The Problem With (Religious) Tolerance

Despite having grown up as a outspoken atheist/agnostic (I still haven't decided whether or not the difference between the two is trivial) who has spent a great deal of time around religious zealotry, I have always considered myself pretty tolerant when it comes to religion. Yes, I think pretty much every major religion is a big waste of time, bad for humanity, and almost comically retarded, but I don't advocate the compulsory destruction of them either.

That might seem like a pretty generous definition of tolerance, but I think it's the best people are capable of, and probably also the best most people deserve. I have long-since abandoned my moral relativism, although not because of lack of incompetence on the part of its detractors. Crazed bigots like Bill O'Reilly and smug philosophers who think they fucking invented the wheel with their stupid little refutation "U CANT BELEEV IN MORAL RELATIVISM CUZ HOW DO U NOE UR RIGHT IF EVREETHING IS RELATIVE LOLZ!!!!!" actually make moral relativism some progressive and intellectually rigorous. But of course it is neither. Tolerance isn't uncritically accepting all ways of life, beliefs, and cultures as equally valid. That's stupid.

The first important thing to do while crafting yourself into an upstanding, progressive lefty is to develop a sound worldview. If you're going to run around judging everyone else all willy-nilly, at least have some consistent, objective criteria with which to judge. I won't get into just what those criteria should be (and believe me, I know), because that would entail me pretty much outlining my entire moral and political worldview, which might take a while. I will however, talk about stage two.

DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! That's right, who cares about your fellow neighbors are acting in an unholy way that is completely incompatible with your lifestyle; it doesn't affect you. That's the problem: I may not personally agree with country music, or people who derive excessive pride from their heritage, but I'm not going to go on a personal crusade trying to prevent people from watching CMT or going on and on about their cultural pride or nationality. Of course, there are a few exceptions.

I'll will present you will two scenarios, and then you can go through the steps of tolerance, and then think about how you would respond.

Scenario #1: It is the mid 1930's, and a political movement known as fascism is sweeping Europe. Already, Italy and Spain have fallen to this menace. Its unique brand of totalitarian capitalism, coupled with fierce nationalism has influenced another, similar movement in Germany. Most of Europe seems nonplussed.

Scenario #2: It is the mid 2000's, and a political movement to afford to same rights, privileges and cultural acknowledgement to gay couples is sweeping the nation. Already, California and Massachussets have fallen to this menace. Its unique brand of equality, coupled with basic human decency is has influenced other, humane ways to look at fellow human beings. Most of Europe seems nonplussed.

(Aside: Ironically, I'm sure many of the people who are so up in arms about scenario #2 probably wouldn't have been all that concerned about scenario #1)

You see, there are a few, subtle differences between the two hypotheticals. One major thing to consider about most beliefs or customs that might make you uncomfortable is a) they don't effect anyone other than the people participating, and, more importantly, b) they're not harming anyone. Of course, those two examples are obviously pretty much as black and white as you can get. Most of the time, it's hard to tell if some cultural entity is crossing the line. This actually brings me back to what this post was originally supposed to be about, before I got distracted by tolerance and fascism (as is too often the case for me).

I was just reading an article about a kid with stupid parents. He got sick, and they decided to pray the disease away. Needless to say, it didn't work. He died ("coincidentally", he was the cousin of this girl). Now that in and of itself angers and depresses me. I found it on StumbleUpon and I decided to check the comments page. Here is a verbatim review I found:

Although I definitely believe in the power of prayer, I also believe that the medical "discoveries" that help to treat our various illnesses are provided to us by the good Lord too. I find myself in a quandary in a situation like this; where does one realistically draw the line in religion and the treatment of your children? These people have the same rights to their beliefs as any other religion, and the right to teach their children their own beliefs. By prosecuting the parents, nobody gains. But it does open up a can of worms as to the governments ever increasing interference of EVERY religions beliefs and practices.

