30 July 2007
28 July 2007
Simpsons, eh?
Warning: Spoilers Below.
After nearly twenty years of animated brilliance, The Simpsons finally have a movie. Matt Groening no doubt had many opportunities to write a movie that was guaranteed to cash in on a wildly successful series, but it is to his credit that he waited. The result is a fine movie indeed.
Of course, there's nothing entirely new; the movie essentially feels like a 90 minute episode (which is a decidedly good thing, since it was made for the millions of us who love the episodes). But you can tell that the writers and animators had fun trying some techniques and tricks that wouldn't work in a normal TV episode. First of all, it's the first time we've ever seen the Simpsons in widescreen, and seeing Springfield projected on the big screen feels odd after watching it for so long on TV. Also, the cinematography is different; they played more with sweeping camera shots and panoramic views. You could tell that the style was slightly dressed-up for the big screen, but they didn't change anything drastically, which is why it worked so well.
They also pushed the envelope in the realm of obscenity, but again, just enough to try a couple things they wouldn't do on TV. I've certainly never heard Marge use the expression "god damned..." in a sentence before, and there's a scene with Bart-- well, I won't give that one away.
A couple things, though, kept it from being the "Best.. Movie.. Ever." Lisa's crush on the kid from Ireland, for instance, was fairly pointless; the writers don't go anywhere with it, and we don't even really see any substantial humor come out of it.
But mainly, I would like to have seen more of peripheral characters like Krusty, Groundskeeper Willie, Principal Skinner, Snake, Apu, Police Chief Wiggum, Ralph, and especially Mr. Burns. One of the strengths that the Simpsons has always had as a show is that it develops these characters as much as the family itself, so that each person in the town has a distinct identity that adds to the mosaic of Springfield as the American Everytown. On the other hand, I can see how trying to fit as many characters as possible into the movie would have diluted the plot and made the movie into a pointless (albeit funny) string of one-liners and cameos, so I don't hold it against them. Maybe Mr. Burns simply needs his own movie.
It was nothing short of amazing, though, to hear Green Day sing the Simpsons theme at the beginning. And the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon was sheer genius.
All in all, an excellent movie that draws on all of the absurd, topical, high-brow, low-brow comedy that has long made The Simpsons the perfect satire of the American Family. Go see it!
After nearly twenty years of animated brilliance, The Simpsons finally have a movie. Matt Groening no doubt had many opportunities to write a movie that was guaranteed to cash in on a wildly successful series, but it is to his credit that he waited. The result is a fine movie indeed.
Of course, there's nothing entirely new; the movie essentially feels like a 90 minute episode (which is a decidedly good thing, since it was made for the millions of us who love the episodes). But you can tell that the writers and animators had fun trying some techniques and tricks that wouldn't work in a normal TV episode. First of all, it's the first time we've ever seen the Simpsons in widescreen, and seeing Springfield projected on the big screen feels odd after watching it for so long on TV. Also, the cinematography is different; they played more with sweeping camera shots and panoramic views. You could tell that the style was slightly dressed-up for the big screen, but they didn't change anything drastically, which is why it worked so well.
They also pushed the envelope in the realm of obscenity, but again, just enough to try a couple things they wouldn't do on TV. I've certainly never heard Marge use the expression "god damned..." in a sentence before, and there's a scene with Bart-- well, I won't give that one away.
A couple things, though, kept it from being the "Best.. Movie.. Ever." Lisa's crush on the kid from Ireland, for instance, was fairly pointless; the writers don't go anywhere with it, and we don't even really see any substantial humor come out of it.
But mainly, I would like to have seen more of peripheral characters like Krusty, Groundskeeper Willie, Principal Skinner, Snake, Apu, Police Chief Wiggum, Ralph, and especially Mr. Burns. One of the strengths that the Simpsons has always had as a show is that it develops these characters as much as the family itself, so that each person in the town has a distinct identity that adds to the mosaic of Springfield as the American Everytown. On the other hand, I can see how trying to fit as many characters as possible into the movie would have diluted the plot and made the movie into a pointless (albeit funny) string of one-liners and cameos, so I don't hold it against them. Maybe Mr. Burns simply needs his own movie.
It was nothing short of amazing, though, to hear Green Day sing the Simpsons theme at the beginning. And the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon was sheer genius.
All in all, an excellent movie that draws on all of the absurd, topical, high-brow, low-brow comedy that has long made The Simpsons the perfect satire of the American Family. Go see it!
