Perspective on the Pledge: Part 7 - Tolerance

This is another addition to a story I have been writing that looks at the arguments surrounding the Pledge of Allegiance, and tries to present the absurdity of those arguments, by showing how the look in a slightly different context.

Perspective on the Pledge: Part 7 - Tolerance

“I’m here to explain what is going to happen tomorrow,” said Vice Principal Lewis as he sat across the table from Shawn. “Normally, Principal Hadley would do this himself, but you have him pretty riled up.”

“Of course I have him riled up,” Shawn answered. “He’s white, and he is in a position of power. Naturally, he wants to stay in a position of power. One of the things that helps him do this is a national policy that equates patriotism to the preservation of white power. I am challenging that practice. So, naturally, he is upset. He wants me to continue to accept this pledge of allegiance to white power without question or complaint.”

“I’m not here to discuss the merits of the case, Shawn,” Lewis said. “I’m simply here to explain the rules. Now, Principal Hadley has scheduled an expulsion hearing for tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. He has already talked to your parents . . . “

Shawn interrupted, “Principal Hadley must have amazing powers if he talked to my father. He’s dead.”

“Whoever is responsible for raising you,” Lewis answered. “Your mom? Whoever it is has agreed to be here during the hearing. In addition, you are allowed to have an advocate. Now, this is an administrative hearing not a court of law, so there is no place here for a lawyer. If you do not agree with the decision reached in this hearing you will, of course, have the option of hiring a lawyer and filing a complaint in civil court. That’s actually quite common with parents objecting to anything that we may say against their children. But that is in response to the hearing, not the hearing itself.”

Lewis took a drink of water, than continued. “Like I said, you are allowed to have a representative – somebody who understands the rules and can speak in your defense. Typically, we ask one of the guidance councilors Would you like one of the guidance councilors to represent you tomorrow?”

“How do I know?” Shawn asked. “Guidance councilors are hired by the school. The school is paid for by government money. The government is run by white people who, for the most part, are quite infatuated with this idea of a pledge of allegiance to white power. Is there anybody who is not working for the other side?”

Lewis answered with a shrug. “I can arrange for you to speak to Mr. Fox, if you would like. I don’t need a decision right away.”

“Then I think I should talk to Mr. Fox,” said Shawn.

Lewis scribbled a note onto his pad, then continued, “If the decision goes against you, then you will be escorted to your locker to pick up your things and you and your mom will be escorted off the campus. If you attempt to return to campus without an appointment, then you will be arrested for trespassing.”

“How long does it take the committee to reach a decision take?”

“Typically, they make the decision on the same day – in less than an hour, usually.”

“And if the decision goes in my favor?”

Lewis took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “If the board decides in your favor then you will be allowed to return to class. Now, I’m not on the board and nobody is asking me to be impartial. I can tell you honestly, Shawn, that this hearing is a mere formality. You will have a chance to make your case, but the Board will vote against you and you will be removed from the school system. The only thing that can save you is an apology and a promise not to disrupt class again. Are you prepared to do that?”

“Are you officially prepared to sit there and be quiet while the school you work for officially calls your wife a whore and a slut whose only interest is in her own pleasure?”

Lewis grew noticeably red, but did not answer.

“Well, then, I’m just as ill prepared to sit there while the school officially declares that my dad was not a patriot because he had no allegiance either to establishing or preserving a white nation. He preferred a nation that was color-blind.”

“Then the Board will vote for your expulsion, Shawn. Be prepared for that.”

While Lewis spoke, he slid a stapled set of pages across the table. “Those are the formal rules, in case you want to read them. Do you understand each of the rules that I have explained them to you?”

“I think so,” said Shawn. “I would like to speak to Mr. Fox before I say so for sure.”

“If you insist,” Lewis said. “When you’re satisfied, sign the form at the front of the document and I will pick it up at the end of the day. If you have any questions, tell the guard that you need to see me.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Shawn.

A few minutes after Vice Principal Lewis left, the guard returned to escort Shawn to see Mr. Fox.

Shawn found Fox in his office, greedily downing a thick sandwich. “I hope you don’t mind if I eat,” said Fox through a mouth full of lettuce and bread. “The first days of school are murder. There’s no free time.”

“Not at all,” said Shawn, sinking into a small couch on the other end of the office.

“Do you want me to represent you before the Council?” Fox asked slowly, almost nervously.

“That depends. What do you think of my case?”

Swallowing, Fox answered, “Okay, I will be completely honest with you, Shawn. I am amazed at how intolerant you are of views other than your own. One of the things we value in this school is tolerance. We have a widely diverse student body, and one of the ways we all get along is by simply accepting that others have views different from our own. But not you. You want to force your views on everybody else. If anybody has a different view, you’re more than happy to bring in the state to sweep them aside and institute your views.”

“Mr. Fox,” said Shawn, “My view is that it is wrong to treat people like my father with contempt – to dismiss their service and to say that they are not patriotic because they have no allegiance to a white nation.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Fox. “Now, I don’t really blame you for this, Shawn. It’s not really your fault. It’s just that, as you know, white people have a moral sense that black people just don’t have. You’re governed only by your own private interests. The only thing you have any reason to care about is yourselves. So, it’s not surprising that you can’t see how wrong it is to force your view on others. Imposing your will on others is the only thing that is consistent with the way you people think. But, it’s wrong. If you had a moral sense like we do, you would see that.”

“I should tolerate your views,” Shawn repeated.

Fox answered, “You should tolerate all views.”

Shawn said quickly, “You should tolerate the view that white people have no special moral sense, and that black people are just as capable of acting morally as whites – better, in fact, than some whites.”

“You see, you don’t understand. There’s a difference. When we white people reflect on our special place in the universe . . . our special status as those with special access to moral knowledge . . . this is what gives our life meaning. This idea, that we are morally superior to all other people, is what gives us purpose and a sense of place in the universe. You would take all of that away from us. You would lower us to the level of . . . well, to the level of blacks. You would have us slaves to our passions, devoid of moral reasons and purpose, like you are.”

“Have you ever listened to yourself, man?” Shawn asked. “Why is it that I am supposed to be tolerant of the view that you are morally superior to me, but you don’t have to be tolerant of the idea that we are morally equal? Why is it that denying your view is ‘offensive’ and something that no good person would do, but affirming your view that me and my people are morally inferiors is perfectly legitimate?”

“It’s okay, Shawn. It’s good to ask questions,” said Fox. “I really have a hard time grasping the idea that you have no moral sense. I keep thinking that if I described the situation – the inherent wrongness of trying to lower whites to the same level as blacks – would help you to understand. Every time I am caught off guard by the fact that your lack of moral sense just doesn’t allow you to see these things. I forget that trying to explain morality to a black man is like trying to explain color to a blind man. The blind man just is not going to understand what blue is, and you’re just not going to be able to understand the moral fine points of tolerance. But, the blind man, if he is wise, will trust himself to be guided by somebody who can see. You, too, Shawn, need to learn to be guided by those of us who have moral sight. Trust me, Shawn, we have a much better grasp of the difference between right and wrong than you do.”

“How do you know this? How do you know that you have a moral sense and I don’t?”

Fox leaned back in his chair. “It’s obvious. It’s evident in the fact that you don’t understand tolerance, and we do. It’s obvious in the fact that you are trying to remove ‘white nation’ from the Pledge of Allegiance, when there is nothing wrong with true Amerycans pledging allegiance to a white nation. We are, after all, a white nation. Eighty-seven percent of us are white. If that’s not enough to justify calling us a white nation and pledging allegiance to a white nation, then I don’t know what is. Ultimately, however, it is simply a part of our beliefs – our culture – our faith. We have adopted a world view where we are the morally superior race. That’s who we are, and you should learn to respect us for who we are.”

Suddenly leaning forward, Fox added, “In fact, Shawn, it’s patently offensive for you to claim to be our moral equals. It’s degrading, dehumanizing. it’s more than offensive. Don’t you see what you’re doing Shawn? Oh, of course you don’t. You’re black. You are attacking our beliefs, our way of life. It’s like you’re asking for a war against white people – a war to put an end to white rule in this country. If you insist on attacking white people, then you really should be prepared for us to defend ourselves. It’s only natural.”

“I’m not attacking anybody,” Shawn shouted as he got to his feet. “I’m attacking the idea that the government should have its children pledging allegiance to a white nation. I’m attacking the idea that a person has to have allegiance to a white nation in order to be patriotic. I’m not trying to drive white people from the public square. I’m not protesting the fact that there are white people in government. I am not trying to force white people out of public office. In fact, you’re the one whose guilty of these things, saying that Ameryca must be ruled by white people and that only a white leader is acceptable.”

“I was speaking metaphorically, Shawn,” Fox said. “Your intolerant, abusive, hate-filled speech against those who believe in white moral superiority is, well, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for compromise. Clearly, you’ll not be happy until you have scrubbed every public document and public building of all reference to the moral superiority of the white race.”

“You could say that,” Shawn answered.

“You don’t see what’s wrong with that? You don’t see how this actually proves that you lack the moral sense that all white people share, the moral sense to see how wrong it is to attack whites like that?”

With a sigh, Shawn said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Fox, but I really don’t think that it would be a good idea for me to have you represent me before the Council.”

