I don’t see how one could account for the rationality of belief in such a being.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I don’t know. Learning the rituals of Catholicism, for example, is a real pain in the ass. And you could spend a whole lifetime squabbling over the theological niceties.
As a species, that’s true. More work. But from an individual perspective, not at all. I don’t devote any of my time to science, either. I’m pretty lazy about it. Scientists tell me they invent a teleporter, and I’ll shrug and wait to see if it becomes commercially viable. If it doesn’t kill anyone, I’ll use it. I don’t know how my microwave oven works, I just crack open the book (the instruction manual) and use it. On a personal level, science makes me lazier, not more industrious.
Make of that what you will, I guess.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Yes, Catholics definitely go to a lot of trouble to support that vast bureaucracy they have going over there. Their power seems proportional to the amount of mumbo-jumbo you have to learn to get whatever the hell they are doing.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gex:
Sociopaths you always have among you. Destroy Christianity, and eliminate Christian sociopaths, and you will then end up with atheist sociopaths. On the other hand, plenty of Christians do good works. You just don’t hear much about them, the ones who are manning orphanages and soup kitchens while Jerry Falwells get on TV and bloviate about how God hates gay people.
Comrade Dread
I think this misconstrues the idea of faith.
Believing in X when I clearly see that X is not true is not faith. It is insanity.
Rather faith is belief when there is arguable (or debatable) evidence.
We both observe the same reality. The same set of facts, but I interpret them in a manner that supports the existence of God. You may do the same, you may decide that the evidence is insufficient, you may decide that my conclusion is a stretch of the facts for you and offer your own.
dslak
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: It’s like a Russell Peters routine I once saw: You never hear about the Arabs who just go to work and take care of their wife and kids because those Arabs are boring!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
The best part is, most of it is a mystery, anyway. To the uninitiated, it’s all gibberish. You work your ass off for something you don’t even understand anyway. And that may or may not be utterly meaningless to you, depending on how much faith you put into it in the first place.
DanSmoot'sGhost
He just hates arguing with them.
But all seriousness aside, does He hate them if they do good works?
ER, good gay works?
DanSmoot'sGhost
Don’t poke fun at my job. It keeps me in health insurance.
I just have to have faith that I am doing something that is a benefit to mankind.
Heh.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
You mean my personal belief, or Jerry Falwell’s? No use speculating about God’s, assuming (arguendo) that there is one.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@dslak:
Yep. Why don’t we hear about the Iraqis who AREN’T getting killed? There are almost 25 million of them, after all. Well, slightly fewer every day, but still.
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
LOL
Comrade Dread
That said, Brooks’ column is ridiculous.
It’s essentially an argument pushing for more truthiness and gut thinking by humanity, instead of encouraging people to think through their beliefs and construct an ethical framework for themselves.
It’s pushing both a herd mentality and a destructive laziness.
It’s essentially an anti-rational conclusion which spits on the ideas of the Enlightenment and centuries of religious and philosophical thought.
aimai
God, I hate the phoney evenhanded "get rid of christian sociopaths and you’ll be left with atheist sociopaths." You know what? I’d be god damned thrilled just to get rid of the smarmy christian apologists and their eternal special pleading. I don’t think its any worse to be killed by an atheist sociopath doing it for fun than by one of america’s (or the worlds) legion of right thinking authoriatarian, fundamentalist, religious nuts *whichever* sect and cult they are currently basing their sociopathy on.
Also, the only reason "faith" and "science" are considered opposed in the modern imaginary is that Science started disproving the assertions of (some) faiths very handily and that made it necessary to fall back on a new justification for faith. Prior to the rise of science and the scientific method and the enlightenment and all that the world and all that was in it was thought to *demonstrate* god’s existence and his will*very obviously.* After science started making clear that there were other practices and forces at work, and that the very regularity of the natural universe precluded miracles and reasoning by analogy and metaphor the churches started bloviating about the "difference" between faith and science and the superiority of a belief in things unseen, the "leap of faith," the god who teases and tricks us (hiding the true history of the world under fake evolutionary traces) etc…etc…etc…
aimai
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
I have a hard time tracking Falwell’s beliefs. Isn’t he the guy that swore that the Antichrist was a jew now living in the United States?
Which always puts me in mind of Al Franken’s response, which was, "Is it Marvin Hamlisch?"