24 July 2007
What a piece of work
Shakespeare was not only the greatest poet who ever lived; he had more direct influence on the English language than any other single person in history. We owe an amazing number of commonly used words and idiomatic expressions to his pen.
If you have never read Hamlet - and if you haven't, you should - you'll be amazed at how many lines are already familiar to you.
Idioms and expressions first coined in Hamlet:
In my mind's eye
Foul play
Murder most foul
Far gone
Method to his madness ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in it")
What a piece of work
In my heart of heart
It smells to heaven
Cruel to be kind
Hoised with his own petard
Famous dramatic lines from Hamlet:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
To thine own self be true
Brevity is the soul of wit
The play's the thing
To be or not to be
Get thee to a nunnery
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
Alas, poor Yorick
A hit, a very palpable hit
Good night, sweet prince
Oftentimes a classic work of literature has one famous line that everybody knows, e.g. "Call me Ishmael," or "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Hamlet has at least ten such lines - and it's only 100 pages long! Is there any other work of such short length that has made so many lasting contributions to our language?
If you have never read Hamlet - and if you haven't, you should - you'll be amazed at how many lines are already familiar to you.
Idioms and expressions first coined in Hamlet:
In my mind's eye
Foul play
Murder most foul
Far gone
Method to his madness ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in it")
What a piece of work
In my heart of heart
It smells to heaven
Cruel to be kind
Hoised with his own petard
Famous dramatic lines from Hamlet:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
To thine own self be true
Brevity is the soul of wit
The play's the thing
To be or not to be
Get thee to a nunnery
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
Alas, poor Yorick
A hit, a very palpable hit
Good night, sweet prince
Oftentimes a classic work of literature has one famous line that everybody knows, e.g. "Call me Ishmael," or "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Hamlet has at least ten such lines - and it's only 100 pages long! Is there any other work of such short length that has made so many lasting contributions to our language?
22 July 2007
Potter
In a conversation I had with an acquaintance a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was in the book publishing business. He remarked, "Man, I sure hope people are still reading books ten years from now."
Nice of him to say that, but his worries have no basis in reality. For, despite the rise of the internet, despite television's enduring popularity, despite the glitz and lights and sounds of the information age, despite the temptations for kids to turn on their playstation instead of read a book -- despite all of this, we still live in a world where records in book publishing can be utterly shattered.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series, sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of sales. That's five thousand books sold per minute, and that just in the US - the worldwide figures must be much larger.
This is not only a victory for Ms J.K. Rowling or for the books' publishers (though I extend my congratulations to them) - it is a proud and unmistakable sign that books will continue to be read for a long long time, no matter what flashy gadgets or other advances in circuitry are made.
Congratulations, Mr. Potter. And long live the book!
Nice of him to say that, but his worries have no basis in reality. For, despite the rise of the internet, despite television's enduring popularity, despite the glitz and lights and sounds of the information age, despite the temptations for kids to turn on their playstation instead of read a book -- despite all of this, we still live in a world where records in book publishing can be utterly shattered.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series, sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours of sales. That's five thousand books sold per minute, and that just in the US - the worldwide figures must be much larger.
This is not only a victory for Ms J.K. Rowling or for the books' publishers (though I extend my congratulations to them) - it is a proud and unmistakable sign that books will continue to be read for a long long time, no matter what flashy gadgets or other advances in circuitry are made.
Congratulations, Mr. Potter. And long live the book!
20 July 2007
A Human Stain
It takes a uniquely odious brand of asshole to have torturing and killing dogs as a hobby. Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is one such asshole.
This contemptible piece of human excrement bought, trained, tortured, and slaughtered pit bulls for what his primitive nervous system considered fun.
Some have come out in his defense, arguing that, after all, the victims of his sadism were "just dogs".
Yes, so they were. And Michael Vick is just a retarded nonce who enjoys watching animals suffer, because it's appealing to his reprobate sensibilities. Plus, he can't read, so what else is he supposed to do with his time?
Too bad the dogs never got ahold of him. That would be a QB sack I'd like to see.
This contemptible piece of human excrement bought, trained, tortured, and slaughtered pit bulls for what his primitive nervous system considered fun.
Some have come out in his defense, arguing that, after all, the victims of his sadism were "just dogs".
Yes, so they were. And Michael Vick is just a retarded nonce who enjoys watching animals suffer, because it's appealing to his reprobate sensibilities. Plus, he can't read, so what else is he supposed to do with his time?
Too bad the dogs never got ahold of him. That would be a QB sack I'd like to see.
