February 15, 2013 at 2:30 P.M. Attempts to edit and revise my essay "Manifesto For the Unfinished American Revolution" were obstructed by New Jersey hackers. I am in the midst of posting (I hope) an essay "What is Memory?" I will continue to struggle to write freely, despite sanctioned cybercrime from New Jersey. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "How censorship works in America.")
December 1, 2010 at 5:10 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected.
October 27, 2010 at 9:22 A.M. Previously corrected "error" restored to the text and corrected, again, by me.
August 4, 2009 at 4:24 P.M. My access to my home e-mail account is blocked by hackers. This usually means that new attacks on my computer are planned or that efforts will be made to interfere with (or prevent) renewal or updates of my security system. "Errors" will be inserted in essays and other damage to my drafts or posted writings, in addition to violations of privacy, may be expected. I will do my best to continue writing.
"There is always competition between affects and the dominion of one of the affects over the intellect."
Friedrich Nietzsche, #613 (Spring-Fall, 1887) The Will to Power, at p. 329.
The worst controversy that I encountered in expressing philosophical ideas resulted from what I regard as the most innocuous and obvious observations that one can make concerning ethics. I said, publicly, that there is such a thing as being right -- which means that we can also be wrong -- in our ethical opinions, that our ethical beliefs may be objectively valid or the opposite.
My (allegedly) "hateful" views may be found in my essay "Why I am not an ethical relativist." That original post will be the lead essay in my forthcoming collection, which I hope will outrage ethical relativists everywhere, who will feel obliged to purchase many, MANY copies of the book for purposes of public burning. I have submitted my manuscript to a publisher. I am keeping my fingers crossed. If the book is published, then I will sell it everywhere shamelessly. I will happily stand on my head naked and juggle, if necessary, to get people to buy the book and read it. I will donate the proceeds to charity. Alas, mysteriously, the book is not being distributed to book sellers, despite the provisions of the First Amendment. How strange? Who is "Publish America"? Are there state actions or connections between "Lulu" and New Jersey? ("How Censorship Works in America" and "More Censorship and Cybercrime.")
I was nearly assaulted, subjected to everything from harassment campaings and flaming to deliberate sabotage of a forum that I created at MSN. Probably efforts are underway to direct "viruses" at my blogs now, or to put needles in a doll with my name on it, as a result of my outrageous opinions. True, I like to point out political corruption when I see it. I will always annoy corrupt politicians and their friends in the legal system, as well as nihilists. How flattering. I can say anything about sex and no one cares, but if I suggest that morality is real and that we ignore it at our peril I awaken the sleeping dragon of "political correctness."
"You are being intolerant -- and we will not tolerate that!" This is usually shouted at me by a young woman in Goth attire, with a nose ring, wearing black Converse high tops, or "clogs" or "pumps," majoring in women's studies, who is "into" Silvia Plath's poetry and performance art. Inevitably, she is wearing a political button featuring a picture of President Bush that says: "A thousand points of light and one dim bulb." Another button says: "I Love My Choice!" ("Whatever" that means.)
This is a weird reversal of nineteenth century mores. Sex used to be the forbidden topic because of society's obsession with morality, now morality is prohibited because of society's obsession with sex. In fact, sex and morality are far from "coextensive concepts," as they say in English Departments, so that the most important moral issues may have nothing to do with sex anyway. Oscar Wilde's "love that dare not speak its name," according to Gore Vidal, has now become "the love that won't shut up." ("Whatever!" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
Sex between consenting adults is not a matter of moral concern (as opposed to envy) for me. I don't think society should care about that issue. Private morality should remain private; but public morality is a matter of societal concern. I am "for" the legal recognition of the unions of adults, in any combination. Having removed that matter from the table, floor and/or bed, we can move on to examine why we need some sense of right and wrong beyond any trendy, wishy-washy "to each his or her own" ethical relativism. I am "for" saving whales.
This sort of vague relativist position (I call it American "Whateverism"), which is the ideology taught by our educational system to college students -- especially to anyone majoring in education, law, or the social sciences at Smith College -- is incoherent. In his perceptive criticisms of Richard Rorty's philosophy, Richard Wolin comments:
"[Rorty's] thought comes close to becoming a 'have a nice day' philosophy tailored to suit the needs of a postmodern era, in which we react with relief at no longer having to confront the intellectual responsibilities of earlier epochs -- responsibilities that revolve around our capacity to make 'strong evaluations.' It is an era which, according to Frederic Jameson, is dominated by a hypothetized sensibility in which the distinction between 'appearance' and 'essence' has been effaced, resulting in an overidentification with mass-engendered simulacra -- that is, with the illusion-proferring powers of the 'culture industry.' In consequence of this situation, we have, as it were, even lost the capacity to feel our own alienation."