Which I really believe is the funniest line I have ever heard in my life. And by itself qualifies Franken for the Senate.
dslak
@aimai: Actually, part of the source of the science/faith dichotomy was that educated religious people thought that science was going to prove Christianity to be true. This was part of William Paley’s project, for example. Those people sure were in for a rought ride . . .
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@aimai:
It’s only the truth. And before we had Christian sociopaths, we had Pagan ones.
Your dislike of Christianity is clouding your understanding of human psychology. Crazy people have always existed, and will always exist, regardless of the ideologies or theologies of the time in which they find themselves.
No matter what brand of sociopath kills you, it’s still the same. That’s kind of my point.
It will be interesting to see a fundamentally empirical process (science) disprove metaphysics.
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I never heard about that. It’s awesome, though. "I know the anti-Christ! He lives down the street from me! The guy with the annoying dog."
Comrade Dread
Some of the original building blocks of Science was that God was a rational being and his creation and the processes running it could be perceived and understood by rational beings made in his image.
For some, it wasn’t a matter of proving God’s existence, as much as gaining more insight and understanding into who He was and how he worked.
lovethebomb
What does patriotism have to do with faith? Brooks is waving the flag of nationalism, which is a pointless idolatry and should be in confict with any faith. Frankly, I am surprised he raises the subject during a Democratic administration. Usually wingtards talk patriotic during Republican ones then remember the patriotism of dissent when forced out of office for the usual crimes.
You can tell when you read him and others like Will they start their argument with an a priori conclusion which defends establishmentarian shackles and then pretend to arrive at "shut up, do as your told" as some kind of new enlightened and bold position. I bet if you unearthed their money trail, their checks would track to the oligarchy.
What surprises me on this blog and others is how much (legitimate) attention is paid to the ethical breach of torture but fail to note, except glancingly, of the mass murder of more than a million Iraqi civilians. I would think that a greater war crime.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Yes, and if you don’t believe it, just hang around dog shows for a while.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Comrade Dread:
Good point.
If God exists, His/Her/Its language is mathematics. I think we’ve figured that out by now.
dslak
@Comrade Dread: Yes, there was that, too, but certain ideas had to be jettisoned, as well, before advancement on this front was possible.
For example, in the Medieval period, scientific laws were considered to be impossible because God’s power cannot be limited. Sure, an object may fall every time it is released now, but God could stop any object from falling, if He wanted to. Thus, we cannot say that there are physical laws.
gex
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: Your complaint is fair, to a point. But I would strenuously argue against an atheist whose beliefs led them to conclude more war, more global warming is okay. I never said that the religious beliefs that prompt these sentiments are the only ones that are problematic.
What would you have me say? Because there are always sociopaths, I shouldn’t argue against this specific set of beliefs that encourages sociopaths?
dslak
@lovethebomb: It’s not mass murder. It’s death as a result of unintended (but in many cases, clearly forseeable) consequences.
The problem with pursuing people for this is that the guilt is spread pretty widely.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gex:
True. But there are such atheists. I’ve met them. Nihilists, for the most part.
I would argue that Christianity doesn’t encourage sociopathy any more than Islam encourages suicide bombing. Crazy people will always twist ideas to support their craziness. For every sociopath who’s a Christian, there are about 10,000 decent, normal people. Are they the ones misinterpreting the ideas, or is it the crazies who are maybe reading it incorrectly?
***
OT, but Vermont’s Legislature just overrode Douglas’ veto. Vermont now has gay marriage! Yay!
dslak
@gex: You can argue that a particular theist is wrong in his or her theology without requiring a concession that God does not exist.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Indeed, and reason enough by itself to distrust Her.
lovethebomb
@dslak:
No it isn’t. One person made the fateful error of invading and occupying a nation that had not attacked or threatened our national security. It is self evident there would be an insurgency. How would American’s react if China invaded? NO Middle East expert believed any of the rosy scenarios floated pre-invasion. You can’t have democracy in a theocratic culture, only a democratically elected theocracy. Constitution, rule of law, and civil rights must come before elections.
Yes, we MURDERED a million or more Iraqis. It was not "collateral damage." It might be second degree murder, but murder nonetheless.
What happened to Truman’s "the buck stops here?"
Comrade Dread
Which was an invalid conclusion to draw from both observable nature and the biblical text. That God is described as being omnipotent does not negate natural laws.