18 July 2007
Critiquing the 'New New Atheism'
Writing in this past Sunday's Wall Street Journal, Peter Berkowitz constructs an interesting critique of the recent atheist publishing boom. Referring to the views espoused by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris as 'the New New Atheism', Berkowitz has this to say:
Profitability is not the only feature distinguishing today's fashionable disbelief from the varieties of atheism that have arisen over the millennia. Unlike the classical atheism of Epicurus and Lucretius, which rejected belief in the gods in the name of pleasure and tranquility, the new new atheism rejects God in the name of natural science, individual freedom and human equality. Unlike the Enlightenment atheism of the 18th century, which arose in a still predominantly religious society and which frequently went to some effort to disguise or mute its disbelief, the new new atheism proclaims its hatred of God and organized religion loudly and proudly from the rooftops. And unlike the anti-modern atheism of Nietzsche and Heidegger, which regarded the death of God as a catastrophe for the human spirit, the new new atheism sees the loss of religious faith in the modern world as an unqualified good, lamenting only the perverse and widespread resistance to shedding once and for all the hopelessly backward belief in a divine presence in history.
Essentially, Mr. Berkowitz seems to think that the caustic, mean-spirited, uncompromising nature of the atheism of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al is unprecedented in western intellectual history, and he strongly implies that past generations had better sense than to be so dismissive of religious ideas.
This is patently false. Mordant, no-holds-barred criticism of religion is far from being a new development. Friederich Nietzsche, Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow, Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ambrose Bierce, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Paine, Percy Bysshe Shelley - all of these thinkers and more have expressed atheistic arguments in even more uncompromising and mean-spirited terms than the 'new new atheists' who Mr Berkowitz pretends to be unique.
Consider Nietzsche, who wrote that "prayer has been invented for those people who really never have thoughts of their own", and that "in Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point." (I have no idea where Mr Berkowitz gets the lunatic notion that Nietzsche thought the death of god to be a "catastrophe"; Nietzsche despised religion and thought the death of god to be a prerequisite for the rebirth of the human spirit. But I digress.)
Or consider Robert Ingersoll, who is little remembered today but who toured the US in the mid-nineteenth century giving lectures on atheism. He was one of the most popular speakers of his day, drawing record crowds in a country which had only recently gone through a second great awakening. He once said that "religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery."
These thinkers of the past made no such efforts to "disguise or mute their disbelief"; indeed, they proclaimed their hatred of religion "loudly and proudly from the rooftops" every bit as stridently as the new atheists. But I think Mr Berkowitz errs in saying that any atheists, new or old, possess a "hatred of God". You can't hate a being in whom you don't believe. All of these thinkers hate the idea of god - the notion itself that there exists a supernatural being in whom one is supposed to have faith. That's a big difference from hating the being itself - which makes it sound like atheists simply resent god, instead of thinking the belief in him irrational.
All this being said, Mr Berkowitz does make a couple of good points. First of all, he points out that nitpicking at religions - finding sundry contradictory or false statements in the Bible, for instance, or interpreting religious stories like the binding of Isaac in a strictly modern framework - is to miss the point of the religious experience. Although I personally think that these criticisms are not without merit, since so many people do interpret their religions in the same "slavishly literal sense" that Mr Berkowitz says atheistic critics should avoid, I see his point: it's not the big picture.
Berkowitz also makes a sound point in arguing that it is beyond the scope of the new atheists to prove that there is no god. No one will ever be able to prove that beyond doubt, just as no one will ever be able to prove that there is a god.
But I'm not so sure that that is what Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris are saying. I think that their argument is not so much that "we are certain that there is no god", but rather that "we are certain that there exists no good reason to believe in a god". As I have not read all of the books in question, I will not say for sure; but I suspect Mr Berkowitz may be conflating these two approaches to atheism.
The final thrust of Berkowitz's criticism seems to be this:
Playing into the anger and enmities that debase our politics today, the new new atheism blurs the deep commitment to the freedom and equality of individuals that binds atheists and believers in America. At the same time, by treating all religion as one great evil pathology, today's bestselling atheists suppress crucial distinctions between the forms of faith embraced by the vast majority of American citizens and the militant Islam that at this very moment is pledged to America's destruction.
With this I disagree. If anything, the new new atheism confirms America's commitment to freedom, because it is emblematic of the free exchange of ideas that make freedom worthwhile. The mere fact that these criticisms are harsh does not mean that they are undemocratic, and the mere fact that these thinkers consider religions to be false does not mean that they think people should be prevented from practicing them.