“Not if you insist that this crusade of yours actually has merit. Shawn. I think you’re a nice guy and I would hate to see you hurt. I don’t really understand why you hate Ameryca. We don’t hate you. Our philosophy is not a philosophy of hate. It’s a philosophy of love and respect. We only want the best for people like you, Shawn. Honest. The fact that you have no idea what the best is causes problems. You need to learn to accept our guidance in this. We want to make your lives as happy as possible, in spite of your limitations. Ours is a philosophy of love. I hope you understand that.”

As Shawn stepped up to the door, Fox suddenly said, “Hold on a moment, Shawn. I have a question.”

Pausing, Shawn said, “Okay, what?”

“Okay, you think I’m wrong. You think that there’s something wrong with pledging allegiance to a white nation. You think that I am morally blind because I can’t see that. Now, in order to condemn me like that, you have to be thinking that you are better than I am. You have to be thinking that it is okay for you to judge me – to look down on me for supporting a pledge of allegiance to a white nation. Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite? Aren’t you doing the same thing you accuse me of doing?”

“Mr. Fox, let’s assume that you just said that you were taller than me. We both know that is not true. You are, I would guess, no more than five foot six, while I am five foot nine. So, I say that your claim to be taller than me is false. Instead, I claim to be taller than you. That’s not hypocrisy, Mr. Fox. That’s a fact.”

“You are morally superior to me,” Fox said.

“On the issue of whether or not it is morally permissible to have children pledge allegiance to white power every day in public schools, I am right, and you are wrong. That does not make me morally superior to you. That simply makes me right, and makes you wrong.”

“But, morally, how can you possibly know that you’re right and I am wrong, when I am the one with the moral sense, and you are not?”

“Good bye, Mr. Fox,” Shawn said as he reached for the door.

“I stumped you, didn’t I?” Fox said with a self-satisfied smile. “You don’t have an answer for that.”

“Good bye. Mr. Fox,” Shawn repeated.

“Think about this, Shawn. Just, think about it. You can’t refute my views, here. But, still, you want to sweep them aside. Think about how you are exhibiting intolerance, and how bad the world would be if all of us were as intolerant of different views as you seem to be.”

Basting in self-congratulation, Mr. Fox turned his attention back to his sandwich.

E2.0: Sean Carroll: The Origin of the Universe

This is the 15th in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s “Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.”. I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

The next speaker in this conference was Sean Carroll, Senior Research Associate in Physics at the California Institute of Technology. Sean Carroll is interested in the origin of the universe – specifically, with the idea that the start of the universe is something that is difficult to explain and something for which people are tempted to claim there is a need for a God. Contemporary cosmology suggests that the universe started with a ‘big bang’ about 14 billion years ago which had to start somehow, and that somehow was God.

Carroll wants to suggest that this is not such a problem, for which there is not much of a reason to postulate the existence of a God. Carroll’s argument is that there is no “beginning of the universe” to explain. Because we need no explanation, we need not to postulate a God to explain it.

In general, Carroll seeks to explain his project by looking back to a similar project in physics that began with Aristotle’s physics.

Aristotle argued that the natural state of things in the universe is at rest. If you wanted something to move, you needed to push it. As soon as you quit pushing things, they stopped. This lead to the question, “Where does all of this pushing come from that keeps the universe in motion?” St. Thomas Aquinas provided an answer to that question (to be fair, he presented the accepted view of what that answer was), that this ‘prime mover’ that kept the universe going (without which the universe itself would come to a dead stop) was God.

Then Newton came along and said that this was not the case. On Newton’s model, objects moved in a straight line at a constant velocity unless acted upon by another force. The reason that things slowed down on Earth when we quit pushing them was because of the operation of a number of forces (friction, drag). If we eliminated these forces, then nothing would slow down.

Using this assumption, Newton was able to come up with a set of formulae that easily explained the motion of most objects in the universe, including the planets and the moon.

The moral of this story was that the idea that we needed to postulate a God to keep the universe in motion was a mistake. It was caused by a faulty assumption – an assumption that motionless was the natural state of items in the universe. That assumption made sense given our every-day observations, but it turned out not to be true.

Carroll sees the same problem arising with respect to the origin of the universe.

The idea that the universe actually had a beginning (a ‘big bang’) is not one that drew out of everyday observations, like the idea that everything stopped unless something kept them moving. It followed from observations that the universe was expanding – the galaxies are all getting further and further away from each other. If we “rewound” the universe – tracing these galaxies back to their starting point, we find that their starting point was about 14 billion years ago.

What, then, caused the big bang? Since the big bang could not cause itself, it must have been caused by something outside of the universe, and that thing is (was) God.

Carroll wants to argue that the universe did not have a beginning.

It was once thought that the universe would have an end. All of this material flying out from this big bang would eventually slow down, then stop, then fall back in on itself in a ‘big crunch’. However, that idea has now been rejected. Observations show us that the universe is not only expanding, but that it is expanding at a faster and faster rate. This means that the universe is eternal. It can go on indefinitely into the future.

Then why not suggest that it can also go back indefinitely in the past?

Well, we have this ‘big bang’ to contend with.

However, the ‘big bang’ is not a puzzle to be solved, it is a gap. It is one of those areas that we simply do not yet understand.

It is common among theologians, to find gaps in our knowledge, and to stuff God into those gaps. As soon as somebody comes up with a question that we do not know the answer to, the theologian pipes up, “I know what the answer is! The answer is God!”

Only, time after time the scientists have eventually come up with another suggestion – a suggestion that leads to a set of predictions, and predictions that then are confirmed by observation. When the ‘gap’ was how to explain the motion of things in a universe where everything appeared to slow down and stop without a ‘prime mover’, the theologian chimed in, “And that prime mover is God.” Only, Newton came along and said, “No, actually, the only ‘gap’ that existed was a gap in our understanding the universe. We do not need a God to keep the universe in motion.”

This story that we told you that convinced you there was a big bang is not internally consistent. We have theorems within Einstein’s general theory of relativity within our understanding of classical gravity, that given the conditions of the universe now there must have been a singular point, a point in which the universe was infinitely dense and had infinite space-time curvature, and we can even tell you when it was. It was about 14 billion years ago. And we even have data that tell you what it looked like one second after the big bang.

However, these theoretical demonstrations using classical general relativity can’t be right, because this infinite point of singularity means that general relativity is not correct at that point in the universe’s history, and nobody thinks that it is correct. What actually has to happen is that some better theory has to come into play before you hit this singular state. Normally we think that this is some quantum theory of gravity that we haven’t yet developed. But the point is that all of our firm declarations that there wasn’t anything before the big bang are based on a theory that doesn’t apply at the big bang.

Carroll presents his own idea of what happened at the big bang. He suggests that there was an empty parent universe going about its business and that we are an offspring of that universe. Events in that universe created a child universe, and that child universe is us.

The point being that we do not need to assume that Carroll is right in this. It is sufficient, for the purposes of this conversation, to simply note that we do not need to explain how the universe came from nothing (not even time). The fact that we do not yet know what ‘better theory’ accounts for the first second of the our universe’s existence or what that theory says about what came before implies that there is not yet any reason to believe ‘god did it’. There might not even be an ‘it’ in this case for God to do.

Ultimately, Carroll argues that we need to generalize this idea. There are a number of problems out there that are actually (according to Carroll) more difficult than the origin of the universe. He lists the development of the whole biosphere, morality, and romantic love. These problems are hard, but we are coming up with solutions to hard problems all the time. There is not yet any reason to believe that these hard problems cannot be answered. There is not yet any reason to point to a hard problem and say, “The answer is God.”

Because we are faced with these problems that are hard, but, nevertheless, we see specific examples of hard problems that get solutions, I would say that we should look at problems such as, ‘Where does love come from?’ ‘Where does morality come from?’ ‘How does the biosphere evolve?’ and say, ‘These are hard questions. Let’s get to work.

Of course, I must add that I do not think that the question of the origin of morality is that hard a question to answer. It consists in relationships between malleable desires and other desires – that we have ‘reasons for action’ that are desires to use social forces to promote some desires (desires that tend to fulfill other desires), and to inhibit other desires (desires that tend to thwart the desires of others). And that we encourage the development of good desires and discourage the development of bad desires by (moral) praise, condemnation, reward, and punishment.

But that’s just me.

E2.0: Stuart Kaufman: Function, Agency, and Reductionism

This is the 16th in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s “Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.”. I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

In this post I look at the presentation of Stuart Kauffman. Kauffman’s presentation concerned the possibility of reductionism – the idea that any event in nature can be understood in terms of reducing it to statements ultimately in the realm of physics. The idea is that if you knew all of the relevant physical facts about all of the objects in the universe, you could account for everything that has happened or will happen. There is nothing ‘outside the realm of physics’ that we need to consider.

Kauffman denies this claim. He holds that there are things in the universe that cannot be reduced to pure physics.

I am going to admit at the start that I do not have the knowledge to evaluate Kauffman’s whole argument against reductionism. However, I can argue that in a couple of steps he takes along the way – steps having to do with value – he stumbles, and gets the facts wrong. This does not imply that he cannot make his argument work after correcting these mistakes, but they are mistakes nonetheless.

One of the examples that he gives for things that cannot be reduced is ‘function’. He speaks specifically about the function of the heart. The function of the heart, he says, is to pump blood. Hearts also make heart sounds, however the ‘function’ of the heart is not to make heart sounds.