It is possible, after all, that a miracle such as a non-falling object could also have natural processes behind it which are unknown to us.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@lovethebomb:
Has there ever been a democracy, then?
gex
@dslak: Well, I don’t believe there is a God, so that may sound like what I am arguing. But that’s not what I am trying to argue.
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss: And I am pointing to specific branches of Christianity, not all, that support these things wholesale. If you want to make the argument that entire sects of Christianity are comprised of sociopaths, far be it for me to try to dissuade you.
I agree that for every 1 sociopathic Christian there are 10000 (or more) decent ones. But right now, the presence of those decent Christians provides not only cover for the sociopaths, but actually gives them a privileged place in our society. That is what is different from the other sociopaths.
dslak
@lovethebomb: It seems you want to say that Bush is solely responsible, but the power to declare war was abdicated to him by Congress. Americans voters, in turn, were more than happy to vote in Congressman who promised more war.
Given all of this, is it really fair to say that the president alone is responsible for the fallout from invading Iraq?
lovethebomb
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
As imperfect as our’s is, and it is now so corrupt it only serves big business and billionaires, at least there were in place the foundation of a constitution, laws and civil rights which protect the minority from the majority. How awesome to have freedom "from" religion as a special clause in addition to anti-establishment. If not for these things, the Bush cult would have outlawed liberals, universities, the gays, and poor people.
dslak
@gex: I don’t believe in God, either, but I do know enough about Christian theology to point out basic errors.
As for average Christians concealing sociopaths, they are often their victims. Furthermore, I wonder what you think an average Christian is?
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
If hating math makes me a Satanist, then I’ll see you in Hell.
lovethebomb
@dslak:
Congress did not exactly authorize a war, but I take your point. As Condi Rice was fond of saying, no one could have anticipated Bush invading Iraq. Of course they could. I thought he would the moment he was appointed by coup.
Congress did not declare war. There was no vote on the invasion and the fact that the power to declare war rests soley with congress should have precluded this action. The system is, of course, broken.
And yes, the public got a hard on for war as they usually do when presented a sterilized video game version without any bloody soldiers like in Vietnam coverage. So, I guess you are right, everyone who voted for Bush in 04 is also complicit. And Mel Gibson.
But whether the guilt is sole or collective, why is there no outrage over of the death of a million Iraqus but plenty over torture? There seems to be a disparity, perhaps due to how sanitized and censored their deaths remained in the mainstream media.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@gex:
Decent people can follow sociopathic ideas, sometimes, too. From what I hear about Southern Baptists, it sounds nutty as fuck and downright crazy. Doesn’t mean there probably aren’t millions of Southern Baptists who’d lay down their lives for a total stranger- I’m very sure there are.
So, because Christianity is in vogue, it’s individual Christians’ fault that crazy people are Christian, too? How is being in the same church as a crazy person providing them "cover"? Any more than, say, paying the same taxes in the same state does? After all, if New York residents didn’t pay taxes, the roads wouldn’t have been good enough for that nut in Binghamton to drive his car up to the immigrant center and start shooting. Other New York taxpayers have about as much to do with him as being a Muslim has to do with other Muslims being crazy.
dslak
@lovethebomb: I did say that Congress abdicated the authority to Bush. As to why few people care about so many dying: the fact that the guilt is ubiquitous explains it quite well. Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Sorry, typo. Too late to edit. I meant to say, "From what I hear about the Southern Baptist Church." If that’s the one that equates all sins, and says that you’re pretty much going to Hell no matter what. I’m told those are its tenets. If I’m wrong, I’d appreciate it if someone would correct me.
lovethebomb
The guilt is not "ubiquitous." It is singular and rests with Bush. That congress and the public did not stop him counts as complicity, but he pushed the button. Is everyone responsible for the torture too?
"If you can get people to believe in absurdities, you can get them to commit injustice."
Voltaire
dslak
@lovethebomb: Torture is something we have laws for and an established means of identifying who is responsible and punishing them. As Bush did not actually authorize the killing of all those Iraqis, and was not solely responsible for the decision to invade Iraq, it’s difficult to see how he could be solely responsible for that action’s consequences.
On the Voltaire quote, I always thought it was "If the people believe absurdities, then they will commit atrocities."
lovethebomb
I understand it’s no big deal. They were only brown people. And with the wrong religion too! Heck, we killed 2 million Vietnamese. They had the same skin color problem.