And although the new new atheists may indeed blur the distinctions between different forms of faith, that is no flaw, because the focus of their criticism is what all religions share. They are attacking what religions have in common, from militant Islam to Mormonism to Orthodox Judaism: faith. It is faith - believing things without reason - which draws the fires of their abuse.
Mr Berkowitz concludes his piece by suggesting that "the variety of religions" deserve "a fair hearing." Have they not had a fair hearing for the past several thousand years? If there is indeed "nothing new under the sun" in the criticism of religion, certainly religion can offer nothing new in its own defence.
Profitability is not the only feature distinguishing today's fashionable disbelief from the varieties of atheism that have arisen over the millennia. Unlike the classical atheism of Epicurus and Lucretius, which rejected belief in the gods in the name of pleasure and tranquility, the new new atheism rejects God in the name of natural science, individual freedom and human equality. Unlike the Enlightenment atheism of the 18th century, which arose in a still predominantly religious society and which frequently went to some effort to disguise or mute its disbelief, the new new atheism proclaims its hatred of God and organized religion loudly and proudly from the rooftops. And unlike the anti-modern atheism of Nietzsche and Heidegger, which regarded the death of God as a catastrophe for the human spirit, the new new atheism sees the loss of religious faith in the modern world as an unqualified good, lamenting only the perverse and widespread resistance to shedding once and for all the hopelessly backward belief in a divine presence in history.
Essentially, Mr. Berkowitz seems to think that the caustic, mean-spirited, uncompromising nature of the atheism of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al is unprecedented in western intellectual history, and he strongly implies that past generations had better sense than to be so dismissive of religious ideas.
This is patently false. Mordant, no-holds-barred criticism of religion is far from being a new development. Friederich Nietzsche, Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell, Clarence Darrow, Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ambrose Bierce, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Paine, Percy Bysshe Shelley - all of these thinkers and more have expressed atheistic arguments in even more uncompromising and mean-spirited terms than the 'new new atheists' who Mr Berkowitz pretends to be unique.
Consider Nietzsche, who wrote that "prayer has been invented for those people who really never have thoughts of their own", and that "in Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point." (I have no idea where Mr Berkowitz gets the lunatic notion that Nietzsche thought the death of god to be a "catastrophe"; Nietzsche despised religion and thought the death of god to be a prerequisite for the rebirth of the human spirit. But I digress.)
Or consider Robert Ingersoll, who is little remembered today but who toured the US in the mid-nineteenth century giving lectures on atheism. He was one of the most popular speakers of his day, drawing record crowds in a country which had only recently gone through a second great awakening. He once said that "religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery."
These thinkers of the past made no such efforts to "disguise or mute their disbelief"; indeed, they proclaimed their hatred of religion "loudly and proudly from the rooftops" every bit as stridently as the new atheists. But I think Mr Berkowitz errs in saying that any atheists, new or old, possess a "hatred of God". You can't hate a being in whom you don't believe. All of these thinkers hate the idea of god - the notion itself that there exists a supernatural being in whom one is supposed to have faith. That's a big difference from hating the being itself - which makes it sound like atheists simply resent god, instead of thinking the belief in him irrational.
All this being said, Mr Berkowitz does make a couple of good points. First of all, he points out that nitpicking at religions - finding sundry contradictory or false statements in the Bible, for instance, or interpreting religious stories like the binding of Isaac in a strictly modern framework - is to miss the point of the religious experience. Although I personally think that these criticisms are not without merit, since so many people do interpret their religions in the same "slavishly literal sense" that Mr Berkowitz says atheistic critics should avoid, I see his point: it's not the big picture.
Berkowitz also makes a sound point in arguing that it is beyond the scope of the new atheists to prove that there is no god. No one will ever be able to prove that beyond doubt, just as no one will ever be able to prove that there is a god.
But I'm not so sure that that is what Dawkins and Hitchens and Harris are saying. I think that their argument is not so much that "we are certain that there is no god", but rather that "we are certain that there exists no good reason to believe in a god". As I have not read all of the books in question, I will not say for sure; but I suspect Mr Berkowitz may be conflating these two approaches to atheism.
The final thrust of Berkowitz's criticism seems to be this:
Playing into the anger and enmities that debase our politics today, the new new atheism blurs the deep commitment to the freedom and equality of individuals that binds atheists and believers in America. At the same time, by treating all religion as one great evil pathology, today's bestselling atheists suppress crucial distinctions between the forms of faith embraced by the vast majority of American citizens and the militant Islam that at this very moment is pledged to America's destruction.