Already this is interesting because it says that the function of the heart is a subset of its causal consequences. It’s the pumping of blood, and not the making of heart sounds. And that means that in order to analyze the function of the heart you have to know the whole organism and its selective environment and probably its selective history.

Here, I will assert that Kauffman is guilty of an important omission. Another thing that one must know before one can answer the question of, “What is the function of the heart?” is “What are the interests of those who are asking the question?”

Kauffman speaks as if the “function” of something is an intrinsic property – that the question has a meaningful sense that is independent of the interests of those asking the question. If it did, then ‘function’ would be a property like ‘mass’ or even ‘distance from’. It makes sense to talk about the mass of an object, or its distance from something else, even if there were nobody around to measure it.

But nothing has a ‘function’ unless there is somebody, at least hypothetically, who has an interest who is asking the question. We then answer the question, in part, by asking and answering the question, “What interests are we assuming for those who are asking the question?”

It turns out, when speaking about hearts, the ‘interests’ that most of us have in mind is survival. The question, “What is the function of the heart?” means “What is it important to us to have the heart keep doing?” We do not care whether the heart makes heart sounds, so making hearts sounds is not its function. We do care if the heart continues to pump blood, so this becomes its function.

If, per chance, the pumping of blood produced results that we simply had no reason to care about, but the heart sounds produced effects that were vitally important to us, then the making of heart sounds would be its ‘function’ – it would be the thing that we wanted the heart to keep doing.

Kauffman wants to explain function in terms of “Why did the heart come into existence?” However, ‘why’ questions inherently ask about an end or a goal. We can ask, “Why did the Earth come into existence?” Without an end or goal or purpose, there is no answer.

However, ends or goals or purposes themselves require interests or desires. A ‘desire that P’ identifies any state of affairs in which ‘P’ is true as an end or a goal of human action (or, at least, human attention). Remove all desires, and ends or goals disappear. When ends or goals disappear, “Why did this happen?” becomes a meaningless question. “How did this happen?” is still an important question, but not “Why?”

This is part of the reason why Kauffman is necessarily going to fail to reduce ‘function’ to physics. He is missing some of the necessary components of ‘function’ – the interests of those who are asking the question.

However, this simply pushes the question over into another realm. Can ‘interests’ be reduced to fundamental physical properties? Atoms do not have ‘interests’ – atoms do not care one way or another about what they are doing. So, how do we take ‘interests’ (or ‘desires’) and reduce them to statements about atoms (or something more basic than atoms)?

Kauffman addresses this question directly, under the title of ‘agency’ – another property that he claims is irreducible.

Agency is real. With agency . . . all sorts of things happen. For example, doing enters the universe. I am giving a talk. . . . Doing, meaning, value, purpose enter once there’s agency.

Kauffman than asks for the “minimum physical system for which I am willing to ascribe agency.” The answer he comes up with is that bacteria swimming up a glucose gradient are agents and rocks are not.

I think an agent is something that can reproduce molecularly and has to do at least one thermodynamic work cycle.

I think that this account of ‘agency’ is absurd. Agency requires the capacity to act on beliefs and desires. An agent is doing something when it is acting to fulfill its desires, given its beliefs. A particular state has meaning or value for an agent to the degree that propositions that are the objects of its more and stronger desires are true in that state. There is a purpose when there is a proposition P that is the object of a desire to be made true.

Bacteria do not have desires.

Like Kauffman, I do not know exactly what marks the point at which desires come into existence. I am willing to say that humans and many higher-level animals have beliefs and desires. I would say that beliefs and desires require a computational network – in other words, a brain. Cells are not agents. Their lives have no meaning, value, or purpose to themselves, because cells are incapable of having desires.

With this, it is still open to question whether agency (or beliefs and desires) can be reduced to physics. Since I take beliefs and desires to be functional states, the question can be translated into one of whether functional states can be understood in terms of physical states. Can we reduce a for-next loop, or a programmatic subroutine, into a set of physical statements?

The question of whether we can or cannot do so is outside of my scope of expertise. In this essay, I will not pretend that I have an answer to this question. However, I will argue that it makes no sense to seek an answer to the question until we make sense of the question.

Kauffman’s question needs some careful modifications. We need to recognize that the ‘function’ of something has to do with interests, and that ‘agency’ depends on computational states such as beliefs and desires. Once we make these changes, are there reasons to believe that these things cannot be reduced to physical states?

Perspective on the Pledge 7: Psychological Arguments

This post represents the seventh in a series that I hope to use in a complete story to be finished before June. I do not know if I will actually include this section in the finished story. It presents a type of argument I commonly see used against atheists, but one which I do not often see used specifically when discussing the Pledge. Still, the arguments and their response deserve some mention.

The rest of the Pledge story can be found at:

Perspective on the Pledge (PDF)

Part 7

“You have a visitor,” the school guard said as he held the door open for an elderly lady.

The lady fumbled to move her books from one arm to the next to free up her hand, which she offered to Shawn. “I’m Ms. Miller. I’m the school psychologist,” she said.

While Ms. Miller came in, the guard commanded Jenny to pack up her books and escorted her to another table in the library.

Shawn shook her hand, nodded acknowledgement, but said nothing.

“I asked Principal Hadley for a chance to come to speak to you,” Miller said as she took a seat at the table. She pulled a folder from her pile of papers and opened it. “I would really hate to see something happen here that all of us will have reason to regret.”

She folded her arms across her open folder, looked at Shawn, and said, “I understand your father died two years ago.”

“Yep,” said Shawn.

“That must have been very hard on you,” said Ms. Miller.

“It wasn’t one of my better days.”

“It also says here that you were a good student, until last year. I went through your records from your previous school. Fighting. Disrupting class. Talking back to your teachers. You were suspended once for showing up drunk at school.”

“That also wasn’t one of my better days.”

“I think I know what’s going on here, Shawn. Losing a parent is a terrible thing. It makes you angry. It makes you want to strike out and hurt people, just like you’ve been hurt. All of this acting out is quite understandable, given your history. It’s just that, I hope you understand, there are socially acceptable ways of dealing with one’s grief. But, what you’re doing just isn’t acceptable. You’re hurting yourself, and you’re hurting the people around you.”

Shawn smiled. “I get it. You think that my protest over the Pledge is because I am sick. I don’t like the idea that the school has a ritual where they encourage students to say that people like my parents aren’t patriots because they didn’t fight and die for white power, and that means I’m sick.”

“You are not sick, Shawn,” Ms. Miller said. “When we are in grief, we go through a well understood set of phases before we move on. The first thing we do is deny what we don’t want to believe. When you were first told that your father had been killed, you probably didn’t believe it. You probably thought it was a joke. Even after you were told, you were probably expecting him to call or to write or to come through the door. Only, it never happened.”

“Ms. Miller, with all due respect I can easily imagine people in your profession 150 years ago, going out to the slave chained to the whipping post, and saying, “Toby, this is the third time you’ve tried to escape. You keep insisting on this destructive behavior. Let me help you. Work with me, and I’ll teach you how to accept slavery so that you can go on to live a full life, and you will never again face another whipping.”

“You are not tied to a whipping post, Shawn.”

“I’m in detention. They’re going to try to expel me.”

“You brought this upon yourself, Shawn. Do you really think that we can tolerate students disrupting class?”

“That’s what I mean, Ms. Miller. I can hear you telling the slave on the whipping post, ‘You brought this on yourself, Toby. Do you really think that the plantation master can tolerate allowing his slaves to run away?’”

“That’s not fair, Shawn. I’m here to help,” Ms. Miller said, her voice quivering with a hint of anger.

“Am I wrong?” Shawn asked.

“That’s not important . . .”

“That’s the only thing that’s important. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize. If it’s true that patriotism means pledging allegiance to white power, and that no person who refuses to pledge allegiance to a white nation can be a patriot, even if he dies protecting this country, then I will apologize. If it’s not true, then I’m not sick. Or you could think that putting oneself on the line for what is right even if it means risking your life or getting suspended from school is a bad thing – that this is a sickness that you have to eradicate.”

“Shawn, I want you to listen to me. You are the only one who thinks that you are doing the right thing – you and Jenny Bradford. Jenny’s at that rebellious stage where she wants to assert that she is her own woman, and not her father’s daughter. She wants to show her father that she doesn’t have to agree with him. If you’re willing to work with me, we can set up some appointments to help you get through these issues about your father, and I think I can convince Principal Hadley to keep you in school. All you have to do is to turn away from this path of destruction and promise to work with me on finding a more positive route.”

“It doesn’t matter how many people agree with me, Ms. Miller,” Shawn said. “It matters whether they have reasons for agreeing with me that make sense. Does it make sense to say that it’s perfectly acceptable for a government to use its public schools to coerce children into pledging allegiance to white power?”

“Obviously, it is quite acceptable, Mr. Henry, because the people do, in fact, accept it. We have nearly two dozen black students in this school and even they are not rallying to your cause, Mr. Henry. Even they realize that a white nation has a right to select white rulers.”

“We are not all white,” said Shawn.

“But you are the minority, Shawn. This is a democracy. Majority rules. The majority of the people are white, so the whites rule. This is a white nation. You can’t sensibly sit there and say that it is socially unacceptable to have a white nation ruled by white rulers when everybody accepts it. That is proof enough that it is acceptable. What is not acceptable is your disrupting class to say something that is manifestly untrue, that white rule for a white nation is not acceptable.”