I fail to see your logic. Bush WAS soley responsible for the decision to invade Iraq. He therefore authorized the killings. He is the commander in cheif. If somone else did it, they should let us all know. Why are you defending that war criminal? Did all of Germany go on trail for war crimes? I didn’t see all of them at Nuremburg. Your desire to spead the guilt soo thin as to be "ubiquitous" is odd to say the least.
SnarkIntern
That appointment has already been confirmed long ago, SM.
I’m packing my asbestos jockstrap and personal cooling cap now just to be ready.
aimai
You know, snuffy mcsnufflepuss,
I don’t give a flying fuck about christians or whether they are a "popular religion" that attracts sociopaths or whatever is bugging you. I’m not a christian. The world is and always has been full of non christians, plenty of good and bad has been done by all kinds of people. Modern American christians, like modern fundamentalist muslims, are tediously, boringly, almost homerically obsessed with demanding that we all acknowldge the beauty and utility of their imaginary god, their peculiar view of history, their weird theories of sexuality, etc…etc…etc… and whenever you point towards an actual instance of behavior by their own party that embarrasses them you have to endure a lecture about how that’s "really not representative" or it was "based on a scriptural misreading" or "anway you atheists/jews/buddhists" are worse or some other bit of special pleading. Fuck that noise. As a former christian said on another board I’m reading for refugees from fundamentalist christianity:
"good people do good things and bad people do bad things but only religion can make good people do bad things." For every lovely christian there’s a lunatic right wing fundamentalist authoritarian abusing scripture like a cheap sex toy. That’s your problem, not mine.
So, fuck off.
aimai
CMcC
You quote David Brooks: "We are all the descendents of successful cooperators. The first nice thing about this evolutionary approach to morality is that it emphasizes the social nature of moral intuition."
Emphasizing that we are "cooperators" and that our morality has a "social nature" strikes me as quite profound. Jesus is said to have taught us to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and to "love your neighbor as yourself." To those who say morality comes only from God, I have long responded by pointing out the self-centered, self-interested basis of these moral statements: given that we do, in fact, find ourselves among other human beings, a rational concern with our own well-being leads us to so "do" and to so "love."
So Brooks is on to something. Then he says "the social nature of moral intuition" … "challenges the new atheists"!
WTF? Really? Did he read his own column?
Ecks
Maybe it’s because I’m a social psychologist, and actually know Haidt’s work (go watch this video of him speaking at the New Yorker conference. Trust me), but you guys all have totally the wrong end of the stick here. Bobo, believe it or not, is actually pretty accurate in this column. In fact, while his social commentary may be worse than dreck, his social science is usually solid – even if he doesn’t cite sources well enough to let non-social scientists easily confirm this.
So here for instance, Haidt’s data on moral psychology really does challenge rationalism – not saying that it can’t work, just that it’s not a very accurate description of how people (even rationalists) actually think.
Example: Take the scenario of a brother and sister, who while on holiday decide they’d like to boink each other’s brains out. Just this once, for fun. Even most rationalists say this is wrong. So you ask them "why?" Well they have reasons: any resulting kids could be deformed. "Ah ha," you say to them, "but what if they used multiple redundant forms of birth control. They are using pills, IUD’s, condoms, a vasectomy, the works, kids are simply not going to result. Is it still wrong." Most rationalists (and others) say yes, it is still wrong. But why? They… they… they don’t know, but it just is.
So here is a straight up case where they don’t seem to be using reasoning to arrive at a moral conclusion, instead they’re using moral reasoning to back up a conclusion they have already reached on a faster and more intuitive level. This is why he talks about moral reasoning being often the servant of moral sentiment rather than vice versa.
So, no, Bobo isn’t wrong about the science here, and he’s not saying what most of you think he’s saying. How much you want to attribute this confusion to hacktacular incompetence versus the difficulties of describing counter-intuitive research in a very small space without sounding overly didactic is an entirely different debate ;)
roseyv
Wait. So … evolution does exist? Or … what —
I’m confused.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@aimai:
That’s pretty obvious.
Yup.
Yes, the ones that get on the news are. The other ones are boring.
Yes, just because it’s a valid position, there’s no reason to respect it.
It helps you believe this if you ignore history.
Has any ideology other than a religion ever done bad things? Were some of those bad things done by good people, who believed in that ideology? If so, then your friend is wrong. Demonstrably wrong.