With this I disagree. If anything, the new new atheism confirms America's commitment to freedom, because it is emblematic of the free exchange of ideas that make freedom worthwhile. The mere fact that these criticisms are harsh does not mean that they are undemocratic, and the mere fact that these thinkers consider religions to be false does not mean that they think people should be prevented from practicing them.
And although the new new atheists may indeed blur the distinctions between different forms of faith, that is no flaw, because the focus of their criticism is what all religions share. They are attacking what religions have in common, from militant Islam to Mormonism to Orthodox Judaism: faith. It is faith - believing things without reason - which draws the fires of their abuse.
Mr Berkowitz concludes his piece by suggesting that "the variety of religions" deserve "a fair hearing." Have they not had a fair hearing for the past several thousand years? If there is indeed "nothing new under the sun" in the criticism of religion, certainly religion can offer nothing new in its own defence.
16 July 2007
Eternity's sun rise
Eternity
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
-William Blake (1863)
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
-William Blake (1863)
11 July 2007
Meat's Pressures on the Planet
Many people assume that there are only two reasons to become a vegetarian: health concerns and ethical considerations. But the widespread consumption of meat has effects on the environment that go far beyond human nutrition or the well-being of animals.
BBC online has begun a new series, Planet Under Pressure, which explores six of "the most pressing environmental issues facing the human race today": food, water, energy, climate change, biodiversity, and pollution. All of these crises are directly or indirectly linked to eating meat.
FOOD
More agricultural crops in the world today are grown to feed the animals that feed humans, rather than to feed humans directly. Meat-eating is one of the most insanely inefficient processes that free markets tolerate.
In the world's oceans, overfishing has depleted many fish populations to critical levels. If demand continues to rise and stocks continue to shrink, some fishing stocks will disappear entirely.
WATER
Livestock, and the huge amounts of crops grown to feed livestock, consume epic amounts of water that could be supplying our homes and human-intended crops instead.
ENERGY
The huge amounts of land that are being used now for raising livestock and growing the food that feeds them could be used for wind or solar energy, thus easing our reliance on coal and nuclear power.
POLLUTION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND BIODIVERSITY
Meat-eating is a leading cause of deforestation, since large tracts of land are required not only to graze livestock, but to grow the aforementioned crops that feed livestock. And deforestation, in turn, is a leading cause of species extinction. Moreover, we need forests in order to keep the air in our atmosphere clean, and as we chop down more forests, pollution will worsen and global warming will accelerate.
In the sea, overfishing has heinous effects on biodiversity. The fact that many fish populations have been depleted to less than 10% of their original levels not only threatens the survival of those individual target species, but other species in the food web as well. According to oceanographer Doug Segar, overfishing may constitute "a far greater threat [to marine ecosystems] than the oil spills or industrial and domestic sewage discharges that often dominate media coverage."
The planet is indeed under pressure - and much of the pressure comes from humans' insistence on eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. Keep these animals off your plate more often and you'll be giving Mother Nature a break she desperately needs.
BBC online has begun a new series, Planet Under Pressure, which explores six of "the most pressing environmental issues facing the human race today": food, water, energy, climate change, biodiversity, and pollution. All of these crises are directly or indirectly linked to eating meat.
FOOD
More agricultural crops in the world today are grown to feed the animals that feed humans, rather than to feed humans directly. Meat-eating is one of the most insanely inefficient processes that free markets tolerate.
In the world's oceans, overfishing has depleted many fish populations to critical levels. If demand continues to rise and stocks continue to shrink, some fishing stocks will disappear entirely.
WATER
Livestock, and the huge amounts of crops grown to feed livestock, consume epic amounts of water that could be supplying our homes and human-intended crops instead.
ENERGY
The huge amounts of land that are being used now for raising livestock and growing the food that feeds them could be used for wind or solar energy, thus easing our reliance on coal and nuclear power.
POLLUTION, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND BIODIVERSITY
Meat-eating is a leading cause of deforestation, since large tracts of land are required not only to graze livestock, but to grow the aforementioned crops that feed livestock. And deforestation, in turn, is a leading cause of species extinction. Moreover, we need forests in order to keep the air in our atmosphere clean, and as we chop down more forests, pollution will worsen and global warming will accelerate.
In the sea, overfishing has heinous effects on biodiversity. The fact that many fish populations have been depleted to less than 10% of their original levels not only threatens the survival of those individual target species, but other species in the food web as well. According to oceanographer Doug Segar, overfishing may constitute "a far greater threat [to marine ecosystems] than the oil spills or industrial and domestic sewage discharges that often dominate media coverage."