That's almost exactly when I decided that if religious people can't start telling the difference between reality and fiction, I'm going to stop being tolerant of them. I have no problem with people praying. Hell, I have no problem with people praying for sick people. It doesn't do much, but fuck, why should that stop them? The problem is when the fun little stories they read about on Sunday start legitimately interfering with their actions in the real world. When prayer stops them from getting medical attention. When the story of Sodom and Gomorrah leads you to beat up gay people. That's stupid. People get pissed at the WWF when some stupid kid kills his friend cuz see saw somebody do it in the fictional sport of professional wrestling. Why don't people get pissed of at the Church when some stupid parents kill their kid because their pastor, represenative of the fictional being known as God tells them to.

I know that these people are part of a very fringe organization, and definitely don't represent mainstream Christianity. But you see much more mainstream christians letting the fictional world of the Bible color their real-life actions. The most prominent example of this right now is the so-called Intelligent Design, which is basically creationism (no idea why they felt the need to change the name, creationism sounded stupid enough as it was). Science and religion are diametrically opposed. Science emperically posits a falsifiable hypothesis, then studies the real world, using logical and consistent means, and then formulates a theory about the real world based on the previous observations. Even before the scientific method came around and helped revolutionize the world for the better, that was basically how human beings interacted with the world. Someone figured out the purple berries were poisonous because a bunch of people ate them, and they all died, not because a magical little invisible imp told her.

There's nothing wrong with believing the things that may or may not exist outside of the observable Universe. Feel free to believe in Heaven, Hell, or any other conceivable afterlife. Want God to be a trinity of three seperate entities that somehow combine to make one? Fine with me. But please, acknowledge that those inanities have no place in the real world. It's dangerous. There's a reason people are mildly afraid of Schizofrenics. They're acting like the crazy things that are going on in their head are real. When you start doing that, you become a danger to yourself and others. Until people can tell the differene between their religion and their reality, I'm going to treat them like that.

What the Hell is Wrong With Vegetarians?

There is a conception among many members of the meat-eating community that many if not most vegetarians are pretty much the equivalent of the equally invalid stereotype of the "feminazi".* Groups like PETA are seen as crazed maniacs who would slit their grandmother's throat to save an orangutan. Of course, this is an essay about vegetarianism, so the orangutan issue isn't really all that relevant, since most people are likely to be offered a side of broiled orangutan, at least in polite company. As such, I won't talk much about PETA except to say that I don't really know that much about them. My assumption is that their hearts are in the right place, but they are probably a bit misguided about some things (like every advocacy group) and these cases are highly reported on. I also find it humorous that they organized direct action against Nike for its relationship with Michael Vick, but not for its relationship with sweatshop labor. Of course, that's completely reasonable as they're an animal rights organization, not a human rights one. However, in my eyes, it's just kind of another example of why we should shy away from single-issue causes, or at the very least view our specific causes in the light of greater societal issues.

Okay, I really didn't mean to turn that into a political diatribe. But let's face it: I could turn a rumination on silverware into a rambling condemnation of antiquate notions of social norms and the stupidity of superficial demarcations of class. Anyways, back to the vegetarianazis.

There are probably a couple reasons why this stereotype of vegetarians is so abundant. First of all, it's kind of true. I myself have jokingly made comments about the life of sin my family is living in for consuming the flesh of the innocent. It's kind of funny, and it makes everyone just a little uncomfortable. Furthermore, I'm completely sure that many people have made slightly more serious comments about their friends' and family's eating-habits. Of course, most wouldn't go so far as to make comments like that extremely gratuitously or to total strangers, which brings me to my second point.

They do it to us.

I can really only speak for myself, but I assume the situation is similar for other vegetarians and vegans. I honestly don't think most meat-eaters are trying to be mean. They see a custom they're not used to seeing, and it makes them a bit curious. Or maybe even a little suspicious. I guess it could be akin to meeting a cross dresser, if that's not something you do all that often. So maybe you ask questions. But for most people, implicit in all these questions is that this is a weird thing to do. Even for the most innocent of questions, this can be a grating experience after a while for vegetarians and vegans (especially vegans). And of course some people are a little more aggressive when they approach an herbivore. Its partially a response to the stereotype mentioned above, and partially for reasons unknown to civilized man. That tends to make us pretty defensive, and sometimes that defensiveness stays with us, even when we're not with the meat-bigot. In fact, many of the jabs I make at my family only presented themselves more recently, after years of subtle warfare from "the other side". In this way, it's kind of a circularly reinforcing cycle. Non-vegetarians are a bit rude to vegetarians, then vegetarians are mean to non-vegetarians because non-vegetarians are mean to vegetarians, then non-vegetarians are mean to vegetarians because... (and on and on) Of course all of this belies the fact that it's kind of an unimportant conflict.