Shawn shook his head.

“Now, Shawn, I’m sorry about your father, but you need to make a place for yourself in the world now.”

“I’m hearing that voice again, Ms. Miller. ‘Toby, how can you say that it is not acceptable for white people to hold black people as slaves when, quite obviously, white people accept it. You’re statement is manifestly untrue. Black slavery quite obviously is acceptable, as I can prove by the simple fact that you are a slave.”

“We are not talking about slavery, Shawn.”

“We’re talking about a government coercing its students into adopting a view that patriotism and pledging allegiance to white power are the same thing.”

“Shawn, I really would like to help you. Unfortunately, you have to take the first step. You have to admit that need help dealing with the loss of your father, and that fighting and drinking and disrupting class are not acceptable ways of acting out.”

“Ms. Miller, I admit that the things I did last year were wrong. I was hurt and angry, just like you said. But my mom showed me that I don’t honor my father by turning into a violent drunk. To honor my father I have to be the type of person he would want me to be. He was willing to risk death for what was right. I’m willing to risk suspension in order to fight against the government’s practice of teaching children that patriots must pledge allegiance to a white nation.”

“My door is always open, Shawn,” Ms. Miller said as she collected her gear and stood up to leave. “Some people need to hit rock bottom before they start to claw their way up. Some people never make it back. I’m here to help, so, when you want help, please come see me.”

She tried to shake hands again, but her shifting bundle of papers made that difficult. Shawn walked past her to the door and held it open for her.

“Good bye, Shawn.”

Bush's Defense of Torture

The Bush Administration is making America a vile and despicable country. To make matters worse, it has now embarked on a campaign that, it seems to me, has the specific purpose of corrupting the American moral character and to seduce the American people into embracing pure, uncontaminated evil.

These are the thoughts that came to my mind as I read the MSNBC article, "White House pushes water boarding rationale." The article tells of an administration that has made a conscious decision to use the powers of the President to engage in an orchestrated mass-marketing campaign whose ultimate object is to get the American people to become co-conspirators in its own moral atrocity.

The tactic is the same that Michael Devlin used in the kidnapping of a second boy for his own sexual pleasure. A boy he had kidnapped a few years earlier was protesting Devlin's plans to kidnap another (younger) child. In order to gain the first boy's cooperation, he made the first boy a co-conspirator, involving him in the execution of the kidnapping. The idea is that, once the first boy is involved in supporting the crime, he will 'rationalize' the act in his own mind so as to justify it to himself, in order to protect his own ego.

So, now, the Bush Administration wants to involve the American people in its war crimes, to get us to embrace its own evil.

So, what is this plan?

Bush has ordered six people suspected in some involvement in the 9/11 terrorist attacks to be tried, with the intention of seeking the death penalty. If these people had been captured and given fair trials, then there would be little grounds for objection. I probably would not have thought the issue worth writing about.

However, these people were tortured.

Of course, the Administration does not torture (Bush has told us this himself). Of course, in order to say this with a straight face, they have literally defined torture as acts of barbaric cruelty inflicted on people other than the Bush Administration. Imagine a rapist who comes to us with the claim, “I do not rape,” defending his claim by saying, “Rape is an act of forcing sex on somebody who is unwilling by somebody other than me.”

We’re talking about somebody who is evil to the core.

Now, it is also the case that every rapist will be able to tell us a story that ‘justifies’ his actions in his own mind. He will tell us that the victim deserved to be raped. “She is nothing but a tease who enjoys frustrating men and she deserved what I gave her.” Or he will defend it as an act of charity. “Women secretly enjoy being raped. It allows them to have the pleasure of sex without the responsibility.”

Gang members will explain how they are only protecting their own turn. The thief who robs the convenience store will tell us that they are robbing the people with their high prices and his theft was only a matter of getting back what the store has wrongfully taken. Even Hitler could give us a story about how the Holocaust was for the greater good, as could every slave owner, crusader, or terrorist who helped to hijack an airplane and fly it into a sky scraper.

Every one of them has a story to tell us about what we can perceive to be justified when we put our minds to it. Every one of them is, in fact, a warning about the type of world we make for ourselves when we accept these types of rationalizations. We are looking at a world in which nothing is evil, in which there is no such thing as an ‘atrocity’, except that which is committed by ‘the other guy’, which can then be used to justify us doing the very thing we have condemned in others.

So, why is torture immoral? Why is it something that no good person can accept?

Because the statement, “Torture is permissible” means anybody can engage in torture. President Bush is giving permission to every tyrant and despot, present and future, with prisoners that he wants to interrogate, to torture them. If America embraces torture, one of the certain effects of our action will be that a lot more people around the world will be tortured. By lowering (or eliminating) the moral barriers against torture, we embrace a world in which torture is more common.

One could argue that the difference between American torture and the torture done by these petty tyrants and dictators is that we have good reasons to torture and they do not. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia brings up the often-used ticking bomb example. “You know that a bomb is going to go off that will kill a thousand innocent children. You can save those children by torturing this one prisoner. Certainly, in this case, it is morally justified to torture this prisoner.”

To somebody who understands morality, the ‘ticking bomb’ example is a moral cake-walk. I have compared it to the case of a father, out fishing with his son, when the son has an allergic reaction to a bee sting, and the only car available belongs to somebody else who has left his keys to the ignition. Does the father take the car?

Yes, the father takes the car and uses it to save his son’s life. But the father still admits that taking the car is wrong. He goes to the person who owns the car and begs forgiveness. “I’m very sorry for taking your car. I know it was wrong. Please forgive me. My son was dying and I couldn’t see any other way to get him to the hospital. If I had any other option I would have used it. I know it was wrong. I’ll make it up to you.”

This type of regret is the sign of a moral wrong outweighed by a legitimate greater concern. We do not meet these types of situations by making car theft legal on the off chance that somebody might actually have a good reason to take somebody’s car. We leave it the case that car theft is illegal and, in the rare circumstances in which somebody needs to take somebody else’s car, we leave it to them to throw themselves on our mercy. And if they can convince us that a greater value was truly at stake, and that the agent made a good-faith effort to realize those values without doing evil to another person, then, and only then, do we forgive him.

Has anybody heard the Bush Administration beg for forgiveness for the evil that it has done? Has anybody heard the Bush Administration admit that their actions were ‘wrong but necessary’. Quite the opposite. They continue to insist that their actions were right. They’re acting like somebody who (claims to) have taken the car to save their sick child, without providing any evidence that the child was, indeed, sick, and who then insists that they now have the right to keep the car.

I want to stress this point, because it is important. I fear that some readers might skim over the above paragraph as pure rhetoric. The behavior of the Bush Administration is like that of the person who takes a car, when asked why he took it he claims that he had a sick child to deliver to the hospital (without providing evidence) and who insists that he may now keep the car.

This is the moral character of the Bush Administration. The contempt and condemnation that we would give the father in this type of case is what any good, moral person would give to the Bush Administration – only more so, given the greater magnitude of the evils that the Bush Administration is embracing and the fact that this evil is its preferred world-wide moral standard.

So, what do we do in this case? As I said, we condemn the Bush Administration. We should insist on a formal condemnation but, failing that, at least to the degree that we are able, we spread the informal condemnation as far and as wide as possible – among all people who do not wish to see casual torture the new moral standard. And we condemn all who do not join us in condemning this administration.

That condemnation need not be because the Administration engaged in torture – just like the condemnation in the above case need not be because the father took the car to get his sick child to the hospital. The condemnation is because the Bush Administration fails to recognize the wrongness of torture and, even where it is necessary, it is something for which a good person would still beg for forgiveness as a way of acknowledging that wrong.

Even more so, the Bush Administration deserves condemnation for this new tactic, of putting the weight of the Administration behind corrupting the moral character of America. Rather than admit the evil that it has done and ask for forgiveness, the Bush Administration now wants to seduce the American people into embracing evil as its new moral standard.

For that crime, there can be no forgiveness.

Any person who sides with the Bush Administration on this, sides with evil. They are evil , too. They are the 21st century equivalent of the “good Nazi.”

One of the goals of this blog is to convince readers that it is necessary to pick up the tools of praise and condemnation and to wield them, at times with unrestrained force, at those who exhibit characteristics that we have reason to promote or inhibit respectively. It is a summons to express contempt at those who are contemptible, and to heap praise upon those who deserve praise. That these are vital tools to making the world a better place.

When you write, and you can demonstrate that the person you are writing about exhibited traits that people generally have reason to inhibit, then make sure that you make it clear that the subject of your writing deserves contempt and condemnation. To say that they deserve contempt and condemnation is nothing but saying that people generally have reason to inhibit the formation of those character traits, that having those traits makes one a person that others generally have reason to condemn.

The Ultimatum Game

Last night I listened to the most recent episode of TED while I was on my exercise bike.

TED is one of my favorite web sites to visit. It contains video of presentations given at an annual conference in California where, at least according to their own promotions, 1000 of the best and brightest minds get together to discuss issues of technology, entertainment, and design. If anybody wants an example of “hope” without a religious context, this is the place to go – to see what real people are doing to make the world a better place.

This current episode had to do with issues of cooperation. Specifically, Howard Reingold argues that the internet is making possible a whole new culture of cooperation, which we can see exhibited in phenomena such as “open source” coding, Wikipedia, and other open, cooperative efforts.