I was so gratified to discover an inserted "error" in the quotation that appears above, especially one that was previously corrected, because I was concerned that my adversaries had forgotten this beautiful little essay. It is always a sign that I am hurting them when they resort to these tactics of desperation. I have corrected this newly-inserted "error." (Again: "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
Use those illusions to free yourself from them or you're dead. What if, in your "opinion," others do not have the right to disagree with you? Well, every person has to respect the right of others to their own opinions. Why? Because each person can think whatever he or she likes. Who says so? What if I don't agree with that claim? On this relativist premise, who is to say that I am wrong?
To say that I am wrong, is to be intolerant of my opinion and right to disagree. But to say that I am right -- to allow me to conclude that I do not have to respect the opinions of others -- is to undermine the very tolerance that, allegedly, justifies relativism in the first place. Are all opinions created equal? Or are some opinions better than others? If so, what makes them better? Inconsistently, this so-called tolerance is not a "relative" value for relativists, who still claim that all values must be relative. Naturally, they exclude their own values which are "just the way things are," ethically speaking.
If we reject relativism, then we certainly do not find ourselves disarmed against dogmatism. The opposite is true: "You can't beat something with nothing," in the immortal words of Chicago's notorious Mayor Richard Daley. You must adopt some values (say, pluralism) to critique the values of others (dogmatic monism, for example), even if this is only by implication. Relativists, unless they are much more sophisticated than any that I have ever encountered, run into serious problems regarding self-consistency.
Among the most sophisticated thinkers, philosophers and literary theorists, the rhetorical song and dance gets much fancier, but the problems are still there. It is usually possible to corner relativists of all sorts, eventually.
We want to be able to say: "That's just wrong or evil." At the same time, in America, we don't want to be "judgmental" or to "think we're right about everything," except that we're right about not being right about everything. Notions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood are built into the rational discussion of these metaethical issues. You cannot step outside of that discourse, even as you seek to resolve these issues. It won't work. Ethical relativism leads, almost always, to self-referential paradoxes and contradictions. Furthermore, I believe that nihilism -- in all of its forms -- is soon found to be unlivable, even if it is determined to be coherent or defensible, philosophically, which I doubt.
Let me try again to make this point clear: To think is to use a language; all languages contain moral precepts and principles that are essential to their use and to the project of successful communication with words or symbols. Chomsky's work is very helpful on this point. So is George Steiner's theoretical work and the ethical theory of T.L.S. Sprigge. Almost as part of language-use, then, there is a kind of ethics that is accepted in the linguistic community. The ultimate source of that ethics I discuss elsewhere. Remember that even the rejection of truth is a use of language. ("Is it rational to believe in God?" and "Is this atheism's moment?")
These foundational linguistic precepts and principles are expressed through the primary function of language, which is representation and symbolizing, allowing for successful communication. Hence, to use a language in thinking is to make a commitment to a kind of ethics of communication and interaction, placing us immediately in the social realm, a commitment to the notion that you can -- that it is at least possible -- to speak truthfully to the Other, so that you should at least try to do exactly that. This will come as news to politicians and judges in New Jersey. OAE attorneys will be puzzled by this concept. This is because they specialize in "ethics" issues, "means and ends questions" where everything is "relative." Like language, ethical awareness is a foundational feature of our humanity.
Yes, you can also lie, but you can only lie if there is such a thing as not lying. I can appeal to the works of thinkers as diverse as Immanuel Kant, Ernst Cassirer, or even to Noam Chomsky's contemporary "Cartesian-Kantian" speculations to support aspects of this view and to Derrida's cryptic pronouncement that "there is nothing outside the text":
"The notion that there may be innate principles of mind that on the one hand make possible the acquisition of knowledge and belief, and on the other, determine and limit its scope, suggests nothing that should surprise a biologist as far as I can see."
Chomsky quoting Jacques Monod in Problems of Knowledge and Freedom.
Let us begin with the concept of humanity. I am a human being and I will assume -- in the absence of contrary evidence -- that you are also a human being. (It would be fascinating if this essay were some day read and understood by a conscious machine.) There is a basic equality in our ontological conditions or "existential situations." And no, I don't think that human beings are just conscious machines. The machine metaphor doesn't work (for me) beyond a certain basic point because mechanisms are detachable from their environments, their parts can be replaced and they can be returned to their tasks, without impairment in functional capacity or change in essence. Atomistic thinking works for inanimate machines, not for persons in society. ("Behaviorism is Evil.")