Or is it?

Now this is the part where I pretty much confirm in many people's eyes that the myth of the militant maniac of a vegetarian is not a myth at all, and that I am living, breathing proof. I will try as best as I can to prevent that from happening, but I'm only one man, and frankly my writing skills are sub par. The major complaint leveled against vegetarians is that we're dicks who think we're better than everyone because we don't eat meat. In many cases, this accusation kind of spreads to corollaries like "We're dicks who throw blood on fur coats" and "We blow up medical testing facilities" because we're dicks. While I won't get into testing on animals or fur coats, there's actually kind of an obvious possibility to point out for vegetarianism. Maybe the holier-than-thou attitude is justified. During slavery, it would not have been completely insane of abolitionist to look down on people who owned slaves. Now, I should really not have to say this, but there are stupid people abound:

I DO NOT THINK THAT SLAVES ARE MORALLY EQUIVALENT TO LIVESTOCK. I AM NOT COMPARING THE FOOD INDUSTRY TO SLAVERY. YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED THAT I FEEL THE NEED TO SAY THIS.

People who had slaves and approved of slavery thought that certain people could be treated horribly because they were less than people. That is a truly disgusting way to think, and abolitionists were right to accuse it of being such. Today certain people think that animals are less than people and therefore can be treated horribly. It's not really within the scope of this article to discuss what criteria should be used to determine how animals should be treated. But for me it was relatively simple to make a decision about this without developing a complex moral theory. I weighed the harm to me of no longer eating meat, and compared it with the benefits to any given animal traditionally used for eatin'. Now I know that's a bit simplistic. I'm equally aware of the many, many responses to it (most of them revolve around quite a few instances of doublethink and some questionable ethics), but I don't really wanna go into a point-by-point refutation of them. If anyone actually reads this and has a point that they think is particularly prescient, feel free to respond.

Here's where I try to make myself seem like less of a moral absolutist who sits on a golden throne above of you dirty eaters of the flesh. There are many things that other people do a lot better than me. Like energy conservation. But if people constantly ran around telling me I drive too much, and that they're better than me since they bike everywhere, I'd start to get kind of pissed off. I might even be bitter. Worst of all, their annoying chatter isn't going to get me to drive less. That's a decision I'm going to make on my own, not based on peer-pressure (especially annoying, self-righteous peer-pressure). Secondly, if they say they're better for biking everywhere, I might point to their Chucks and say I'm better because I don't buy clothing produced by children in free trade zones. We could probably go back and forth for a while, and leave feeling pretty annoyed at each other. I have lots of flaws, and some characteristics that I'm kind of proud of. I can't just ignore the former and pretend I'm better than everyone else because of the latter. That said, I really don't think there's anything wrong with being vocal about your beliefs. Of course it's near impossible to do that without seeming like kind of a douche.





*As a side note, it really pisses me off when people talk about "feminazis". While its meaning is kind of hazy, I'm pretty sure it's just a slur to imply excessively extremist or radical views. It's also associated with the idea of man-hating, bra-burning lesbians roaming the streets. Of course there are feminists who happen to be assholes, but hey, guess what, there were actually nazis who were really nice! You can't conflate the personalities of individuals within a group with the values of the group itself. Feminists come in all genders, sexual orientations, races, and levels of assholeishness, and it's really stupid/offensive to assume otherwise. As for the term "feminazi" referring to to radical feminists, that's just ignorant. Anyone with half a brain and access to a public library or computer can figure out that radical feminism is almost invariably associated with far-left politics which is anything but nazi. Of course the term nazi, much like "fascism", has been so badly abused, I doubt anyone even knows what it actually means anymore.