On the issue of cooperation, Reingold brings up a couple of famous problems in game theory – problems that are supposed to highlight some paradoxes of rationality, where people who perform the ‘selfish’ act in a contrived situation ends up creating a situation in which he (and everybody else) is worse off.

He discussed the famous Prisoner’s Dilemma, of course, which I have discussed in the past.

He also discussed another game, an ultimatum game, which deserves our attention.

Before I describe the game, I would like to note that I listen to these types of cases through the filter of desire utilitarianism. A lot of these types of ‘puzzles’, I argue, only appear to be puzzles because people look primarily at actions themselves, and with that narrow perspective they cannot understand why the situation works out the way it does. If one looks at the issue from the perspective of desires, rather than actions, what appears to be a puzzle, actually makes sense.

The ultimatum game works like this: You take two people who do not know each other and you put them in separate rooms. You then go to one person and say, “I have a hundred dollars. I am going to give it to you, but you have to split it with the guy in the other room. I want you to tell me how much of this $100 you are willing to offer that other person. If he accepts the offer, then he will get what you offer and you get the rest. If he refuses, then neither of you get any money.”

According to standard assumptions of rationality, the first person should only need to offer $1 to the person in the second room. The person in the second room has a simple decision, whether to take $1 or to refuse it and get $0. Rationality seems to dictate that he take the $1.

However, in laboratory experiments, people who learn that the first person decided to make a split of $99 to $1, they often refuse the $1. They seek to ‘punish’ the first person by depriving that person of $99, even at a cost of $1 to themselves.

Furthermore, according to <>, people seem to know this, because the people in the first room often offer something closer to a 50-50 split, rather than thinking, “The person in the other room is rational, and will clearly choose to have $1 over having $0.”

Apparently, this is a puzzle.

However, I do not see the puzzle.

Let us take the principle that people act so as to fulfill their desires given their beliefs. Let us also propose that people have reason to promote in others those desires that tend to fulfill other desires, and to inhibit desires that tend to thwart other desires. A third proposition that I want to throw into this is that these cases cannot, in fact, be separated from the outside world. The subjects come into the experiment with desires molded in the outside world, and they will carry those same desires back into the outside world.

So, I’m the second person in this contest. Would it make sense for me to refuse the $1?

Of course it would. I have reason to promote those desires that tend to fulfill the desires of others, and inhibit those desires that tend to thwart the desires of others. One of the ways that I do so is through social conditioning. If I reward somebody who makes such an uneven split of money, he will take the story of this encounter into the outside world. He will teach people the benefits of this form of selfishness, and this will generate a culture in which there is even more selfishness – where I am even more likely to suffer at the hands of people willing to take more for themselves than they are willing to give to others.

Whereas, if I refuse this $1, then the other subject is going to take that story into the outside world. He is going to be a living example of a lesson that, “If you want something for yourself, you had better be ready to share it with others.” This will promote an aversion to selfishness and a desire for sharing, which will better fulfill my desires in the outside world.

In fact, other people in the world have reason to condemn me for taking the dollar, because in doing so I have promoted selfishness and inhibited sharing in the real world. The adverse affects of my action give them good reason to say to me that my relationships with them are at risk, because I did not have the good sense to promote sharing and inhibit selfishness.

There is no rationality in accepting the $1.

Okay, what if we can guarantee that everybody forgets about the event once the game is over, so that there is no story to take into the outside world. Thus, none of these adverse consequences will result. That cancels out this reason for refusing to generate $1.

I still have a reason to refuse to take the $1 . . . because I simply do not like the fact that the other person is offering such an unfair deal. In being subject to social conditioning, I should have been caused to have an aversion to unfairness such that, even though I value $1, I value a fair exchange even more. I simply do not want an unfair exchange, and am willing to pay $1 for the sake of avoiding a result in which another person benefits from selfishness.

This is true in the same way that, if somebody were to offer me $1, and say that if I accept the money I would have to endure a series of painful electric shocks, that I would have reason to refuse the $1. If they offer me $1, and require that I eat food that I do not like, I have reason to say, “Keep the money.” If they offer me $1, and offer me the opportunity to reward selfishness, it is not irrational for me to say, “I hate unfair deals even more than I hate that food that you offered me last time. You can still keep the money.”

It does not matter where my hatred of unfair deals comes from. Once I have that desire, then it becomes a part of who I am and one of my reasons for action. It doesn’t matter where my hatred for a certain type of food comes from, once I have that distaste for that food, that is enough to give me a reason to avoid eating it. I do not have to make up a story about how it might thwart my future desires to have news of my eating that food reach the outside world. I don’t like it – and that’s all I need to say on the matter.

The value of creating an actual aversion to unfair trade is that it will affect a person’s behavior even when they can act in secret. It prevents people from engaging in unfair trade, even when they can away with it – even when nobody knows about it.

The same applies to creating aversions to killing innocent people, rape, theft, violent destruction of property. If people have aversions to these things, then they have a reason not to perform these types of acts, even under situations where they could get away with it, and no story of their misdeed will ever reach the outside world.

The rationalist is puzzled by the fact that somebody will not take money even when he can get away with it – when he is absolutely certain that nobody is looking over his shoulder. Yet, for some reason the rationalist is not puzzled by the fact that an agent will not eat food that he doesn’t like, even when he can snitch some of that food without being caught. If he has a distaste for that type of food, it is not irrational to refuse to eat it. If he has a distaste for taking property that does not belong to him, then it is not irrational for him to refuse to take it.

When we add an examination of desires to our view of these particular ‘puzzles’, a lot of the puzzle just vanishes. Looking at these puzzles without including the perspective of desires is like examining planet Earth but ignoring the sun, and then asking, “Where does all of the energy for all of this activity come from? The only possible source of energy we can see (given our artificially narrow perspective) is the Earth’s core, but it is hardly enough to explain all of this activity.”

Indeed, it is not. We need to look away from the Earth and towards the sun to understand where all of this energy comes from. In the subject of morality and rationality, we need to look away from actions and towards desires – and, in particular, at the rationality of promoting and inhibiting certain desires – to understand where much of this behavior is coming from.

This subject of evaluating desires, determining which to promote and which to inhibit, is what desire utilitarianism is all about.

Perspective on the Pledge 6: Hating Ameryca

This installment of the Perspective on the Pledge series was inspired by news of a billboard that went up in Pennsylvania, showing a sign much like the one described in this story. Quite coincidentally, the story provides an excellent way of illustrating the moral quality (or lack of it) of those who would post such a sign.

Previous installments can be found in yesterday's post

Part 6

Principal Hadley had given Shawn the night to choose between submitting to a pledge of allegiance to white power without protest, or being expelled from school. Shawn did not need even a minute to consider his options. He imagined himself sitting there while Ms. Johnson insulted his dad, claiming that a patriot must support white power, and he could not even imagine himself bearing the insult in silence. The only thing he could imagine was Ms. Johnson simply refusing to support the insult, refusing to give class time to the idea that all good Americans pledge allegiance to one white nation.

He told his mother that in the evening. He had everything all worked out, assuring her that he would study and get his degree, even if he was not allowed to attend a public school, but that he would fight any attempt the school made to dismiss him. “I’m doing this for dad,” he told his mother. “I’m doing this because he was a patriot, even if he didn’t have any allegiance to one white nation.”

Eventually, his mother had given in. “When your father went off to war, I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to stay here with us, safe. Let somebody else do the dirty work. But, if everybody thought that way, nobody would ever do the dirty work. And none of us would ever be safe. I was scared, but I was so proud of him for agreeing to do the dirty work. Shawn, don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’ll do it just like Ghandi did, mom. I won’t raise a hand against anybody, no matter what they do to me. But I won’t give in either.”

The next day, when he got to the school, he found a group of students gathered around the front door. When they saw Shawn, they parted, leaving him a path to a sign that somebody had taped to the door. The sign showed a white kid standing before the flag, his hand over his heart, and a caption below the flag that said, “Why does Shawn Henry hate America?”

Shawn clawed the sign off of the door and looked around. He counted four teachers standing within line of sight of the door, yet none of them had thought to even ask what was going on. Crumpling the paper in his hand, he marched in the direction of the administrative center.

Jenny intercepted him. She handed him another version of the sign. This one said, “Why do blacks hate Ameryca?”

“I can tell you why?” Jenny said and she matched Shawn’s stride. “Because Ameryca is a white nation. If you’re not in favor of a white nation, then you have to hate Ameryca, because Ameryca is a white nation.”

“If Ameryca is a white nation and if loyal citizens have to pledge allegiance to white power, then it deserves to be hated,” Shawn grunted.

“Say that a little louder, Shawn,” Jenny said. “Then you won’t have to worry about detention any more, not until you’re released from the hospital, if you live that long.”

Shawn stopped. He found a chair sitting against the wall of the hallway and climbed on top. “Ameryca is either a great nation that values liberty and justice for all. Or it is a bigoted nation that values white power. It’s one or the other. Take your pick,” he shouted.

Two teachers were already working their way through the crowd to call him down, but Shawn did not give them time. He stepped down and continued toward the administrative center.

Side by side, they entered the administration center, where Principle Hadley and Ms. Johnson stood waiting.

Principle Hadley greeted them with a smile. “Jenny, let’s start with you. Show Shawn your good sense. I trust that your parents had a long and serious talk with you about the importance of staying in school.”