Persons are never reducible to Leibnitz's "monads" (without windows). They are always deeply involved in and shaped by a social setting or relationships, even in terms of their self-understandings and "functionings." To isolate a person by destroying his or her network of social relationships -- to destroy any possiblity of trust in a person's life and disconfirm identity -- is to remove the conditions that make his or her humanity possible. Perhaps this social need is also true of other animals. We need other people, just as we need food, water, and air. All languages are communities inclusive of their histories. Languages are the oceans in which we human fish must swim. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
Besides, just as natural languages immediately arise (for Chomsky's reasons), so must moral and spiritual realities arise for persons in communities, as a natural part of human life in groups. Being human means both being an individual (Kant), and also a participant in a network of relationships conferring meaning, purpose, identity (Hegel), and that means morality.
I go further and suggest that being human means some capacity for love and (if you're lucky) being loved, especially in childhood (McTaggart, MacMurray). If I'm right about this, then the denial of love and exposure to violence or hatred in childhood, is bound to have devastating psychological consequences for life. The destruction of a person's network of relationships will have a destructive effect, for all concerned, at any time. The most fundamental and important language of humans is love. To be human means to speak and understand love. ("What is it like to be tortured?")
Are psychobabblers getting this? Is your only possible response inserting "errors" in this text? The encounter with hatred and envy expressed in the violation of my writings is a daily renewal of twenty-two years of torture, an immersion in the barrel of shit that is New Jersey's corrupt power-structure and the mechanisms of denial, obstruction, obfuscation used to hide the truth from victims of the state's evil.
When the culprits responsible for such crimes are persons entrusted with enforcing the laws and ethics rules they systematically violate, then all legitimacy and respect is lost not only to New Jersey's tainted tribunals, judges, and corrupt politicians, but (worse) there is a defecation on the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is this desecration which must be placed at the doorstep of the New Jersey Supreme Court. Have you no sense of shame, Mr. Rabner? ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")
I am willing to grant you exactly what I claim for myself, because I wish to have these claims respected by others (and the State) as regards myself: 1) I have the right to safety in my person and property, so I must refrain from threatening or injuring others, or taking their stuff, even when it comes to annoying relativists dressed in black; 2) I wish to express my thoughts and feelings freely, so that I should respect the free expressions of others; 3) I wish to love and be loved by others, who should be present in my life because they wish to be. Accordingly, I must grant to others the same opportunity to love and be loved in their turn -- this includes gays and lesbians; 4) I must act, generally, in the manner that I am willing to see others act towards me or towards society. ("Is there a gay marriage right?")
Think of this as "Kantianism Light," a zero calorie solution in ethical theory, aiming a sort of Hegelian realization. Old fashioned Christianity or Judaism, Islam, or any other religious ethic will do very nicely, provided that these conclusions are defended. Even science, gulp, may make you "good." At least, it keeps you off the streets at night. This list may be extended, but I hope that this is sufficient to get the basic point across, making it clear why, say, hurting others is bad and buying holiday gifts for poor kids is good; why loving others and facilitating relationships "for" others is good; while preventing those who love one another from getting together is bad, really bad. Get it? 4 out 5 psychobabblers agree!
You have no right to invade the lives of others in order to rearrange their personalities in accordance with what you decide is for their own good. This sort of invasion is called "enslavement" and torture which are crimes and evil. ("'Revolutionary Road': A Movie Review" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
It is presumptuous to decide moral matters, substantively and with particularity, for others; presuming to judge the relationships of our neighbors, even if we are "therapists" armed with twelve-step plans. To say that others (or we ourselves) must either be right or wrong in moral judgments, wise or unwise in life-choices, is not to decide matters "for" others. It is merely to be rational.
Truth is a matter of either/or; knowledge of truth may not be. It's no good saying: "Isn't it all relative?" Because this assumes that the "relativeness" (or "relativity"?) is not relative. Ontological and metaphysical issues must be distinguished from epistemological ones. Nihilism -- Darwinian or otherwise -- is an epidemic doing severe damage to inner city kids and entire neighborhoods. Cornel West has written eloquently about this harm.
Blighted city neighborhoods have become moral wastelands, devoted to money and sex as the new currency of status, where belief in anything is a joke. This is to make human life cheap. The predictable result is that human lives become cheap. Persons will be killed for sneakers or a crack hit. The situation is not much better in suburbia, where adultery and a 'Benz become the tokens of status, along with designer divorces, but the reasoning is the same. How do I get the maximum pleasure for me, since right and wrong are "subjective" and it doesn't matter what I do anyway. (Only one inserted "error"?)