Jusifying Capitalism or: Why You're Probably Wrong About Human Nature

In an argument with my dad last night, I noticed two themes that seem to be present in most discussions I have with liberals: A) he believed that cooperation was a good in theory, but in a global society it was at best unfeasible and B) the common man is not very competent. Of course the result of these two views is that many people tend to believe that economic competition (ie people pursuing entirely self-centered goals with little positive collaboration with others) is the best possible option, and that people should not have the right to govern themselves. I find it interesting that most people do not consider the fact that the reason they harbor such undemocratic and anti-egalitarian views is because they live in such an undemocratic and anti-egalitarian society. If you live in a blue world, blue just makes sense to you, and other alternatives (ie green, purple, red, and even *GASP orange) seem really silly in comparison. There's probably some kind of cognitive bias which explains this particular brand of stupidity, but - out of sheer laziness - I'll leave it up to the reader to found out what it is. However it would be inappropriate to attempt to discredit someone's opinion based on their reasons for believing. I believe that's some sort of ad hominem argument. And nobody likes those.

To be honest, I don't really have a handy refutation of my dad's argument against cooperation. While I abhor the Thatcherian dictum that "there is no alternative" I will admit that I don't really have a well thought out alternative in hand. In this issue, most radicals are at a serious disadvantage, because we have to propose something that has never been though of before. Of course the leftists with a penchant for ideological thoughtlessness can quote a few Marxian economists and be done with it, but that hasn't really done much for the movement, so I try to avoid it. My most poignant critique is that, like the argument that the common man is a moron, it is very elitist (if less obviously so). Competition "works", yes, but for whom? I would be very interested to see if the workers in Argentina were impressed with the effects of competition during the economic crisis of 2001. Which interestingly leads to a minor alternative that the people in Argentina had no problem working out. During and since the economic crisis in Argentina, over 15,000 workers have reclaimed the factories they work in. What this means is that they have taken control of management of a particular factory, and then cooperatively and democratically resume production. Most of these factories have continued operating in the face of relatively strong opposition by both business interests and government intervention. Of course the actions of a workplace are completely separate from the greater economic structure governing said workplace, but it's a good start.

On a more theoretical note, one could easily envision a society which operates based on values of cooperation. With even minimal levels of transparency, accountability, communication, recognition, democracy, and self-management, cooperation becomes feasible and definitely desirable. Compare that to the insane concept that "the most wickedest of men [doing] the most wickedest of things" will bring about good for everyone. While this characterization is obviously from someone relatively critical of capitalism (not quite so critical, actually; it's John Maynard Keynes) it's really not that far off from the ever-popular concept of the invisible hand of the market, which is effectively the billions upon billions of exclusively self-interested actions taken by the subjects of capitalism. Furthermore, it would be a profound stretch of the imagination to assume that the "captains of industry", as it were, do not command a great deal more economic power than the average (or common) man. This combined with the fact that these people are generally seen as, at best, moderately unscrupulous, and are admittedly only looking out for themselves, brings us dangerously close to the above quote from our friend Keynes. Coincidentally, Keynes was in large part responsible for a few minor alterations to the robber baron capitalism that he was no doubt attempting to describe (although in my opinion he evidently misspoke and ended up describing all forms of capitalism, from the disturbing laissez faire capitalism of Hong Kong to the euphemistically labeled socialism of Norway). I bring this up because these changes are generally extremely popular among the same liberals who despise democracy and equity. While Keynesianism does seem to stabilize the economy a little and hammer out some of the "kinks" of capitalism, the base problems are still there.