I dispute your demographics, there. If that were so, America would be in much worse shape than it already is. Most people are decent, regardless of your personal hang-ups about their religious scruples. They live their lives regardless of what you think of them, and most don’t impose on you, either.
And I fail to see why it’s my problem that there are crazy people in the world. Any more than it’s anyone else’s problem. The fact that some of those people might share theology with me makes them no more my problem than the fact that they might share a zip code with you makes them your problem.
If you’re not capable of having a civil conversation about this, maybe you shouldn’t try to have a conversation about it. If you think the 95% of the world that believes in some form of spirituality or metaphysical entities consists of people who are crazy, evil, stupid, or some combination of the three, or people who are morally culpable just for happening to share a broad theological belief with those in the preceding categories, then I don’t know what I can say to you that’s going to change your mind.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
I’m sorry aimai, I didn’t read earlier when you said you were up in the ER with your daughter. I didn’t realize that when I was talking to you. I hope your daughter’s okay, and I’m sorry if I’ve said anything unduly antagonistic or provocative.
roseyv
As opposed to an eminently logical and supremely well-reasoned faith in the power of an invisible magic sky-man.
And I actually believe in God. Jiminy crickets.
hmd
@Ecks:
This doesn’t really speak to the effort to introduce more rationality into morality. Most people don’t need to think about morality rationally; they need to make a decision and get on with life, so they make intuitive decisions based on a combination of biology, experience, and culture.
But if you are a philosopher, or theologian, it’s your job to think about things like this. What things ought to be incorporated into the culture and community, becoming part of that intuitive decision-making process? Rationality is just one of the tools for this job, but it is an important one.
geg6
@gex:
Based on the experience of my 50 years here on the planet, I must point out that the ratio here seems to be backwards. And you can substitute any other religion for the word Christian and it changes the validity of that ratio not at all.
All religion is nothing more than self-delusion. Some prefer to live that way. Personally, gimme the real world in all its gory glory. I don’t need no stinkin’ bubbles to live in.
cleek
i never thought he was wrong about the science. but he’s definitely guilty of making a very sloppy argument.
Tony J
IMHO It’s like this.
I look at my body, I can see it. I have a body. It’s there every time I look at it. I bang it into things, it hurts, and makes the thing I bang it into react in some way. I know that’s real, because I can see it. It doesn’t go away if I refuse to believe in it. So I don’t need to have faith in it, I can just test it and find out what it’s made of.
As compared to looking at my body and thinking "A higher power made this, and it could change at any moment." Then banging your body into things and thinking "A higher power could stop this hurting, or that thing reacting, at any moment." You can’t see these things happen, but you choose to believe they’re possible, because you choose to believe in a Higher Power. So you do need to have faith in it. You can’t test it, or prove it, because it’s a Higher Power, and you’ll never really know.
So you can’t really chalk ‘science’ up as just another belief system requiring faith. The’s no faith involved, just theories, testing, and patience. If we are just brains in jars, science will eventually prove it one way or another, and then start figuring out what that means. Faith can only wait and hope that it turns out to be right.
YMMV.
lovethebomb
We’re talking about groupthink here, and it’s been useful for communities throughout civilization as a means of survival. Much has been made of women as consensus builder’s and nurturer’s so they perhaps aid this impulse. I would imagine it is like animal packs or any other self selecting groups which combine resources for food and defense.
That is just an anthropological explanation for how organisms collaborate to survive. It does not validate whatever fantasies and mythologies humans have used to give cohesion to those bonds.
A scientist since the 19th century has far more likeliehood of survival than a religious fundamentalist since they believed in germ theory instead of thinking plagues and diseases are retribution from an invisible space god.
(from another person who believes in God, but can’t stand most other people who do as well).
Ecks
@hmd: Philosophers can debate it to the end of the earth (and power to them), and there are some fields like bio-ethics where professional morality thinkers really do have an impact on policy and what gets carried out. But most people, most of the time don’t go through this reasoned process nearly as much as they think.
BTW, one of Haidt’s other really interesting findings is that if you look at why people say things are moral, you get basically 5 reasons:
1) harm/care
2) fairness/justice
3) authority/respect
4) ingroup/loyalty
5) purity/sanctity,
So why is Policy X wrong? Well it causes harm (e.g., beating someone up), it is unfair (e.g., cheating someone), it shows a lack of respect for legitimate authority (lying to a police officer), it betrays a group member, it would violate sanctity (e.g., pissing on someone’s holy book). Across wide moral systems from different cultures, most moral arguments seem to come back to one or more of these.