“Yes, Mr. Hadley,” Jenny said with a wide smile. “They taught me the importance of an education. They also taught me the importance of doing what’s right. Ms. Johnson, I live by that motto I gave in your class on the first day. A person does not show her moral character by doing the right thing when it is easy. She shows her moral character by doing the right thing when it is hard. I’ll accept my punishment, but I will not support a pledge of allegiance to white power.”

Hadley reached forward, took hold of Jenny’s arm, and dragged her away. “Jenny, this isn’t some noble cause. Shawn is just a troubled kid trying to find some attention. It’s the Pledge of Allegiance, not the abolition of slavery.”

“It’s a pledge to white power, Mr. Hadley. Of course, I have nothing against white power, if whites actually make the best leaders. But they aren’t the best leaders because of the color of their skin. They’re the best leaders because of their intelligence and moral character. I know it is said that blacks lack the moral sense of white people – that they have trouble being moral. But, from what I see, Shawn’s got a lot better moral sense than a lot of the white people around here.”

“Jenny!”

“There are a lot of private schools that my dad can get me into, Mr. Hadley. But you’re going to have to expel me. In the mean time, I know my way to the detention hall.” Jenny gave a polite bow, and headed down the hall towards the library.

“Look at what you’ve done,” Hadley said. “I suppose that expecting you to apologize and put an end to this is out of the question.”

“Yes, sir,” said Shawn. He held up the sign that Jenny had given him. “I suppose that expecting you to put an end to this is out of the question.”

“Guard, get him out of my sight,” Hadley said. He turned and went into his office while the school guard took Shawn to the detention center.

Perspective on the Pledge 5: Friend or Foe

I have two more parts to my Perspective on the Pledge series.

The previous parts of this series can be found here:

Perspective on the Pledge

Detention did not end when the school day ended. Detention ended at 4:30, when the last of the teachers were getting ready to go home. So, when Shawn and Jenny were finally released and allowed to talk to each other, the school was nearly empty.

“So, what happened?” Shawn asked.

“I waited until everybody else had said the Pledge of Allegiance, then I stood up and gave my version. I didn’t say ‘black nation.’ I hope you don’t mind. I just couldn’t bring myself to say it.”

“What did Ms. Johnson say?”

“She didn’t say anything. The rest of the class started to boo me, and she told them to sit down and be quiet. She let me finish. Then she sent me to the Principal’s office and here to detention.”

“What about Mr. Hadley?” Shawn asked.

“He gave me a lecture about you being a bad influence on me. He said how he hates to see me go down this path, and I have all of this potential and he would like to see me make better choices”

“Speak of the devil,” Shawn said. Mr. Hadley had just entered the library with a middle-aged couple close behind.

Jenny gasped, “Those are my parents!”

Jenny’s parents seemed quite well off. Her father was dressed in a well tailored suit and tie, and her mom was dressed as if she, too, could step into a board meeting without a second glance in a pants suit with a laptop bag over her shoulder.

Mr. Hadley simply opened the door to the detention room and let the couple enter.

“This is the young man?” Jenny’s mom asked, looking at Shawn.

“Yes, Ms. Bradford.”

“Young man, I ask that you find better things to do with your time than to corrupt my daughter.” She then held her hand out towards Jenny and added, “Come along, dear.”

Jenny went with her mom, leaving her dad and Principal Hadley behind. Mr. Bradford waited until the women were out of earshot and added, “I realize that you people have difficulty determining right from wrong, so I will put this in terms that you can understand. If I catch you hanging around with my daughter again, you will suffer the consequences, and that is a promise.”

He did not wait around for Shawn’s rebuttal. He spun on his heel and was out the door at a quick pace, catching up with the women.

“What am I going to do with you, Shawn?” Principal Hadley said. “I can’t let this continue. You are disruption to the school. Either you need to start living by our rules, or I will have no choice but to convene a hearing to have you expelled.”

“Living by the rules. That means pledging allegiance to white power.”

“You have the option, according to state law, of sitting quietly during the Pledge of Allegiance.”

“While everybody goes through this ceremony that says that in order to be a patriot one has to pledge allegiance to white power.”

“You have the option to sit quietly while the rest of the class says the Pledge of Allegiance. That is your only option. I will let you have the night to think about it. Tomorrow morning, you will either tell me that you will live within the rules, or you will come here to detention while I convene a board of expulsion. I have nothing more to say this evening.”

“And Jenny, will you expel her, too?”

“If I have to. Hopefully, with her parent’s guidance, we can get through this phase she is going through without doing permanent harm to her future. She really does have a promising future ahead of her. You’re dismissed. Sleep on it, Shawn. Make the right choice.”

Shawn picked up his books and his backpack and headed down the nearly deserted halls of the school.

He was just off of school property when he heard somebody shout his name. He turned and saw three black students approaching him from behind. He recognized the one in the middle, an athletic kid by the name of Paul who was in his physical education class. Shawn stopped for them, though they did not hurry.

“What do you want?” Shawn asked as they approached. None of the three answered. They looked angry. Shawn let his backpack drop from his shoulder and into his hand.

The middle of the three boys stepped straight up to Shawn and shoved him backwards. As Shawn’s arms went out to keep from falling, he dropped his backpack onto the sidewalk.

“What are you doing?” Paul asked. “Everything was fine here until you come along. Now all the white students are looking at us as if we’re all potential terrorists. Everybody got along. Black people haven’t had it nearly as bad as a lot of other groups did. We’re not getting beaten up and killed like black people in some other schools. Then you come here and start stirring up trouble.”

“All you have to do is pledge allegiance to white power?”

“What does it matter, man? Nobody pays attention anyway. It’s not like people take the Pledge seriously. We just mouth the words anyway. You act like it’s such a big deal.”

“If it’s no big deal, when why is there so much resistance to changing it? One of the ways in which I discover if something is a big deal or not is by looking at whether it dies of neglect. I do not see the Pledge dying of neglect, here. In fact, I see people willing to lynch anybody who suggests that we have a Pledge of Allegiance that is anything other than a pledge to white power.”

“You’re not changing anybody’s mind, Shawn. You’re just getting them mad, and all of us are going to pay the price.”

“Right,” said the student who stood at Paul’s side. “Haven’t you ever heard that you can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar?”

“You call this honey?” Shawn asked. “Your honey has a really bitter aftertaste.”

“You’re not listening, man,” Paul said, stepping up close. “You’re just making them mad. You’re not going to get anybody to change their mind by ridiculing and belittling them.”

“Do you expect that I can get them to change their mind by telling them that there is nothing wrong? You can’t get somebody to change their mind without first saying, ‘You’re wrong and here’s why you’re wrong.’ They’re wrong to have a school ritual of pledging allegiance to white power. And there’s no better way to show them why they’re wrong than by exposing them to a pledge of allegiance to black power.”

“Pledge to black power, and they’ll just see you as a threat. They’ll see all of us as a threat.”

“No,” Shawn said. “All you’re saying is that we’re supposed to act like nice, peaceful little slaves in order to keep the master happy. That way, he won’t beat us as badly. Maybe that’s true. Maybe telling the master that slavery is evil is a good way to get beaten. But slavery is wrong.”

“Leave it alone,” Paul repeated. “If you were the only one to get beaten, I would tell you to go enjoy yourself. But you’re not. All of us are going to suffer as well, and our suffering will be on your hands.”

“No, again,” Shawn said. “That’s like saying that the cop who dies trying to arrest a criminal is the fault of the judge who signed the warrant. No. The wrong being done here is being done by those who insist on a pledge of allegiance to white power. If any evil comes of that, it’s the responsibility of those who support such a pledge, not those who oppose it.”

“You remember that when you read about one of us in the hospital, Shawn.” Paul signaled to his friends that it was time to leave. As he walked away, he turned for a parting word. “I warned you, Shawn. I’m not going to suffer because you can’t keep your mouth shut.”

E2.0: Deirdre McCloskey: The Morality of Capitalism

This is the 15th in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s “Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.”. I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

The speaker for this presentation is Deirdre McCloskey from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her topic is to defend a moral component of capitalism.

The problem that McCloskey is concerned with is the tendency of capitalist economists to simply ignore any discussion of morality. The only thing that matters is prudent. Capitalism is good because capitalism gives us ‘more’. The only form of rationality is the rationality of means – prudence. There is no rationality of ends. Capitalism provides us with a way of determining the best means for maximizing our ends whatever they may be.

McCloskey wants to insert into this view of capitalism some discussion of the value of ends. Specifically, she argues that capitalism relies upon and draws out seven main virtues; courage, temperance, justice, prudence, hope, faith, and love.

I have a serious problem with this from the start, because it uses a set of assumptions that are so common that few people ever think to question them, and yet they very much need to be questioned. One particular assumption is key to McCloskey’s enterprise. It is a false assumption, but widely assumed to be true. This false assumption cannot be easily squared with a number of issues and concerns in economics and morality. In fact, I would argue that it cannot be squared at all. Yet, people like McCloskey continue to try.

It is much like the Christian attempt to try to square the claim that there is only one God, that Jesus and God were both divine, and yet they were two separate entities. The fact is, this is a contradiction and the set of religious assumptions are to be thrown out. Still, people who do not want to throw out these assumptions want to continue to treat this like a serious problem.