One major problem with attempting to address the above endorsement of cutthroat competition is that it is very rarely fully fleshed out. Most people make some vague reference to human nature and then make a case for capitalism. Of course the case doesn't involve any actual details or supporting evidence. Sometimes people make an offhand comment about the failure of Soviet Russia. Apparently people just support capitalism because they're used to it. I'm not going to address the supposed failure of the USSR other than to say that it wasn't just the absence of capitalism. There were many other factors involved, including what many people saw as the betrayal of the revolution by the Bolsheviks, extreme authoritarianism, and foreign intervention, all of which contributed to many of the problems generally associated with Communism in Russia. Part of the reason that people don't provide many details when they provide their two cents on cooperation versus competition is that it's a highly complex issue. One can provide a myriad of manufactured situations in which one or the other appears to be more beneficial. Even if you were to ignore the inappropriateness of analyzing a completely hypothetical situation and its application to the real world, there is still a problem. One isolated event of cooperation or competition means nothing when you discuss the fact that the economy is made up of perhaps trillions of these "isolated" situations over the course of years and years. Furthermore, capitalism isn't just the sum of all of these interactions. It also consists of the structure governing the economic interactions between individuals within a specific society. This allows for people to act in conjunction with each other, or act against each other's interests (although the latter is encouraged pretty heavily). Ultimately, the only way to test the theory that competition is more compatible with human nature or healthier for society is intense experimental testing, including study of human psychology and organic discovery of alternative economic structures. One proposed system that I have begun to embrace is participatory economics. I won't get into the particulars here, but here's a link to some information about it.

Disgust with the common man is a lot easier to discuss. Of course most people disguise this sentiment by claiming that human nature is evil (as opposed to awesome) and use that to justify a relatively hostile attitude towards democracy. Very few people go on to mention the accompanying thought: "except for me". Still fewer voice the other obvious corollary: "and those of my class". In this regard I'm pleased that my dad was so honest in his assessment. Although it's a very elitist and self-important thing to say, it makes the conversation a lot more open.

As somewhat of a warm-up, I'm going to address my most serious problems with the assertion that human nature is somehow evil, or at the very least incompatible with social justice. First of all, that is a ridiculously presumptuous statement to make. To see all these people making such absolute claims about human nature, you'd think about half the population of this country not only had simultaneous PhDs in Biology (with a focus on evolution), Anthropology, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Economics, Game Theory, and Philosophy but also access to a country-sized laboratory with a multi-trillion dollar grant and permission to use any and all human subjects as virtual lab rats in billions upon billions of unique and highly controlled experiments. I mean Jesus, learn some humility and realize the extremely complex nature of the concept you're attempting to sum up in one simple sentence. Of course, it's a bit hypocritical of me to chide people for not being humble enough, especially in intellectual matters, but the point is that these people are making extremely authoritative statements about something that they know very little about. I actually think it's sufficient to refute any theory about human nature with an argument along these lines, but even if one actually were to accept such a ridiculous claim, it's very easy to break apart the conclusions they come to based on this assumption. Of course one could always make a ridiculously specific claim about human nature such as: "human nature operates in such a way that the current political and economic paradigm in the United States, coordinated with similar such states in countries throughout the world, for and by the powers that be, such as corporate and political leaders in the West, in pseudo-collaboration with leaders in the global South is the best possible state of global affairs", but even people that presume to know intimately about human nature would agree that at a certain point one must acknowledge that some degree of vagueness is necessary in describing human nature.

If we disregard the crazed ramblings of self-important whack jobs (myself excluded), then we can focus on a general idea about human nature, such as human beings are general self-interested, desire instant gratification, tend to be irrational (especially during important and stressful times), and are stupid and lazy. My first statement when confronted with such a bleak view of other people (because we have to admit that no one actually thinks such base characterizations actually apply to themselves) is "Good God, and you want to give a random one of the depraved individuals that you just described excessive power over you?" Which I think is actually a better argument than most people would admit. If I actually believed this about people, assuming I was somehow prevented from living in a shack in Antarctica and amassing as powerful an arsenal as humanly possible to defend me against the inevitable invading hoards of Zombies that are the human race, I would have a serious problem with consenting to giving a small percentage of the population control of a badge and a gun, an even smaller percentage of population control of the bulk of the economy, a few thousand absolute control over the legal system, and a couple dozen people power over the nukes. Instead, I'd be spending a lot of my time attempting to develop an alternative which prevents anyone from being able to get too much power over me. Nobody explains why the result of their dim view of human nature results in a politics that effectively rounds up the worst, most self-interested of the lot, and makes them jump through random hoops so they can get elected and then formulate the laws that are enforced by more of the worst of the lot at the point of a gun, or an economy that actually encourages the worst of human nature. More importantly, people who make this argument are nonplussed by such refutations, because they're not actually making this argument. They're actually making the argument that my dad was making, but since that argument makes most people look like arrogant assholes, they're afraid to admit it, especially to an angry and rather large anarchist with a propensity towards particularly animated debates.