The planet is indeed under pressure - and much of the pressure comes from humans' insistence on eating cows, chickens, pigs, and fish. Keep these animals off your plate more often and you'll be giving Mother Nature a break she desperately needs.
09 July 2007
Not all those who wander...
Occassionally on the street you might encounter a bumper sticker that reads, "Not all who wander are lost". Sadly, it is almost invariably written without citation, and so most people probably assume that it's just a cute invention by the same creative minds that brought you bumper stickers like "I go from zero to bitch in 2.5 seconds", or "My other ride is a..."
But the line was actually penned in Middle-Earth, and it refers to Aragorn, son of Arathorn, also known as Strider. The full quote is below.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not whither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
-J.R.R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings
But the line was actually penned in Middle-Earth, and it refers to Aragorn, son of Arathorn, also known as Strider. The full quote is below.
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not whither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
-J.R.R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings
05 July 2007
Some clarifications on my views concerning religion
A reader of my blog recently wrote me with this objection:
Dear Mr. West,
I find your Blog to be a mystery. It mentions tolerance towards religions yet shows none, if tolerance has anything to do with respect. To modify a concept from Heidegger, I would recommend an attitude of Gelassenheit towards spirituality. I expect future posts to be either more sensitive about religion or at least more honest about your own biases. Thank you sir.
First of all, I would like to thank this reader for taking the time to read my blog and construct a respectful criticism. I shared a couple of classes with this person in college, and I continue to hold his thoughts in high esteem. I hope that this response can do justice to his objection.
I do not believe that I, on this blog, have ever made any pretension of objectivity. The opinions advanced herein are my own. I thought that the very nature of the forum would have made that clear. This blog is nothing more than an editorial outlet for my own thoughts and views, and that is meant to be implicitly understood without my having to write “I think” before every statement I make here.
But although this blog is inherently subjective, I take issue with the contention that it is biased. ‘Bias’ carries the connotation of an unreasoned prejudice or a deceptively subtle favoring of one side of an issue. I do not think that my views on religion are biased. I do not reject religion because of some visceral distaste or underlying prejudice; I reject religion because I find it to be a fundamentally unsound set of ideas.
As I see it, the foundation of religion is faith. To have faith means to believe something without having any reason to believe it – to believe something merely because you want to believe it, regardless of any supporting or contradictory evidence. I can imagine no greater stupidity than that, and I reserve no respect for any system of beliefs founded on such an intellectual farce.
Faith is the most dangerous intellectual precedent imaginable, and it has given rise to much violence and misery over the course of human history. It is primarily because of faith that religion retards scientific and social progress, and engenders the holding of unreason in equal or higher esteem than reason itself.
Moreover, it seems to me that the sociological, anthropological, psychological, and historical records make it clear that religions are social conventions created to satisfy the base needs of human beings to comfort themselves and to explain the mysteries of the world around them. Simply put, religion is born out of ignorance and fear, and as such, in the words of James Madison, it "shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."
Clearly I make no secret of my opposition to religious ideas. But let us not conflate intellectual opposition with intolerance. The position I take is that of Voltaire, who once wrote to the Jesuits (a people with whom he had fierce conflicts of opinion): “I disagree with what you say, but would defend to the death your right to say it.” I believe in intellectual freedom. I do not believe in banning books, or persecuting people, or forcibly stamping out beliefs (all things that religions have done at one time or another, and not by mistake). I believe in the free marketplace of ideas: you are entitled to your own opinion, and I to mine. But watch out: this also means that I am entitled to my own opinion OF your opinion, and you to your own opinion OF mine! Thus, you have right to believe in God, and I have the right not to. I have the right to point out why I think your belief in God is irrational and cowardly, and you have the right to think that I’m morally and spiritually bankrupt for saying so. And I have the right to think that that’s absurd. And so on. The free marketplace of ideas thus renders intolerance unnecessary, because at the end of the day, reason and logic should prevail of their own accord.
Of course, I’m not always so highbrowed in my criticisms. I often express my opposition to religion with disparaging mockery or sarcasm. But the apparent immaturity of such derision belies the purpose it serves. Religion, after all, rejects reason as an epistemic standard, and one cannot reason with the unreasonable; thus condescension and mockery are sometimes all one can employ against such bankrupt ideas.
I started this blog as a forum dedicated to reason and observation as the only responsible sources of knowledge and the only reliable guides against error. I think that the harsh tone that I take against religion is in better harmony with that ideal than anything else I write here.