The false assumption that McCloskey and economists like her are making is that there is this hard distinction between the evaluation of means and the evaluation of ends. They have figured out the rationality of means – that is what the study of economics is all about. Yet, they hold that there is absolutely no sense to be made of the idea of evaluating ends. Any claims that ends have different values are claims that intrinsic value properties exist. But, none exist, so there is no such thing as a value of ends. Ends are simply those states that our minds have, by evolution or culture, locked onto as ends.

My answer to this is to point out that every end is also a means. Our desires pick out our ends. A desire that P picks out states of affairs in which ‘P’ is true as an end – and then starts hunting for the means to bring about that end. However, one of the ways in which an agent can bring about a particular end is by altering the desires of other people. His desire that P gives him reason to promote desires in others that will tend to fulfill his desire that P, and to inhibit desires in others that will tend to thwart his desire that P.

That is to say, his desire that P gives him a perspective from which he can evaluate the values as means of the ends that people might adopt, to identify some ends as worthy of promoting, and others as worthy of inhibiting.

With this simple step we can preserve the fact that there is no rationality other than the rationality of means with the ability to determine the value of ends. We have the capacity to determine the value of ends as means and to act on those facts.

Without this, we are left with a quandary. There are no intrinsic values. There is only a rationality of means. Yet, there seems to be a sense (and, indeed, all of morality seems to depend upon the possibility) in which we can evaluate ends. How do you square the fact that all rationality is prudence with the moral requirement that we evaluate ends? The answer is that we recognize that all ends are also, at the same time, means, and that it makes sense to evaluate the means-rationality of ends.

In addition to this concern, McCloskey is interested in explaining the sudden rise in wealth starting in the late 1700s, and she does not think that Gregory Clark’s evolution explanation works. By the way, neither does Margaret Jacob, who points out that the industrial revolution took place mostly in northwestern England, and not all of England, where Clark has collected his data.

McCloskey also objects to the idea that we can find some sort of regularity to explain this event. When it comes to finding a scientific explanation, we are looking for a regularity – a reason as to why something changed in circumstances A, B, and C, but not in circumstances X, Y, and Z. To provide a scientific account of the cause of enlightenment, we need a number of circumstances in which an enlightenment occurred, a number of circumstances in which it did not, and a theory that reliably explains (and predicts) when enlightenments will spring up. However, the enlightenment is a unique event, so a theory that will explain and predict enlightenments (a scientific account of the enlightenment) is out of the question.

McCloskey’s theory for the sudden increase in wealth in the late 1700s is that it is due to a cultural change – an innovation, something that is likely to happen only once. That change was a change in ethics. For millennia, mutually beneficial exchange was seen as either impossible or unethical. If one person gained, then somebody else must have lost.

The 1700s saw the rise of the concept of mutually beneficial trade. Merchants – traders – went from being a dishonorable profession, to an honorable profession. People talked differently about trade and those who engaged in trade.

This was an innovation – like inventing the steam engine was an innovation. All of the pieces were there to be put together, and had been laying there to be put together, for hundreds to thousands of years. Millions of people had an incentive to figure out that putting these pieces together would have value. Yet, nobody thought of it. Then, suddenly, somebody had this burst of inspiration, and the industrial revolution took off.

What England actually needed was a new way of thinking that makes innovation possible – that encourages people to bring ideas together in ways that they have not been brought together before. What England needed was a system that praised and rewarded those who brought ideas together in new and unique ways, and condemned or punished (or at least failed to reward) those who did not innovate.

This cultural shift, too, was an innovation. All of the ingredients had been laying around for people to use, but nobody thought to pick them up. Suddenly, somebody in England (or Holland, actually) came up with the innovation of praising innovation and trade, and with that we get the enlightenment, and the vast accumulation of wealth of the industrial revolution.

E2.0: Gregory Clark: The Evolution of Capitalism

This is the 14th in a new series of weekend posts taken from the presentations at the Salk Institute’s “Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.”. I have placed an index of essays in this series in an introductory post, Enlightenment 2.0: Introduction.

Our next speaker is economic historian Gregory Clark, the head of the Department of Economics at the University of California, Davis. Clark is seeking to explain the sudden rise in material wealth that occurred in Europe and America, starting about 200 years ago.

Contradicting Shermer, Clark argues that there was no real increase in the standard of living in England (the target of his study) until about 1800. If we look only at the aristocracy, we see something that might be thought of as progress over time. However, if we look at the standard of living for the average Englishman – the vast majority of the population – they did not live any better in 1700 AD then they did in 1700 BC. In fact, their lives may be said to be worse. They had to work longer and harder hours under dirtier conditions surrounded by more disease and suffering than hunter gatherers did for the same amount of food.

The challenge is to explain what changed to bring about this sudden burst in productivity.

Many people (and I have been one of them) attribute this sudden change to the enlightenment. There was a philosophical shift in England and Europe at that time, a shift that threw off superstitious nonsense and replaced it with a disposition to study and understand the real world. It was a shift away from explaining things in terms of gods and other supernatural forces, and towards explaining them in terms of natural forces that we can understand as natural laws and use to our advantage.

Clark suggests that this may not be the case. In terms of economic and social customers, England had nothing under the enlightenment that had not been replicated elsewhere without producing the great boom in productivity we saw in England. Against the idea that ‘enlightenment’ implies ‘skyrocketing growth’, Clark offers a number of examples of ‘enlightenment and no skyrocketing economic growth’

He offers an alternative theory. He looked at wills filed in Europe in the years before this tremendous economic boom and noticed a trend in England whereby unsuccessful Englishmen (the economically disadvantaged) were becoming extinct and replaced by the descendents of more successful Englishmen.

Specifically, these wills show that upper middle class Englishmen had an average of four surviving offspring, whereas significantly poorer Englishermen had an average of less than two (less than the replacement rate). The upper middle class Englishmen were passing the biological determinants of economic success down to their offspring. Many of those offspring themselves tumbled down into the lower class. So, while the old lower class was dying off, a new lower class was coming into existence who were the descendents of these successful upper middle-class Englishmen.

Some of the results of this, over time, is that the lower class became more literate. Clark asserts that in Roman times, for example, very few people even knew their own ages, or knew how to read or write. By the 1700s, almost all Englishmen knew how to read a calendar, and could record the actual date and time they were born, and how old they were.

According to Clark, this shift might well have had a biological component. Lower-class people with lower-class values were dying off, being replaced by a new lower-class form of life, with a new lower class form of values.

In short, Clark asserts, we evolved into a capitalist society. As a result of this biological phenomena, the basic preferences of Europeans changed over time – the fundamental biological underpinning of our values changed. An earlier enlightenment would not have helped an earlier species of Europeans because those Europeans were not biologically fit for an enlightenment environment. They did not have the psychological dispositions that would allow them to thrive in such an environment. After a few centuries lower-class die-off and replacement by the genetic descendents of middle-class culture, the population changed. The new population was, in fact, capable of thriving in a capitalist environment.

Among these middle-class values, there was a very low preference for giving anything to the poor. In examining these wills, Clark noted that the wealthier individuals left less than 0.5% of their income to the poor. They left the rest to their children. They did not even leave money to their wives (who were at risk of taking the money and using it to raise somebody else’s children) – or did so only under the condition that the wife not remarry and that the wealth gets passed on to the man’s own biological children.

These agents also practiced a rigid for of kin selection. If a man had no children of his own, he did not leave the money to strangers. He did not even leave the money to servants. He left the money to nieces, nephews, and other blood relatives. Again, this helped to ensure the survival of those who carried the genetic determinants of success into future generations, and withheld benefits from those who lacked the genetic disposition to thrive in a capitalist society.

There are a lot of things about this theory that could easily cause a person to feel uncomfortable. Primarily, it speaks of social Darwinism. We can easily imagine somebody like Hitler saying that, “My people are genetically superior to these others. It is only fitting that we eliminate these others, replace them, and thereby create a country of super-men who can then enjoy a thousand years of peace and prosperity.”

The Englishmen did not consciously adopt a program of replacing a biologically inferior form of Englishman with a biologically superior form of Englishman. However, can we make a moral argument against doing anything like this consciously?

Clark is careful not to make these types of value judgments. He does not state that the wealthy Englishmen were genetically superior to the (original) species of poor Englishman. He is simply describing a historical fact – he is not attaching any value to them whatsoever. Because his conclusions are value-free, they cannot be used to recommend for or against any particular economic policy.

However, his theory does contain an element that says not only that our values – our preferences – have the same historical and biological component, but that our fundamental values underwent a shift in the previous 200 years. He does not have anything to say against making the value judgment that certain forms of human are biologically superior to others. His neutrality implies saying nothing against the legitimacy of replacing biologically inferior (unfit) individuals in a society – namely, the economically disadvantaged – with the biologically/evolutionarily fit descendents of the upper-middle class.

One thing to say about these conclusions is that the mere fact that people do not like a particular conclusion, this does not imply that it is false. It is scarcely a good argument to claim, “If human values underwent an evolutionary change before the enlightenment, this might support racist doctrines that some people are inherently superior to others. Supporting racist doctrines that some people are inherently superior to others is morally repulsive. Therefore, the theory must be false.”

This would be like arguing, “The holocaust was morally repulsive; therefore, the holocaust did not happen,”

Or, “If carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, then we might be forced to reduce carbon emissions. It would be a pain to reduce carbon emissions. Therefore, it must not be the case that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.”