As far as I can tell, the argument - especially when used to justify a relatively authoritarian political system and a hierarchical economy - is that the speaker, and the people s/he general associates with are generally intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful people, who are capable of making informed decisions about personal and political affairs. In general, they deserve political freedom and are completely suited to self-management, as well as economic autonomy. The common man, however, can't even be counted on to tie his shoes right. Nobody every quite states exactly who the common man is, but there's a very strong implication that the bulk of these people come from the "lower classes". Unfortunately, the bulk of my interactions are with people a half step away from the ruling class, so I don't know all that much about how people in the middle and lower class justify this position. Either way, it's pretty stupid to assume that you and the people you associate with are somehow better than everyone else. Furthermore, if you belong to the upper class, I would bet dollars to donuts that it's not because you pulled yourself up from your bootstraps. Nonetheless, many people in this position develop some bizarre sense of entitlement, which can feed into the above belief that you're better than everyone else. Since you most likely did nothing to get yourself into this prestigious tax bracket, there's no reason for this sense of superiority. Hell, even if you did go from rags to riches, that just means you're a combination of lucky and good at making money. That hardly makes you a superior breed of human, especially with regard to socio-political decisions. In fact, being part of the upper class is going to guarantee at least some degree of separation from the bulk of the population, which makes your opinions generally less important than those of the middle and lower class.

If you have made some argument along the lines of the idea that human nature is incompatible with social justice, then try to be honest with yourself. If you meant that "other people’s" nature is incompatible with social justice, while you and your friends and family are squeaky clean, trying to think about how deranged, elitist, and "convenient" that idea is. Most likely there's no real evidence to this assertion. If you think all people are evil, then you're probably just a very screwed up person, and God help you.

By the way, I'm aware that this article is relatively unpolished, but I just came back to it after weeks of inactivity, and I didn't really feel motivated to make the necessary changes to it or completely rewrite it (which is probably what I should have done). Also, due to Zeeshan's aggressive posturing, I've decided to launch a preemptive strike, and so I kind of hastily finished this essay. Either way, it's probably a good idea to start writing again. After two months of not writing a thing, I'm probably gonna have to ease back in pretty slowly.

Something's Been Bothering Me

Whenever I hear or participate in a debate about American Foreign Policy, one thing always astounds me. People apply different standards to themselves and the country they identify with than they do to other countries. It's a pretty simple concept, and it's somewhat understandable, but it's also completely morally indefensible. When people were discussing the lead-up to the War in Iraq, it would've been ludicrous to point out the hypocrisy of the only country in the history of civilization to use atomic weapons on actual humans talking about Iraq's WMD's. Hell, at that time, mentioning the fact that if Iraq were to still be in possession of any Biological or Chemical Weapons, we most likely brought them there. Of course, the accusation of hypocrisy is only appropriate when attacking the bad deeds, not the lofty goals. So the fact that we sold weapons to Saddam Hussein or killed a couple hundred thousand Japanese citizens on a whim couldn't really be used to protest the impending war (of course basic moral decency and those pesky little "facts" did a pretty good job), but the point is that these points never come up. OK well that's not true. A couple instances of wrongdoing on the part of the higher-ups come up after they're no longer relevant, but for some reason people never seem to put it together.