In a heterogeneous society, where equity and respect for others are no longer regarded as moral obligations, the social bond disintegrates, resulting in a collective loss of humanity. (See the film Crash.) Luckily, the important answers in ethics are known to you already. They always have been. Setting aside all of the relativist bullshit, we know when we have screwed up because we try to duck the consequences. One day, if we're lucky, we realize that the right thing to do is to accept the consequences and attempt to learn from our experience. This "adjustment" allows one to recognize the failures of others -- especially the powerful -- and to be fearless in speaking out against them. I took my medicine and so can you. I'll help with that, if I can. We'll both learn from our experiences. We will make things better for others. But you won't get away with what you've done, New Jersey. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Mafia Influence in New Jersey's Courts and Politics.")
I will now ask you to recall, for a moment, what you felt in childhood when you unintentionally (a key concept here is "intentionality") hurt another person. We may fail to recognize the moral significance of our actions and be in need of having this significance pointed out to us. But it was not always so. Once the world made sense to us and we felt at home in it. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?")
It is also true that the effects of cruelty or horrible violations of a person, trauma, may numb and/or harden one's moral sensibilities, as with torture for example, so that moral unawareness may not be entirely a matter of individual fault. We must struggle against this desensitizing tendency in ourselves, whatever the cause -- even if it hurts to do so -- we must allow ourselves to feel.
We must not be afraid to feel and express the full range of human emotions, so that we will appreciate the importance of avoiding those destructive and anti-social capacities of the human psyche. Avoidance of feelings is the least healthy and potentially most self-destructive attitude to the emotions. Lack of feeling, failures of affect, define all torturers and violators of others, monsters who refuse to empathize with their victims -- victims who are usually described as body parts ("ass") or rodents, "specimens" to be "learned from" by the happy social scientist. You getting this, Diana? Terry? How's retirement treating ya, Debbie? Anne Milgram? ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli" and "Another Mafia Sweep in New Jersey and Anne Milgram is Clueless.")
Feelings of shame and guilt, together with a desire to make amends, should not always be eliminated from consciousness (despite Freud and the armies of psychobabblers). This is because they are sometimes appropriate emotions in the aftermath of wrongdoing, emotions leading to redemption and atonement, allowing us to feel "at home" again in the world. This condition of being at home or at peace, is another way of speaking of love. Atonement is a social emotion. How do you live with yourself, Mr. Rabner? ("Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and, again, "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")
For the same reason, we must speak out against corruption and bias among the powerful, to make societies amenable to our moral wishes and expectations. Emotions and reasoning -- as well as "emotional reasoning" (not the same thing) -- are essential to moral life. Emotions are feeling states and ways of perceiving and constructing reality (Husserl, Sartre); "emotional reasoning" is one part or kind of reasoning or cognition (Bradley, Bergson). Emotions are how we develop the phenomenological tools for reality-construction.
There are other ways of doing so: the sciences, for example, may become windows on reality. Ideally, these perspectives (humanistic and scientific) may be combined. We can repair the moral fabric of our lives if we recognize fault, but not if "everything goes" or morality is a matter of "whatever" strikes the fancy. It isn't. And you knew that much when you were seven. To the accusation that I am being "childish" in suggesting that there is such a thing as right and wrong, my answer is -- "I sure hope so." The following quote is from Existentialism, by James Collins:
"Marcel does not require a Kierkegaardian 'crucifixion of the understanding' as the price of entering the region of being, mystery, and subjective truth. All that needs to be foregone, in this context, is one manner of research which is unfitted for examining questions about being as such, ... and the human person. Metaphysics, which addresses itself to such inquiries, has a method of its own, adapted to its distinctive range of interests. Its procedure is that of secondary, recuperative reflection, or, in a word, RECOLLECTION. In reviving this Augustinian term, Marcel seeks to give contemporary significance to the ... advice to enter into oneself. Recollection is literally a recovering or repossessing of one's self. This regaining of the sense of one's existence is made by recognizing the divine source of the personal self. To enter into oneself is to find the gift of being as it comes fresh from God's hands. [Or from nature, if you prefer, "in" language.] It is to discover that a man is not his own, that he does not belong to himself alone [but also to others, especially to those he loves]. The only satisfactory answer to solipsism is given in the metaphysics of participated being, not in the epistemology founded upon the subject/object relation. ... "