These types of arguments do not work. We cannot reject conclusions on the basis of the fact that we do not like where the argument is leading.

As it turns out, in this case, we can reject the idea that this line of reasoning actually supports these types of racist conclusions. To begin with, there is no such thing as intrinsic or no inherent value, so no justification for claiming that one segment of the population is intrinsically or inherently better than another. The only type of value that exists depends on relationships between objects of evaluation and reasons for action, and desires are the only reasons for action that exist. So, the type of person that is ‘better’ than any other – the type that is morally superior – is the type that tends to fulfill other desires. A person who lacks an aversion to wiping out a segment of the population would not easily qualify as a person with desires that tend to fulfill other desires. He would scarcely qualify as a good person.

Preparing for Court of Appeals Decision on the Pledge

Sometime between now and June, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will put out a decision as to whether "under God" in the Pledge, and "In God We Trust" on the currency, are constitutional.

This is an election year. Beyond any doubt, the Democratic candidates for President and for the Senate and House will be required to declare that these are Constitutional and they must promise to do whatever they can to fight those who would remove these phrases.

Those candidates will have a choice - either agree with the Christian majority, or give their political seats to those who do.

It's got to be up to us to have an answer - a way of challenging what will no doubt be either a very vocal cry in protest of the decision, or a vocal cry in defense of that decision.

Obama and Clinton will once again be found on the Capital steps shouting, 'UNDER GOD!" when the Senate shows its support for, or opposition to, the 9th Circuit Court opinion.

Regardless of how the decision goes, the mere fact of the decision will be good for tens to hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into the coffers of theocratic candidates, amid promises that only those who believe that our rights come from God are qualified to serve as judges in the United States.

Our job is to make the task of defending these phrases as difficult as possible, by being prepared to make as much noise in defense of removing these relics of religiosity as possible, using the best arguments.

I've been adding to my story, "Perspective on the Pledge" recently. I have another section to add today.

The complete story to date (all four parts) - with even some of the earlier parts edited and cleaned up, can be found at:

Perspective on the Pledge.

The fourth part - the recently added part - is below:

---------

“You promised,” Shelby Johnson said. She had come to the detention center under the pretext of bringing Shawn’s homework to him. But she really wanted to talk to him about the fact that he had broken his promise to her. “Last night, you looked me straight in the eye and promised that you would not disrupt my class. I actually thought you meant it.”

“I did mean it,” Shawn said. “But, later, I realized that what I promised to do was to sit quietly while you taught another class full of students that people like my dad do not deserve your respect. I have an obligation to my dad, too. I have an obligation not to let the country he died to protect say that he wasn’t a patriot, simply because he had no allegiance to a white nation. I either had to disappoint you, Ms. Johnson, or disrespect my dad. I’m sorry, you lost.”

“It’s not like that, Shawn. You’re the only one who thinks that the Pledge of Allegiance disrespects those who don’t favor a white nation.”

“Then why did I get the reaction I did when I pledged allegiance to one black nation, Ms. Johnson. Some of the white kids in that class were ready to lynch me. They know that pledging allegiance to a black nation means saying that nobody who would support white leaders is patriotic. That’s why they were angry. They know that pledging allegiance to a white nation means saying that nobody who would support a black leader is patriotic. That’s why they want to keep it in the Pledge.”

“People have been saying the Pledge for sixty years, Shawn. You’re saying that you were the first person to figure out this secret meaning?”

“No, Ms. Johnson. You’re not listening. They added ‘white’ to the pledge sixty years ago when black people took over the Soviet Union. They did it because they did not want black leaders in this country. They know what it means. The only thing I did was to actually say out loud what everybody for sixty years has agreed never to say out loud. The words ‘with liberty and justice for all’ are in the Pledge in order to get children to support liberty and justice. The word ‘indivisible’ is in the Pledge to get children to support the union. The word ‘white’ was added to the pledge to get children to support white power. Of course white people love the idea of getting children to pledge allegiance to white power. They’ve been indoctrinating children this way for fifty years. That’s why you won’t find anybody but white people in public office.”

“Shawn, they’re not going to let you back into class unless you promise to behave yourself. They’re just not going to permit it.”

“Ms. Johnson, just don’t tell the class that being a patriot means pledging allegiance to white power. Don’t expect me to sit there while you tell everybody that people like my dad who did not support white power are as unpatriotic as anybody who would support rebellion, tyranny, and injustice. You’re talking about my dad, Ms. Johnson.”

“It’s the law, Shawn.”

“Yes. The law passed by white law makers telling you to teach other people’s kids that they’re not good Amerycans unless they pledge allegiance to white power.”

“Don’t do this, Shawn.”

“It’s your call, Ms. Johnson.”

Shelby left Shawn’s books on his desk and left the room.

A while later, Shawn received a summons to report to the Principal’s office. When he entered the Administration Center, he saw his mother through the glass windows in the Principal’s office. He felt his stomach suddenly tie in knots, and it took all of his effort to quit standing.

When he entered the office, Principal Hadley said, “I’ll leave you two alone for a while.” He left, closing the door behind him.

Shawn looked around nervously for a hidden microphone, realizing that there could be hundreds in the room and he would never see them.

“Honey, this is a new school. You said you wouldn’t get into trouble, here.”

“This is different, mom,” Shawn said. “I’m not fighting. I’m not doing anything like that.”

“They say that you’re causing trouble in the class, that you won’t let the teacher do her job. What are you doing, son?”

“It’s the Pledge, mom. I actually thought about what we’re saying when we pledge allegiance to one white nation. We’re saying that people like dad aren’t patriots – because patriots have to support white power. Dad was more of a patriot than anybody here. None of them died for this country.”

“You’re father was a good man, Shawn. But I bet some of these people fought for their country, too. Just because they didn’t die, that doesn’t mean they didn’t fight.”

“Okay. Still, it’s wrong, mom. It’s wrong what they’re doing.”

“Maybe it is, son. But your dad wanted you to finish school. He wanted you to make something of yourself. He fought to give you a good life, son. Don’t throw it away.”

“He fought to give me a good life by fighting those who would do us harm. That’s what I’m doing, mom. Because the government is having everybody pledge allegiance to white power, people like dad – and people like me – can’t do some of the things we would be good at doing, because it would violate the idea of white power. There are no black people holding political office in this country. Politicians have said, over and over again, that they will only appoint white judges who recognize that our rights came from white men. I’m fighting for a better life, too, mom. A life where being a patriot does not mean supporting white power.”

The room fell into a long, silent pause.

“Mom, it’s like Ghandi. I’ve sworn that I’ll never raise my hand in anger. I will do what I think is right. If the school decides to punish me, I will take my punishment like a man. If they quit saying that my dad wasn’t a patriot, I’ll shut up. If they keep saying that my dad wasn’t a patriot, I’ll speak my mind. But I won’t hurt anybody, I promise. I’m standing up for what’s right, mom. Just like dad did.”

Ms. Peachtree shrugged. “When you go back to detention, I want you to write down everything that happened. I want to know everything. We’ll discuss it when you get home.”

She picked up her gloves and her purse and headed for the door. Hadley saw her through the window and intercepted her.

“He’s all yours, Principal Hadley,” Ms. Peachtree said.

“Did you talk to him?” Hadley asked.

“We talked. We’ll talk some more tonight,” she answered. She said nothing else as she left.

* “I’m not going to do anything stupid, mom,” Shawn said. “I promise, mom, no fighting. A student could be pummeling me with a bat in the parking lot and I promise I won’t hit him. All I’m doing is saying that this isn’t right. If they decide to

The next day, Shawn went straight to the principal’s office as soon as he got in. Ms. Johnson and Principal Hadley were there waiting for him. Hadley spoke formally and deliberately. “Shawn, before I can allow you to return to Ms. Johnson’s class, I need you to apologize to Ms. Johnson about your behavior yesterday, admit that it was wrong, and promise never to do it again.”

“I have to ask Ms. Shelby a question first,” Shawn answered.

“What question?” Hadley asked.

Shawn turned to Shelby. “Are you going to be leading the class in the Pledge?”

“That’s the law,” Hadley answered for her. “You don’t have to participate, but the state legislature requires that she begin first period with the Pledge of allegiance.”

Shelby answered with a shrug, gesturing towards Principle Hadley as if to say, “That’s my position. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“If Ms. Johnson refuses to lead the class in a Pledge of allegiance to white power, I will have nothing to protest. If she tells the class that my dad was not a patriot because he did not fight and die for one white nation, I will answer that insult.”

“Fine. Back to detention,” Hadley said. He summoned the school guard over and Shawn quietly followed him out of the room.

Shawn actually did not mind detention. The school held detention in a room just off of the library, and students were not permitted to do anything but study for the classes they were enrolled in. Shawn was getting well ahead of his reading and other homework, and liked it that way.

He was in the middle of his math homework when he was interrupted by the school guard opening the detention room door. He looked up and saw Jenny entering the room.

“I didn’t know we were allowed visitors?” Shawn said.

“You aren’t,” the guard answered. “Jennifer is a guest.”

“I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of trouble with the establishment,” Jenny said with a mischievous smile.”

“No talking,” the guard announced. “You don’t want to get into any more trouble than you already are.”

Quietly, Jenny took a seat opposite the table from Shawn and got out her books. Through it all, a smile never left her lips.