Slavery, The Indian Removal Act, The Dred Scott Decision, Jim Crow, the Sedition Act, Japanese Internment Camps, the War in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Operation Ajax, the Iran-Contra Affair, NAFTA, the War in Iraq. That's a relatively random sampling of shitty things perpetrated by this government since it's creation. Of course I have very limited historical knowledge, and that was just a list of some of the few things I could think of off the top of my head in about 5 minutes. The point is that these aren't really isolated instances of individual corruption or government oversight, and you can't chalk it up to people being products of their time. The way I see it, the main difference stuff like the Trail of Tears and Operation Ajax is that the government was open about what it did back then. Nobody knew about the latter when it was going on in '53 (actually I highly doubt that many people know about it even now). So I guess that means that the people are changing their values, which is forcing the government to become less democratic. Of course, if you were to review the historical record with a fine-toothed comb, you'd come up with probably (conservatively) thousands of equally appalling acts. It would be psychotically paranoid to claim that that US is unique in this quality, but at the moment it is probably the most prolific. It's also important to note that many of these actions which are seen in retrospect as "setbacks for democracy" involve US intervention in foreign countries.

The point is that so many people take the word of their government for law (which I guess is actually technically what it's supposed to be), and refuse to critically examine it the same way they would the policy of other countries, especially non-western countries, and - almost exclusively in recent times - muslims, arabs or desis (for reasons most likely related to above unthinking acceptance of government proclamations). It would be really nice for people to actually examine US foreign policy in the future from a stance of neutrality, which wouldn't yield a perfect discussion (much of what the government does is not revealed to the general public - democracy anyone?), but with the knowledge that does trickle down to the common man, we can actually engage in reasonable discussion. Of course, since the people in this country are pretty much removed from direct political or economic influence in this country, it doesn't really matter.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

My Confrontational Style and Absolutist Bent Will Make me Few Friends in Life

I just had a conversation with my old friend Zeeshan Aleem in which he admitted to being a mama's boy and a habitual bet-wetter, among other things. Fortunately I kept a transcript of our conversation and decided to write an essay based on the subjects we discussed, with a focus on some of the more outrageous claims my incontinent friend uttered. Unfortunately, the whole project spiraled out of control during econ class today, and I ended up writing something that will potentially be upwards of 15 pages once completely finished. So, for your convenience, I decided to break it down into two or three smaller sections, one of which will go up immediately. If I continue on this streak of efficiency, the other two will be up by Saturday.

On Human Nature and Anarchy (or Why Zeeshan is Always Wrong, Part I)

One of the many complaints leveled against anarchists and (more commonly) communists is that it looks very good on paper, but it could never work in real life. This is almost always attributed to some shadowy concept known as human nature. Although I do not presume to know anything the natural state of human inclinations, I am relatively certain that faith in the workability of a libertarian socialist community (the idealized end-state envisioned by both anarchists and communists) does not explicitly rely on any specific view of human nature. Furthermore, I would argue that the very concept of a unifying nature for all of humanity is useless both politically and intellectually. Unfortunately, the myth that is imposed upon most radical leftists by those who are not is that we are required to believe that human nature is essentially good. After being told what we must believe, we are then told that this belief is hopelessly naive. This argument can be dismantled three-times over (yippee!).

First of all, if we are to take this particular view of human nature as naive, then it can be easily demonstrated that any other assertion about human nature is also naive. Here are the two useful definitions of naive that I found on dictionary.com:

1. having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous.
2. having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous

Fascinating stuff. Anyways, it seems pretty obvious that people are using the latter connotation of the term when they call anarchists naive. Most people live in a very specific cultural paradigm, which provides a very limited view of a lot of things, including human nature. If one were to make an overarching assumption about the way humans act in a natural state from such a closeted perspective, it would easily qualify as lacking in experience, judgment, and experience. Just because you've been mugged before doesn't mean you know anything more about the human condition than someone who's never been the victim of any crime in their life, and bad things happening to you doesn't automatically make you experienced. The only way to even get a glimpse of human nature would be through a massive cross-section of many different cultures, environments and situations, and even that would be wholly inadequate. Even people in the field which is devoted to the study of people in all different kinds of situations, anthropologists, would be remiss in positing a definite conception of human nature.