So to conclude, dear reader, I will not alter the nature of the position I take against religion. To be, as you suggest, “more sensitive toward religion” would be, I think, to compromise intellectual honesty, which demands that criticism not be afraid of its own conclusions. Intellectual honesty also demands considering arguments opposed to your own positions, and I frequently do this; I welcome any sound rebuttal to my positions, but I have yet to hear a pro-faith or pro-religion argument that was not fatally flawed in its logic. Thus I will continue to give religious faith only the intellectual credit it deserves, which as far as I can tell, is none.
Dear Mr. West,
I find your Blog to be a mystery. It mentions tolerance towards religions yet shows none, if tolerance has anything to do with respect. To modify a concept from Heidegger, I would recommend an attitude of Gelassenheit towards spirituality. I expect future posts to be either more sensitive about religion or at least more honest about your own biases. Thank you sir.
First of all, I would like to thank this reader for taking the time to read my blog and construct a respectful criticism. I shared a couple of classes with this person in college, and I continue to hold his thoughts in high esteem. I hope that this response can do justice to his objection.
I do not believe that I, on this blog, have ever made any pretension of objectivity. The opinions advanced herein are my own. I thought that the very nature of the forum would have made that clear. This blog is nothing more than an editorial outlet for my own thoughts and views, and that is meant to be implicitly understood without my having to write “I think” before every statement I make here.
But although this blog is inherently subjective, I take issue with the contention that it is biased. ‘Bias’ carries the connotation of an unreasoned prejudice or a deceptively subtle favoring of one side of an issue. I do not think that my views on religion are biased. I do not reject religion because of some visceral distaste or underlying prejudice; I reject religion because I find it to be a fundamentally unsound set of ideas.
As I see it, the foundation of religion is faith. To have faith means to believe something without having any reason to believe it – to believe something merely because you want to believe it, regardless of any supporting or contradictory evidence. I can imagine no greater stupidity than that, and I reserve no respect for any system of beliefs founded on such an intellectual farce.
Faith is the most dangerous intellectual precedent imaginable, and it has given rise to much violence and misery over the course of human history. It is primarily because of faith that religion retards scientific and social progress, and engenders the holding of unreason in equal or higher esteem than reason itself.
Moreover, it seems to me that the sociological, anthropological, psychological, and historical records make it clear that religions are social conventions created to satisfy the base needs of human beings to comfort themselves and to explain the mysteries of the world around them. Simply put, religion is born out of ignorance and fear, and as such, in the words of James Madison, it "shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."
Clearly I make no secret of my opposition to religious ideas. But let us not conflate intellectual opposition with intolerance. The position I take is that of Voltaire, who once wrote to the Jesuits (a people with whom he had fierce conflicts of opinion): “I disagree with what you say, but would defend to the death your right to say it.” I believe in intellectual freedom. I do not believe in banning books, or persecuting people, or forcibly stamping out beliefs (all things that religions have done at one time or another, and not by mistake). I believe in the free marketplace of ideas: you are entitled to your own opinion, and I to mine. But watch out: this also means that I am entitled to my own opinion OF your opinion, and you to your own opinion OF mine! Thus, you have right to believe in God, and I have the right not to. I have the right to point out why I think your belief in God is irrational and cowardly, and you have the right to think that I’m morally and spiritually bankrupt for saying so. And I have the right to think that that’s absurd. And so on. The free marketplace of ideas thus renders intolerance unnecessary, because at the end of the day, reason and logic should prevail of their own accord.
Of course, I’m not always so highbrowed in my criticisms. I often express my opposition to religion with disparaging mockery or sarcasm. But the apparent immaturity of such derision belies the purpose it serves. Religion, after all, rejects reason as an epistemic standard, and one cannot reason with the unreasonable; thus condescension and mockery are sometimes all one can employ against such bankrupt ideas.
I started this blog as a forum dedicated to reason and observation as the only responsible sources of knowledge and the only reliable guides against error. I think that the harsh tone that I take against religion is in better harmony with that ideal than anything else I write here.
So to conclude, dear reader, I will not alter the nature of the position I take against religion. To be, as you suggest, “more sensitive toward religion” would be, I think, to compromise intellectual honesty, which demands that criticism not be afraid of its own conclusions. Intellectual honesty also demands considering arguments opposed to your own positions, and I frequently do this; I welcome any sound rebuttal to my positions, but I have yet to hear a pro-faith or pro-religion argument that was not fatally flawed in its logic. Thus I will continue to give religious faith only the intellectual credit it deserves, which as far as I can tell, is none.