The interesting wrinkle is that liberals seem to focus mostly on the first 2 (if there’s no harm and no fairness problem we’re generally cool with it), while conservatives use all 5… so they’ll feel that loyalty or authority sometimes have to be traded off against fairness or harm (not that the latter 3 always win, just that they sometimes should be seen as legitimate tradeoffs)… So you can see where this leads to conservatives nodding at Bobo’s Burkian ring-a-ding-lings, whereas liberals regard this as inherently stupid and silly reasoning.
Anyway, fascinating stuff. Maybe you can see why I’m annoyed if Bobo gives Haidt a bad name by explaining his ideas badly.
Ecks
@cleek: Then I’m completely there with you. FWIW, DougJ was pretty snarky about the science, so that’s what I was reacting to.
Update: Tony J, there is no way you could ever refute the brain-in-a-jar hypothesis, not even with all the science in the world. Seriously, how could you prove it? Science, good as it is, has to assume that what we see with our eyes is at least somewhat reliable.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@geg6:
Your opinion of your fellow Americans (most of whom are Christians) is incredibly disheartening.
To each his own. If I shared your belief about 76% of the American population, I’d be holed up in a bunker in the woods somewhere.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
Not as long as Brick Oven Bill is posting here, anyway.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Tony J:
Sensory input, sensory input, sensory input.
Yep. It’s a personal choice. To each his or her own.
I’m talking about something more basic than science. I’m talking about faith in your senses. Why have such faith? Are your senses never wrong? Sick people sometimes see dead folks talking to them- if their senses are accurate, then I suppose there are a bunch of ghosts running around. That neither proves nor disproves ghosts, it just means that sick people are likelier to see them. Could be any number of reasons for that- hallucination’s the most probable, but for all we know, sick peoples’ senses are more attuned to the metaphysical or something. Maybe ghosts are empirically verifiable, but not by the normal range of human sensory input. The only conclusion I’m comfortable making is that chalking all knowledge up to the capacity of human senses is very limiting. It’s like saying that the color spectrum is limited to what humans are capable of seeing, and that’s that.
This is what I tell myself, anyway. Others are free to disagree/call me an idiot/whatever. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been called an idiot around here for not being an atheist. Probably won’t be the last, either.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
So, the Ted Kaczynski vision of you ….. ill founded?
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@Ecks:
Yep. This is why the original "Matrix" was such a fun movie. For all we know, we’re really living in the future, getting our energy sucked out of our bodies by robots while they play with our heads. You really can’t disprove that kind of thing.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
So far, anyway. I do live in Vermont, though. I’ve never been to Montana, but I imagine it’s vaguely similar. Woods and mountains. Theirs are probably higher, though.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Again with the mocking of my job description. Oy!
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
A river runs through them.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
I think we’re all coworkers, then. Coworkers toiling under the robot taskmasters.
We’ve got those, too. Although they’re more like creeks. Also, the mountains are more like hills. Think of Vermont as being a miniature Montana. With way more Hippies. There. That’s probably the way to go…
Ecks
@Scruffy McSnufflepuss:
Bip bip beeep beeep bip beeeep.
you know what I’m sayin’.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
LOL
Any talk of unions brings mass disintegration.
gnomedad
@Ecks:
David Deutsch offers an argument (OK, not a proof) against solipsism in The Fabric of Reality. First, your head has to contain a representation of the world as complex as the one you experience, then you have to explain why it’s in your head. It’s simpler (Occam’s Razor) to just let the world be itself.
Besides, I’m just hallucinating your insistence on brain-in-a-jar’s irrefutability.
lovethebomb
If brain in a jar were true, then when I took all that acid in the 80’s and had those out of body experiences, the aliens would have told me about it. Plus, in the 20 yrs since, the aliens have consistently told me about the dimension beyond my senses in which they operate. It is too soon for me to tell, but there is teleportation, telekenisis and ice cream.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
If the brain in a jar is hooked up to a computer, the computer contains the world, not the brain. Plenty of room in that computer, folks. Plenty of room. Just don’t play Mass Effect with my computer, or it’s going to completely shatter whatever’s left of my fragile sense of reality.