The second flaw in the argument stems from the simplicity and vagueness of the assertion. The possibilities of human nature cannot be judged on some linear progression from good to evil. People aren't that simple, and to imply so is ignorant and dangerous. You could at least make the argument that human beings on average tend to act in ways that benefit themselves, but even that is a hollow classification. I believe that this error comes from an incorrect view of human nature itself. Although human beings a by no means born with a tabula rasa, there is definitely an environmental aspect to human behavior, not only in shaping our future actions, but in creating the context for our current actions. To use a particularly absurd example, if it is our nature to collect widgets, can can't really fulfill that nature if widgets don't exist. Environment achieves the dual goal of shaping our mentality and limiting (or perhaps enhancing) our ability to exercise certain instincts. Even this very minor inspection of concepts relating to human nature, it becomes painfully obvious that such a dismissive and simple assessment of human nature falls far short of any practical value.

Finally, and most important of all, this particular view of human nature is not a basic tenet of either anarchism or communism. Let me repeat that. The belief human beings are basically good is not a basic tenet of either anarchism or communism (from here on, I will be discussing only anarchist beliefs). The only belief about human nature that you must subscribe to in order to legitimately describe yourself as an anarchist is to believe that human beings are capable of organizing a non-hierarchical society which is at least as desirable as the current socio-economic paradigm (namely liberal democracy on a national scale and neoliberalism on an international scale). Of course, most anarchists have slightly more ambitious goals than the ones stated above, but those are the bare minimum standards for the most moderate of anarchists.

A corollary of the belief that anarchists have a naive and possibly dangerous view of human nature is that some sort of governing body is required to impose a specific value system on the people (or, in the case of Libertarians and anarcho-Capitalists, some sort of rigid material-incentive program). I will leave out the refutation of the pro-market libertarians' claims for now because it requires a relatively complex argument, and most people are probably already on my side in this matter. However, a pretty handy refutation of this particular argument for government (I must stress that this does not by any means refute all pro-government arguments) is relatively simple.

For people who believe that human nature is not essentially good and that people will generally act in their own self-interest when they can get away with it one thing should become quite apparent: that people should have as little power to exercise their will over others as possible. To the stupid eye, this might seem like a de facto endorsement of a massively repressive police state, but a simple thought experiment shows this is not the case. A serial killer with, saw a chain saw and a couple shotguns can, if motivated, kill hundreds of people in his or her lifetime. Now, I obviously don't want this psycho running around chopping off people's heads and whatnot, but his or her danger is minuscule compared to the potential threat of a man or woman will thousands of missiles and an army of trained killing machines at his or her disposal. That, ironically, tends to be the general type of power given to the leaders in countries with a low opinion of human nature. Apparently the person who lied, cheated, bribed, and philandered to get this position is not subject to the laws of nature that govern normal men.

There are three ways to overcome this apparent contradiction. The first involves a pretty skillful utilization of doublethink. The second is by standing by your initial statement about human nature and its implication about the feasibility of an anarchist society, and simply arguing that the aggregate harm done by an entire society of people acting on their nature is greater than the current harm done by the small minority who are currently in charge (plus the damage currently done by the people in society with comparatively fewer freedoms than the elites). I don't really see any logical problem with this argument. I just disagree with the assertion and can probably point to a couple dozen or so examples which seem to contradict it. The final method is to slightly modify one's position on human nature and instead argue that humans are for the most part bad, but that there are a few exceptions who are capable of transcending their nature and acting in purely benevolent ways. Aside from being ridiculously elitist and having a bit too much of a Savior-complex thing going on, there is not really much wrong with this argument, which is essentially an appeal for the installment of some sort of Philosopher King in the vain of Plato's "Republic". I personally believe that some people are more capable than others at certain things, and this must obviously apply to governance. The biggest problem with this proposition is the method used to determine who is fit to have this position of power. I won't go into the details of all the various problems with the different methods of choosing a leader, as I've listed them in previous essays, but I'm sure they are all relatively evident to most people. Another problem with the idea of a Philosophy King is the question of whether the power they are given will corrupt them. Even if you find a supremely benevolent person, it's almost impossible to tell whether or not giving them complete control over a country will cause a negative change in their demeanor and intentions. Of course, presumably the selection process would have some sort of way to figure out if a potential candidate would be corrupted by their newfound power, but this raises even more serious questions about the viability of such a nuanced method of choosing a leader.