03 July 2007
The Use and Abuse of Philosophy
I'm always interested - and not infrequently disappointed - in how people react when I tell them I majored in philosophy. A college acquaintance of mine, for instance, once told me that she didn't like philosophy, because she found it to be too abstract. This puzzled me, especially because she herself was majoring in government. She seemed not to understand that all fundamental questions in her field - and, for that matter, in all of the humanities - go back to philosophy.
Philosophy is to the humanities what mathematics is to the sciences: it is the foundation upon which everything rests. Philosophy, like mathematics, appears at first to be abstract, even detached from reality. And for this reason, many people dismiss it as being too difficult, or of too little use in daily life to warrant serious study.
But philosophy is not at all abstract - it is eminently pragmatic and practical, and your mind can't live a day without it, any more than your body can survive without water or food. Philosophy is not some head-in-the-clouds pastime involving ridiculous questions about what sound a tree makes when falling in the forest. It is simply the practice of rational, critical thought.
My friend majoring in government, for instance, would have done well to consider that the core questions in her field are all philosophical considerations: what is the most just form of government? Is the death penalty just, or is it cruel and unusual? Is it fair to tax the rich and redistribute wealth to the indigent, or is true justice characterized by letting people keep what they earn? Does bigger government expand the borders of liberty, or does it limit them?
The other fields in the humanities also grow out of philosophy. One cannot study history, for instance, without considering why we should even care about the past in the first place. One cannot study art without aesthetics, anthropology without a theory of human nature, or sociology without an examination of social norms.
Even the sciences require an implicit study of philosophy. The scientific method is nothing more than an organized approach to dealing with the central challenges of epistemology: how do we know what we know, and what is the most responsible and reliable way of acquiring knowledge? And of course, all of the sciences rely on mathematics, which in turn rely on logical reasoning. One could thus go so far as to explain the project of science as the use of one branch of philosophy - logic - to pursue another branch - epistemology.
Simply put, philosophy is thinking - nothing more, nothing less. And the last time I checked, thinking is a fairly pragmatic and important activity in daily life (though ironically, one too often taken for granted by the very people who pride themselves on being pragmatic).
Philosophy is to the humanities what mathematics is to the sciences: it is the foundation upon which everything rests. Philosophy, like mathematics, appears at first to be abstract, even detached from reality. And for this reason, many people dismiss it as being too difficult, or of too little use in daily life to warrant serious study.
But philosophy is not at all abstract - it is eminently pragmatic and practical, and your mind can't live a day without it, any more than your body can survive without water or food. Philosophy is not some head-in-the-clouds pastime involving ridiculous questions about what sound a tree makes when falling in the forest. It is simply the practice of rational, critical thought.
My friend majoring in government, for instance, would have done well to consider that the core questions in her field are all philosophical considerations: what is the most just form of government? Is the death penalty just, or is it cruel and unusual? Is it fair to tax the rich and redistribute wealth to the indigent, or is true justice characterized by letting people keep what they earn? Does bigger government expand the borders of liberty, or does it limit them?
The other fields in the humanities also grow out of philosophy. One cannot study history, for instance, without considering why we should even care about the past in the first place. One cannot study art without aesthetics, anthropology without a theory of human nature, or sociology without an examination of social norms.
Even the sciences require an implicit study of philosophy. The scientific method is nothing more than an organized approach to dealing with the central challenges of epistemology: how do we know what we know, and what is the most responsible and reliable way of acquiring knowledge? And of course, all of the sciences rely on mathematics, which in turn rely on logical reasoning. One could thus go so far as to explain the project of science as the use of one branch of philosophy - logic - to pursue another branch - epistemology.
Simply put, philosophy is thinking - nothing more, nothing less. And the last time I checked, thinking is a fairly pragmatic and important activity in daily life (though ironically, one too often taken for granted by the very people who pride themselves on being pragmatic).
01 July 2007
The Court
Well, it's Supreme Court decision season again, but did you know that the highest court in the land has occupied its current building for only the past seventy years? Before the 1930's, the Court didn't have a home of its own - it met in the basement of the Capitol building. Then, in the 1920's, Chief Justice (and former President - the only man ever to have served in both Judicial and Executive Branches) William Howard Taft proposed that a Supreme Court Building be erected a short distance from the Capitol. Taft, along with such justices as Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., oversaw the planning and construction of the building, which was completed in 1935.
If you're ever sightseeing in Washington, go see the Court! It's not heavily touristed and is well worth a trip.
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